Graphic Nonfiction

The "graphic" format is making inroads to nonfiction publishing.

"Hill & Wang, a nonfiction imprint at the distinguished literary house Farrar, Straus & Giroux, will publish a series of nonfiction comics works this fall, led by a comics adaptation of The 9/11 Commission Report as well as biographies of Malcolm X and Ronald Reagan. The line of books will be called Novel Graphics, an intentional reference to the awkward term graphic novel, which is sometimes used to refer to even nonfiction works. "



"The 9/11 Report adaptation, he says, will "tell a complex story with greater clarity. Not enough Americans have read the original report." The adaptation LeBien explains, will "visually walk you through the FAA and the Department of Defense. It will show who is talking to who; offer a time line of the attacks; information on Islamic fundamentalism; the transition from the Clinton administration to Bush. Everything that's in the report, and it's all studiously apolitical, just like the original report."