Research Guides: Comics, Graphic Novels, and Comic Art: Comics, Graphic Novels, and Beyond

Finding Comics at the BPCL

Comic Books

The comic book collection in the BPCL, 50,000+ strong and still growing, is divided into two collections - the general and the Bravard. Each collection includes commercially produced comics, magazine-style comics and independent/underground comics. The time period ranges from the 1930s to the present. Some titles are also available on microfiche to supplement missing and/or particular old issues. All title and issues can be found in the library catalog.

BGSU's comic book collection has been built throughout the past 40 years and is largely dependent upon donations from the public. It includes comics related to superheroes (i.e. Superman, Batman), cartoon characters (i.e. Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny), westerns (e.g. Jonah Hex), romances, science fiction, mysteries, and other genres. Other topics include, but are not limited to: Classics Illustrated series, TV and movie tie-ins, Obama/Kennedy/Biden.

To find comic books in the BPCL, search by title, subject, or keyword (e.g. character). Try the box to the left for basic subject searches in the catalog. See below for other ideas and examples. Feel free to try your own keywords or subjects.

Comics in the BPCL are usually cataloged like periodicals. This means that individual authors and artists are not usually searchable, since the catalog record is for entire series'.

Searching by character - examples (try any character!)

Searching by artist/author - example (try any artist!)

Author search for resources by Stan Lee, noted comic author/artist

Graphic Novels

The BPCL has thousands of graphic novels in its collection and counting. "Graphic novel" is a broad term generally used to describe comics published in book form; many graphic novels have longer, more complex, and/or more ambitious narratives than comic books. Sometimes, "graphic novel" refers to a bound collection of serialized comics. Graphic novels include fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, nonlinear storytelling, and more. Below are some ideas for finding graphic novels.

Graphic novels in the BPCL are cataloged as separate items, like books are. Individual authors/artists usually are searchable. There are also a number of graphic novels and books on how to use them in the Curriculum Resource Center.

Try a keyword search for "graphic novel" to get started.
For a more focused search, put quotation marks around the phrase - e.g. "graphic novels" .

Searching by character

Keyword Search on "graphic novels" and Batman

Searching by author/creator - example

Comic Strip Collections

The BPCL has a large collection of bound comic strip volumes. This includes collections of daily and/or Sunday strips from popular newspaper comics, including popular titles like Peanuts, Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, and Garfield. This also includes bound volumes of printed webcomics, including Hark! A Vagrant, Penny Arcade, and Perry Bible Fellowship. The BPCL has some reprinted collections of early newspaper comic strips from the late 1800s and early 1900s, including Little Nemo, The Yellow Kid, and Krazy Kat.

To browse our holdings of comic strip collections, try keyword searching for "comic strips."

Try searching by author to find specific comic strip creators, such as:

Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts

Jim Davis, creator of Garfield

G.B. (Gary) Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury

Comics Zines

The BPCL has an outstanding collection of zines (check out this LibGuide on zines!), and some zines in our collection are comics zines. Comics zines are self-published or published by small press organizations; some of them pertain to specific fandom or subcultures, some are personal memoir comics, and some don't fit neatly into any box.

Click here to browse our holdings of comics zines.

Want to browse all our zines? Try searching for the genre "zines."

Manga

Manga (pronounced "mahngah"), first coined in 1814, is a term for Japanese comics/cartoons.

Manga graphic novels are usually in black and white in a small, paperback size. They are usually intended to be read right to left, beginning at the "back" of the book, but are in English (here in the U.S.).

To find the manga titles the BPCL has, try this keyword search.