Cool -

apparently the Widener Library has graphic novels in its collection, as I just checked out to a patron a bound copy of the darkly imaginative Sandman comic (where the major characters are the personifications of Destiny, Death, Dream, Desire, Despair, Delirium, and Destruction) by Neil Gaiman. A subject heading search in our online catalog turns up a slew of others, including The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I'm afraid I'm just going to have to order straight out of cataloging. A borrowing library of comic books - I wish such a thing had existed back in the day, when the majority of my weekly allowance was blown on The Uncanny X-Men and who knows how many other titles! There's no more conclusive evidence that geek culture has come into its own than when the acquisitions departments at Ivy League universities are spending their precious endowed funds on Batman and the Justice League of America... can a Department of Comic Studies be far behind?