Book Club


Do you want to provide the best Readers' Advisory around comics that you can?

Do you get nervous about what graphic novels your library should be purchasing?

Do you want to read these materials yourself, but don’t know where to start?

Our Graphic Novel Club is thrilled to be continuing into 2023. Each month, we will have a theme to help with professional development in libraries. We will discuss comics that relate to the theme and suggest further reading. We believe these themes and books can foster a love of comics and will further best practice around their use in libraries.

The discussions are held via Zoom and you can register here.

Here's our full schedule for this year's sessions and the themes and associated titles for the first half of the year:

January 22 at 3pm AEDT: Summer reading

  • As usual our first meeting of the year has no set titles to read, instead we'll be talking about what we read over summer, our favourite reads from the previous year, and from that have a discussion about readers' advisory for comics and graphic novels.

February 26 at 3pm AEDT: Music

  • Bowie by Michael Allred, Steve Horton, and Laura Allred (Insight)
  • The Wicked + The Divine: The Faust Act by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie (Image)
  • Given Volume 1 by Natsuki Kizu (SuBlime)

March 26 at 3pm AEDT: Comics and the environment

  • Rain by Mary and Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)
  • The Most Important Comic Book on Earth by various creators (DK)
  • Rivertime by Trace Balla (Allen & Unwin)

April 23 at 3pm AEST: Local creators

  • Home Time by Campbell Whyte (Top Shelf)
  • Talgard Tome 1 by Gary Proudley (Gestalt)
  • The Grot by Pat Grant (Top Shelf)
  • This month we're also encouraging you to find out about a creator local to you and share with us something by them!

May 28 at 3pm AEST: Alternate versions of comic characters

  • Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, Killian Plunkett, Andrew Robinson, and Walden Wong (DC)
  • Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, and Richard Isanove (Marvel)
  • Spider-verse by Dan Slott and various (Marvel)

June 25 at 3pm AEST: Pride Month

  • Spinning by Tillie Walden (First Second)
  • Alters: The Story of Chalice by Paul Jenkins, Leila Reiz (Aftershock)
  • How to Be Ace by Rebecca Burgess (Jessica Kingsley)

July 23 at 3pm AEST: Comic awards

  • The Good Asian by Pornsak Pichetsote (Image) - won both Harvey and Eisner Awards in 2022
  • Stone Fruit by Lee Lai (Fantagraphic) - won CAAA Award in 2022
  • No One Else by R Kikuo Johnson (W W Norton) - won Ignatz Award in 2022

August 27 at 3pm AEST: Junior comics

  • Pawcasso by Remy Lai (Allen& Unwin)
  • My Aunt is a Monster by Reimena Yee (Random House)
  • Neverlanders by Tom Taylor and Jon Sommariva (Penguin)

September 24 at 3pm AEST: Manga

  • A Silent Voice volume 1 by Yoshitoki Oima (Kodansha)
  • Your Name volume 1 by Makoto Shinkai and Ranmaru Kotone (Yen Press)
  • All You Need is Kill by Ryosuke Takeuchi and Takeshi Obata (VIZ Media)

October 22 at 3pm AEDT: Mental illness

  • Parenthesis bu Elodie Durand (Top Shelf)
  • Side Effects by Ted Anderson and Tara O'Connor (Seismic Press)
  • Lighter than My Shadow by Katie Green (Oni)

November 26 at 3pm AEDT: Animals

  • Pride of Bagdhad by Brian K Vaughan and Niko Henrichon (Vertigo)
  • Bear by Ben Queen and Joe Todd-Stanton (Archaia)
  • Waluk the Great Journey by Ana Miralles and Emilio Ruiz (Magnetic Press)

If you're registered but cannot attend the session, recordings are privately shared after the date to everyone who's registered.