Banned Books Week 2016: A Guest Post by Edmond Manning

We’re so pleased to have author Edmond Manning with us to introduce some of his favorite banned books, and don’t forget, there’s still time to enter our multi-book giveaway HERE.

Welcome, Edmond!

I mostly read comic books these days, so I’m not sure I should care about banned books.

I’m a huge fan of Saga, by Brian Vaughn, Saga, exploring a forbidden family—emerging from a succulent love story between two aliens whose races are engaged in a centuries-old war. The astonishing illustrations by Fiona Staples have literally taken my breath away. The power and energy in her images makes you believe in ghosts, in space-traveling trees, robots who love gay porn. Whoops. Never mind. This graphic novel was banned in 2014.

Well, there’s always Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, a fascinating study of a father and daughter permitting readers—no, wait. Forget about that one. It’s been challenged quite a bit since its publication. While the story is mostly about the complex relationships between parents and children, Alison is a lesbian, so, yeah. Banned.

Instead, consider reading the autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, illustrating (pun intended) her growing-into-adulthood as a woman in Iran. Wait. Can’t read that either. Banned.

Damn.

Graphic novels have expanded my worldview far beyond my immediate life. Who would I be without my mind opened by others? I don’t know.

I don’t want to find out.

About the Author

Edmond Manning has always been fascinated by fiction: how ordinary words could be sculpted into heartfelt emotions, how heartfelt emotions could leave an imprint inside you stronger than the real world. Mr. Manning never felt worthy to seek publication until recently, when he accidentally stumbled into his own writer’s voice that fit perfectly, like his favorite skull-print, fuzzy jammies. He finally realized that he didn’t have to write like Charles Dickens or Armistead Maupin, two author heroes, and that perhaps his own fiction was juuuuuuust right, because it was his true voice, so he looked around the scrappy word kingdom that he created for himself and shouted, “I’M HOME!” He is now a writer.

In addition to fiction, Edmond enjoys writing non-fiction on his blog, www.edmondmanning.com. When not writing, he can be found either picking raspberries in the back yard or eating panang curry in an overstuffed chair upstairs, reading comic books.