Sure, I knew about King’s Books’ Graphic Novel Book Club held every second Monday at the 1022 South lounge, and I knew, vaguely, that there was this whole, huge genre of literature that combined comic-book frame-by-frame action (and art) with all the literary finesse of the all-words/no-pictures books I felt most comfortable with.



But, did I get it? Not at all.



So there I was, just before a recent trip to Orlando.



Wait, backtrack. First, there I was, at the 1022 South on Hilltop Tacoma having a drink with my friend Klair from the adult ballet class I’ve not attended in an embarrassingly long time. And there was King’s Books event director sweet pea, with others, on a Monday night, right around 7 p.m., as my daughter danced in her class, and I remembered — Oooh! Graphic book club. And I thought, ummm … graphic as in the message that precedes some episodes of Law and Order that I used to watch? Graphic like, blood, sex, gore?



So now, let’s go back to the more recent past, as I stood in King’s Books, Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell and Taft by Ann Patchett in hand, chatting with sweet pea, asking him how his new club was going. Enthusiastically — but in his non-bubbly, conversational, self-effacing manner of enthusiasm — he set out to teach me about the hottest new thing in literature.



What I learned: what I thought was an obscure new literary form is not new; comic books have been around for at least as long as I was stomping around as a kid in the ’70s leafing through Archie and Veronica. Beyond that, Manga, the Japanese animated “whimsical pictures” had evolved into Star Blazers in time for me to watch on morning cartoons before the bus picked me up for school in the early ’80s. The evolution has continued, and now the movie storyboard-styled method of showing a story is big. Really big.

I learned the literary genre itself has sub-genres; there’s the full-on whimsy of Japanese Manga, there’s the action-adventure superhero stylings of books, and there’s more, more, more. sweet pea tells me that new graphic novelists are creating mash-ups of manga-style art with non-manga storytelling, and beyond, mixing characterization, cultural observance, storytelling, and art.



And yet, I was skeptical.



Until universes collided with a sort of King’s Books epicenter as my sun. I mentioned I went to King’s to get a travel book, right? So I bought the two books in my hand, excited to read about an NPR journalist’s travels through history, excited to read a second book by an author I like (Patchett’s Run rocked my world as I traveled to San Diego earlier this month).



I began to pack a previously purchased King’s book for my mate in my carry-on, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Jnot Diaz, and in a moment of twitchy, pre-trip jitters, I began to read the Diaz book. And I couldn’t put it down. In Orlando, I found my nose buried in the book, and I continued to read, as persistent as a dog seeking a bone. I vaguely heard my brother in-law and nephews gush to my mate over a graphic novel they all love, and have recently read, Watchmen. I finished my book, and in the end — no spoilers here, just a subtle hint — there’s an allusion to a frame in Watchmen. A frame in a graphic novel. A graphic novel that’s mentioned in a novel I read, and loved; a graphic novel my extended family has read and loved. Of course I had to look through said novel so that I could glean some sort of source understanding.



And as I scanned the frame, and then looked through more of the book, I felt a transcending sense of “I get it now.”



Not that sweet pea plans to read Watchmen with his group in the near future; for the June book club meeting, the book Epileptic has been chosen (in a process that sweet pea describes as being vaguely democratic, like all his book clubs). sweet pea describes Epileptic as a literary, non-comic book-y memoir; the brother of the author is, in fact, epileptic. In case I succumb to my standard, “oh, look, something shiny, didn’t have a chance to read the book and make the meeting this time”-ish-ness, I can shoot for next month’s American Born Chinese memoir.



What intrigues me particularly about the club: it’s comprised of people (among them, university professorial types) who are, like me, new to the world of graphic literature.

It all just seems too good. Really? Reading picture books, talking to other grown-ups about said (literary) books? While sipping divine cocktails?



Nice.



[1022 South, King’s Books’ Graphic Novel Book Club, 7 p.m., second Tuesday of each month, free, 1022 S. J St., Tacoma, 253.272.8801]