FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET HC

Graphic novels have exploded off bookstore shelves and into movies, college courses and the New York Times Book Review, and onto the coffee tables of the cognoscenti. Where did all the excitement come from? Stephen Weinertells the whole history of this new medium - from the first modern urban autobiographical graphic novel, Will Eisner's A Contract with God, to the hip indy comics of the Hernandez Bros.' Love and Rockets, the dark mysteries of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and the postmodern superheroics of Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight.