Isabella Rotman was in high school when she saw her first graphic novel while browsing at Barnes & Noble. She picked up “Black Hole” by Charles Burns, a story about a plague among teenagers in 1970s Seattle, and it changed the course of her life.

“I was hooked,” she said. “It made me realize that comics could be about any subject.”

Rotman, who lives in South Berwick, is one of four graphic novelists and comic artists featured in a new exhibition at the Portland Public Library. The library hosts an annual show that celebrates the art of illustration and has featured the work of Edward Gorey and Maurice Sendak, as well as Maine artists Daniel Minter and Dahlov Ikhar. This year’s theme is “Why We Make Comics: Reflections on Storytelling” and taps into a growing interest in graphic novels among readers of all ages.

“There’s so much hype,” said Rachael Harkness, gallery and special programs coordinator at Portland Public Library. “It’s not like graphic novels or comic arts are new, but so many people are reading them now. If they’re not reading them or loving them, they’re wondering about them.”

The library asked the four artists – Rotman, Caroline Hu, Liz Prince and Mel Gilman – to explore their personal connection to this genre. The results are larger-than-life comics that will wrap around the Lewis Art Gallery and have also been formatted into a free zine translated into French, Spanish and Portuguese. Harkness said each artist responded differently to the prompt in a way that reflects the diversity of the medium.

“It gives people a really good chance to see four different styles of comic art and have a little taste of what reading a graphic novel is about,” she said.

Rotman, now 32, grew up in Maine and moved back to the state in 2020. At the Art Institute of Chicago, she took comics courses that taught her about self-publishing and zine-making. Now, she makes books that range from autobiographical zines to sex education comics. She said this medium allows her to tell stories in a visual way that only seems possible in comics or film – and making a comic doesn’t require hiring a camera crew.

“Everyone has this deep inner story and these deep inner feelings that are essentially impossible for us to communicate with each other, and by making art, we attempt to communicate just a small piece of that,” she said. “Comics are the way I do that.”

Rotman helped Harkness connect with artists for this exhibit and wants to show more readers that this medium can be for them. Graphic novels can be a more accessible option for people who struggle with reading, are learning a language, or get bored reading prose. Young people are often drawn to their expressive images, she said, but adults will sometimes brush off these books as “lowbrow.” She feels that perception is changing, but more work needs to be done.

“The best way to contribute to changing that idea further is to stop talking about comics like they are only superhero or newspaper comics and start taking about them like they are for anyone at any age level,” she said. “A big thing is not discouraging kids and teens who read comics, not making them feel like it’s less than reading a prose book.”

One of the artists Rotman asked to contribute to the exhibition is Liz Prince, who lives in Portland. When her parents explained that she couldn’t be Mickey Mouse when she grew up, Prince decided the next best thing would be creating animated cartoons. She made flip books for her friends in elementary school and developed her own characters. She was 8 years old when she saw a rack of comics at the grocery store and realized she could make those, too. Jeff Smith’s “Bone” series later introduced her to the wider world of graphic novels, and she felt inspired when she found the work of Ariel Shrag, who wrote graphic novels about being a teenager while she was in high school.

“That was what made me realize comics didn’t have to look super polished,” said Prince, 41. “They don’t have to look a specific way. You can make a comic whatever you want it to be. That was when the lightbulb went off that set me on my current trajectory.”

Prince has been making autobiographical comics ever since, including a graphic novel memoir called “Tomboy.” She likes to find new ways to play with spacing and time by formatting the illustrations in different ways. She has seen a huge boom in comics for middle-grade readers – just take a look at the selection at local bookstores like Print or Sherman’s – and she is excited about graphic novels such as her “Tomboy” or Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” about the Holocaust in school curricula. Art schools offer degrees in comics, and big publishers have graphic novel imprints. But she hopes adults also realize they can find a graphic novel in true crime or romance or horror or whatever genre they like.

“Comics can say so much without even saying a word,” she said. “That’s the power of art in general, right? An image can evoke all of these motions and can tell a story. It’s just that much more powerful.”

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A READING LIST

The Portland Public Library staff has compiled a list of more than 40 graphic novels and comic books for readers of all ages, including works by the artists in this exhibition. You can find that list at portlandlibrary.bibliocommons.com.

Here are the most checked-out comics at the Portland Public Library so far this year.

For children:

“Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas” by Dav Pilkey
“Guts” by Raina Telgemeier
“Smile” by Raina Telgemeier

For teens:

“The Girl from the Sea” by Molly Knox Ostertag
“Heartstopper, Vol. 2” by Alice Oseman
“Gender Queer: A Graphic Memoir” by Maia Kobabe

For adults:

“Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” by Kate Beaton
“Saga, Vol. 10” by Brian K. Vaughan
“Chef’s Kiss” by Jarrett Melendez

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