William Blake: The First Graphic Novelist?
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009
This morning, I was cleaning my bookshelves. This is usually an ineffective activity for me; I pick up a book to dust it and two hours later I find myself having reread it, still in its dusty condition. I haven’t yet found an efficient strategy to combat this.
Today I fell upon my teeny, tiny Book of Urizen by the poet and artist William Blake. And the first thing that I thought as I opened the pages was, “Ohh! It’s actually a graphic novel!” How did I not make the connection before? See for yourself:
This book was written in 1794.
