Jeff Lemire’s Essex County became the first graphic novel to be included in the Canada Reads literary competition, only to be voted out on the first day.  Comics culturalist Chris Butcher and superstar cartoonist Darwyn Cooke discuss the incident with Mark Medley from National Post:

Christopher: What really struck me was how stereotypical the reaction was. Working within the comics industry, we anticipate cliched responses to our work like “comics are just for kids” and that “they aren’t real literature.” We’d like to think that through our victories and accomplishments–critical respect, sales results, moves into other media–that those feelings are no longer the case among the uninitiated. But when push came to shove, those cliches were the first things out of the mouths of proponents of other works… I can’t say whether the judges ever took Essex County seriously, but I can say that their criticisms as expressed weren’t very serious.

Full article here.