Blurring the Boundaries: Creating New Genres?

Abstract

This paper explores examples of the emerging hybrid texts that result from the blurring of boundaries in the way word and image can operate. To do this, the paper explores two recent texts aimed at young adult readers. The first is a graphic novel, a format that is at last achieving mainstream recognition. Shaun Tan's 'The Arrival' draws on the format's characteristic of visual vibrancy but takes it to a new height by presenting it as a wordless text, creating the effect of rendering the literate reader helpless with no other way of gaining information but to rely on close observation. The second text is Brian Selznick's 'The Invention of Hugo Cabret'. While it won the prestigious 2008 US Caldecott Medal which is given for picturebook illustration, on Selznick's own admission, it has elements of a novel, a picturebook, a graphic novel, a flip book and a movie but is none of these.