About

91��ý

The Atlantic City Free Public Library (ACFPL) is an urban library serving a diverse and struggling city. ACFPL has three graphic novel collections – Juvenile, Young Adult, and Adult. The YA collection in particular has been heavily developed in recent years, nearly doubling in both size and circulation. Their Will Eisner Graphic Novel Growth Grant project “A Day of Diversity in Graphic Novels” features a plan to collaborate with the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention – a Philadelphia non-profit – to present workshops for young people designed to foster creativity and promote literacy as well as a discussion program for adults and older teens on the history of black comic characters and creators.

Awards Won

	Title	Year
	Will Eisner Graphic Novel Grant for Libraries - Growth Grant 91��ý The Will Eisner Graphic Novel Growth Grant will provide support to a library that would like to expand its existing graphic novel services and programs. This grant will encourage public awareness on the rise and importance of graphic literature, sequential art, and comics as a literary medium. The objective of the Will Eisner Graphic Novel Grants for Libraries is to facilitate library-generated programs and services that will promote graphic novels to library patrons and to the local community. Will Eisner (1917-2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist, teacher, and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of sequential art (a term he coined) and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential comic series, The Spirit; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his leading role in establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his 1978 groundbreaking graphic novel, A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories; for his 20 years of teaching at the School of Visual Arts, leading to his three textbooks. In a career that spanned nearly seven decades—from the dawn of the comic book to the advent of digital comics—Will Eisner was truly the “Father of the Graphic Novel.”	2016 - Recipient(s)

Title

Year

Will Eisner Graphic Novel Grant for Libraries - Growth Grant

91��ý

The Will Eisner Graphic Novel Growth Grant will provide support to a library that would like to expand its existing graphic novel services and programs. This grant will encourage public awareness on the rise and importance of graphic literature, sequential art, and comics as a literary medium. The objective of the Will Eisner Graphic Novel Grants for Libraries is to facilitate library-generated programs and services that will promote graphic novels to library patrons and to the local community.

Will Eisner (1917-2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist, teacher, and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of sequential art (a term he coined) and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential comic series, The Spirit; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his leading role in establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his 1978 groundbreaking graphic novel, A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories; for his 20 years of teaching at the School of Visual Arts, leading to his three textbooks. In a career that spanned nearly seven decades—from the dawn of the comic book to the advent of digital comics—Will Eisner was truly the “Father of the Graphic Novel.”

2016 - Recipient(s)