Opinion: They are coming for Graphic Novels next

Edited 4/18/2025: Before January 2025, children’s graphic novels, were embedded into the children’s sections. In January, staff decided to create a Children’s Graphic Novel section at the main branch.

There were nine individuals that spoke at the April 15 Columbia County Library Advisory Board meeting. Two individuals spoke about Graphic novels. For background information, as of January 2025 there were two graphic novel sections at the Columbia County Library (main branch) in Evans, GA; children’s graphic novels located upstairs and all of the other graphic novels (including Manga) located downstairs. If you have a chance to stop by Barnes & Nobles at the Augusta Mall, you’ll see that their graphic novels are shelved similarly. Before this, children’s graphic novels were embedded into the children’s sections and did not have a separate section. Also keep in mind that the graphic novel section downstairs is one of the most, if not the most, circulated sections at the Main Evans branch. Any changes to that section is going to be very noticeable by a large number of patrons. So, I was concerned when I saw that the new County Library Manager was moving some of the graphic novels during the most recent round of Reconsiderations because I knew it was going to open up this huge can of worms. It was also interesting to me listening to the speakers because I had come across this email from Elizabeth Popiak to Keisha Evans through an Open Records Request.

It’s curious that two of the speakers mentioned two of the same books in this email. One speaker mentioned moving the Garfield books upstairs to the children’s graphic novel section. There are some Garfield graphic novels though that are already shelved in the children’s section, such as Garfield. The thing in the fridge. I haven’t viewed any of the Garfield graphic novels downstairs so I can’t tell from first-hand experience. However, I would imagine that there might be some Garfield graphic novels that are geared towards children and some that aren’t. Garfield can be a bit of a dry humor. Is the suggestion now that the library should shelve books solely based on the presence of violence, sexual content and profanity? I read quite a few books that are clearly adult books and don’t have any of the content mentioned in the guidelines. Is there some weird projection going on here? Maybe a psychologist can weigh-in.

Another speaker mentioned the book, Chew: Space Cakes 6. I actually checked that book out when I saw it mentioned in this email. It is rated either M or 17+ (it’s published by Image comics so it has a comic book rating on the back) but it was located in the Graphic Novel section. Basically anything not rated for children’s graphic novels, is placed downstairs in this section. As I said before, this is also how the books are shelved at Barnes & Nobles. Ms. Popiak mentioned in her email the nudity, however the nudity referenced isn’t full nudity and it’s meant to be funny in context and could never be seriously considered obscene. As said before, it is an adult graphic novel. The speaker mentioned the violence and profanity as a reason to segregate the graphic novels, in addition to obscenity. She mentioned that the guidelines can be easily applied to graphic novels, however the guidelines don’t specify graphic novels. Graphic novels are a completely different media and I worry about second and third order consequences of attempting to apply the (already unconstitutional) guidelines to yet another media. Many graphic novels have ratings on the back but some don’t. Are they going to argue about the appropriateness of those comic book ratings too like they have with the publisher's suggested age-ranges with traditional literature? I am not an expert in this arena by any stretch of the imagination. However, neither are those attempting to censor books they don’t like at the library.

I have to also question, where do they think all of this space is going to come from? Just a reminder, the Evans branch is the largest branch and has 3x the circulation of Grovetown and 6x the circulation of Harlem. It’s meant to have a wider breadth of materials because it’s the Main branch. If we are to believe our County Manager’s assessment, the Main branch has one of the largest circulations in the State. According to the last Reconsiderations, the library started a new section for middle ground graphic novels in it. It’s my understanding that the section has the book Drama located in it and there are two copies at the main branch. So, one shelf for two books? Are we at a point where we are creating whole new sections in the library and wasting three-feet of shelf space to house only one title just to appease one person? Now, we have folks that want to upend the graphic novel section to make it how they want it. How many sections do they want? I can guarantee these folks are going to disagree with the ratings on the back of the graphic novels published by comic book publishers too. Is there space to waste to appease a handful of Memaws and Karens that will likely never be satisfied?

What’s the end game of all of this? Most of the people filing Reconsideration Forms are neither parents nor guardians of minor children. They like to talk about “...as a tax paying citizen..” but I hate to break it to them, we’re all paying taxes here. We pay taxes through our sales tax and even renters pay property tax through their rent. Priscilla Bence said on Tuesday that she has challenges from three friends to turn in when Reconsiderations open back up so I’m not even sure if some of these folks have library cards or even live in the County. Is she getting some of these book challenges from an outside group such as Georgians For Responsible Libraries? Certainly if they have their own library cards and are Columbia County residents, they can just submit their own paperwork in their own name. Regardless, most of these folks seem to come to the library for the sole purpose of finding things they don’t like. I wish they would focus their efforts on finding books/programs that they love at the library instead of trying to destroy it for the people and families that love it.