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What is a graphic novel? Merriam-Webster defines it as “a story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as a book.” Some early historical examples of what we now know as graphic novels certainly followed this model. Swiss cartoonist Rodolphe Topffer’s 1837 comics masterpiece, Histoire de M. Vieux Bois, for instance, became America’s first graphic novel when it was reprinted as The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck in 1841. German painter/illustrator Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz, published in 1865, is a brilliant children’s story with comic illustrations and a graphic novellike feel. Canadian cartoonist/illustrator Palmer Cox’s The Brownies series between 1887-1918 and The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats, an 1897 collection of Richard F. Outcault’s legendary comic strip, both drew an intriguing parallel between comic strips and stories. Modern graphic novels, such as Jim Steranko’s Chandler: Red Tide, Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy’s Sabre, and Jules F