Paul Gravett kicks off his book, "Graphic Novels: Stories to Change your Life," with a promise. Maybe they will change your life, maybe the won't, but one thing's for sure: Graphic novels are certainly engrossing.

asap talked to Gravett about how this medium is finding its maturity.

So how can a graphic novel change your life?

Paul Gravett:Comics can actually change your life because they can teach you and expose you to subjects you might not otherwise have looked at, or otherwise would have avoided in other media. Because of that and because of the accessibility, because of their personal connection to a reader not just by writing to you, but drawing images for you. They do very much involve you one-to-one and can have a profound effect on the way you see the world.

How have comics changed your life personally?

Gravett: As my school friends were giving up on comics, I simply found other comics that talked to me and to what I was going through at the time. In the case of the '70s, when I could have just as easily given up comics, I discovered the Underground -- Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman and others who were doing edgy, satirical, and very personal material using the conventions in a way that I had never seen before.

My discovery of comics has grown and stayed with me throughout my life. We never grow out of literature and books, films. We never say I'll never have interest in them. The same is true with comics.

Can you recommend some comics to start with for someone new to the medium?

Gravett: I'd strongly recommend someone start in a library, because that way you're not risking money and you can go out and find lots of graphic novels sitting on bookshelves these days. ...

Art Spiegelman's "Maus": It won a Pulitzer Prize. It's a story of Spiegelman's father and mother surviving the Holocaust. It's autobiographical of Spiegelman's own difficulties as a child of a survivor. He was one of the first people to deal with this subject.

Joe Sacco's "Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95" and "Palestine": Incredibly effective stories.

Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" (Her childhood growing up in Tehran under the Ayatollah. In adulthood dealing with the aftereffects of that repression.) Extraordinary work.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Gravett: We're currently in a very positive time for comics -- whether they call them graphic novels or not. A new century has dawned and we've got a new reappraisal of what comics have achieved through the 20th Century. Comics aren't art and they're not really literature either. They are essentially an autonomous, self-sustaining art form ... which is developing in an extraordinary way.

We are literally seeing a world movement of engaged, committed artists and writers in every country ... trying to push comics forward. The time is right now for the world to really wake up to this medium. It's not going to go away, it's here for the 21st Century.

Click here to see author Paul Gravett's Web site.

Peter Hamlin is an interactive designer with asap in New York and a comic artist himself. Illustrations by asap's Jacky Myint.

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