Marginal Changemakers - What's the Deal with Graphic Novel Displays?
By Atlas Struve
What’s the deal with graphic novel displays?
Since getting involved with Marginal’s latest project, Shelftalkers, I have been to five different bookshops. Four were completely independent, one was a Waterstones chain. There was one notable thing in common between all of them - how poorly the graphic novels were displayed.
What’s the problem?
A problem that persists throughout all the bookshops I visited was lack of genre labelling. Graphic novels are not a genre, they are a medium. Large sections suffer the most from this. Which graphic novels are fantasy? Romance? Horror? Why aren't these grouped together so buyers can check out similar books (like how the rest of the bookshop operates)? Why are buyers expected to pull out and examine the graphic novels to discern what genre it is, when they are told what genres prose paperbacks are?
As a customer, it feels as though I am an afterthought. Graphic novels are not “real books”; therefore it doesn't matter how they're presented. Our interests are not catered for properly, and are instead stuck haphazardly onto a shelf. This problem is exacerbated by graphic novels’ lack of standardisation. Although there is some uniformity in areas of the medium - like in manga publishing or in the superhero genre - typically, graphic novels are not bound to height or width restrictions. This makes them a pain to organise on a shelf, but it’s a bookseller’s job to make their products look appealing.
Graphic novels are often kept out of the way, out of immediate eyelines when a customer walks into a shop. I asked a worker at an independent bookstore if they were ashamed to sell graphic novels, because they were kept in a corner obscured by the window dressing. Why aren't booksellers proud to sell art? Why aren't graphic novels given prominent displays on tables or selves? People are reluctant to ask employees where different sections are - if they can’t find the product they're looking for, they can’t buy it.
What can be done about it?
The solution is to treat graphic novel like books. If I left a pile of hardbacks on the floor and told my customers to dig through them because “they’re all the same type of book”, I would be fired. Why is that treatment acceptable for graphic novels? Graphic novels should be kept in their own section, the same way paperbacks and hardbacks are separate, but they still need to be labelled and filed in an accessible way. Even smaller selections can be sorted - be it by genre or age range.
Giving graphic novels their own sections and displays that are easily comprehendible make them more appealing to consumers, instead of being tucked away somewhere hard to see. Organising books by genre allows for spontaneity and exploration - you liked this science fiction comic? Here’s five more right next to it.
I look forward to the day when graphic novels are given their own real space, with proper cataloguing, and prominence in bookstores. My hope is that Comics Youth will work alongside independent bookstores to achieve this.