First Place Winner--New York Book Show

Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels was awarded First Place Book in the Special Trade/ Adult Graphic Novel category in the 23rd Annual New York Book Show sponsored by the Bookbinders' Guild of New York. Mark Evanier's Kirby, King of Comics was the Second Place winner and Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, and Saul Ferris's Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan won Third Place in the category. This festive event was held on March 24, 2009 in the Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center.

I was so honored to learn that my book was chosen a winner in this show. To learn on the night of the show that it was awarded the First Place Book in the Adult Graphic Novel category among so many other fine books was even more exciting. This award reflects the creativity with my publisher, Harry N. Abrams, and Robert McKee, book designer; Anet Sirna-Bruder, Production Coordinator; Michelle Ishay, Art Director; and Charlie Kochman, my editior. This award shows that the early wordless books and woodcut novels that I have studied for many years are finally being respected for a strong social message and admired for their visual impact.

Judges' Comments
"Three part 'torn' binding is very unusual and interesting. Typography is beautiful and appropriate. Layout and composition is very elegant. Tints are very even. Paper choices are excellent. Shows a great respect for the graphic novel genre."


The books have been selected from more than 900 entries from book publishers and printers, large and small, throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

"For many of us," stated Eric I. Schwartz, President of The Bookbinders' Guild of New York, "including myself, the New York Book Show is the highest point of our seasonal calendar. Each year the New York Book Show is a demonstration of the care and creativity of the producers of great books, from the type on the page ,to the paper they are printed on, to the ideas they represent. It is an affirmation of the vitality of a technology first invented in the 1450s and a celebration of the multifarious permutations of the book within the community that has the greatest stake in its continued success."

Pease Public Library Program

I presented a slide show on the early wordless books, woodcut novels, contemporary wordless comics, and picture books on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 7 p.m. at Pease Public Library, Plymouth, New Hampshire. It was a very well attended event with a reception and book signing, hosted by Katherine Hillier--Library director, staff, and volunteers.

Why Wordless? Part 2

When I first read Storyteller Without Words: The Wood engravings of Lynd Ward, published by Abrams in 1974, I was immediately awestruck by the intense stories told in pictures without words. These were not your children’s picture books but rather books for adults that displayed themes of social injustice, family squalor during the Depression, and fantasy worlds that reflected a strong psychological focus. I looked for more information on Ward and a few other artists who published wordless books, like Frans Masereel and Otto Nückel and was surprised how little had been written about their work. I was first encouraged by Professor Estelle Jussim when I was in graduate school at Simmons College in Boston to pursue this area of research. While I pursued my professional career as an academic librarian after graduation, I continued my research on wordless books. I have, in the last twenty years, made contact with many print makers like Kurt Webb, scholars like Perry Willett, cartoonists like Eric Drooker, and the Ward family and friends. In addition I visited many Special Collections, such as those at Georgetown University and Columbia, to research the papers of Ward and others. With my research skills as a librarian, I was able to track down many original books and began to deliver papers and write articles on this topic. I paid my own travel and expenses as well as received funding from grants to support the research I conducted during my summer vacations. My big break came when noted scholar and writer John Lent heard a paper I gave about these books at the Popular Culture Association Annual Conference in 1994. He mentioned my topic to Lucy Caswell, editor of Inks: Comic and Cartoon Studies, which was one of the few peer reviewed journal on comics and where I published my first scholarly article on wordless books. With the growing interest in comics and graphic novels in the last ten years, public attention grew for my topic on wordless books. I shared a feature story I had written for AB Bookman with Will Eisner, father of the term, “graphic novel.” Will appreciated my thoughts on this topic and wrote a chapter in his book, Graphic Storytelling, on wordless books and credited me in his Foreword. I continued to write and present papers on this topic and went back for my second Master’s Degree where I wrote my thesis on Lynd Ward. A few years ago, during one of my visits to the Center for Cartoon Studies, where I lectured on wordless books, James Sturm, the director of the college, and I talked about a book on this topic. When James and I were down in New York for an opening of the exhibit, “The Jewish Graphic Novel,” I met his agent, Judy Hansen. When I mentioned my research on wordless books, she became very interested and asked for a book proposal. Since I had most of the book already written, I took a few months to polish up my manuscript, which I sent to her. She sent this later to Charles Kochman, senior editor at Abrams, who was excited enough about this material to buy the rights to my book.

Why Wordless?

I have always been fascinated by wordless books. Even as a child, I was always more interested in the pictures than words that my father or mother read that related to the pictures I was viewing in the children's book. I remember that I was always disappointed by the lack of words that an author used to describe a picture. Of course, I realized later that the pictures in many children's picture books at that time were only secondary to the text. In my visual mind, though, it was always the pictures that opened up an infinite series of stories for me. It was like discovering a puzzle that I kept adding more pieces to and each time that I added a piece, another block of the story was revealed. Now how good was that for a boy like me with a vivid imagination? That was why comics meant so much to me as I got a little older...it was the perfect mix of words and images.