In this Associated Press article, Colleen Long credits Brad Meltzer’s Book of Fate as being the first novel to also include a comic- a section of a Justice League story he’d written.

“Meltzer and his publishers also put excerpts of “Justice League” into the paperback edition of “Book of Fate,” the first time a comic book has appeared in a novel, he says.”

It’s horribly, appallingly nerdy of me to pipe up about this, (or even to know it, I guess) but Laura Esquivel and Miguelanxo Prado beat him by over a decade. Esquivel’s novel “The Law of Love” came out in 1995 and contained several comic book sections illustrated by Prado that functioned as part of the narrative.

It’s always a little frustrating seeing these “novelists do comics” articles because they only seem interested in novelists dipping their toes into work-for-hire superhero projects or (in the case of the Stephen King item) allowing others to adapt their work. Nothing about Chip Delany and Howard Chaykin’s ground-breaking graphic novel Empire thirty years ago. Nothing about Esquivel, no mention of Rucka’s dual-media Queen and Country. No mention of Avi’s City of Light, City of Dark. And (most aggravating, for obvious reasons) nothing about Eisner-award nominee and Oregon Book Award winner Sara Ryan- the first novelist I know of to write comics stories about characters from her own published novel. (I’ll emphasize that “that I know of.” If any of you out there know of someone before her, please let me know.)

My big question is this: Why do journalists go with “novelists write comic books about other people’s characters” every time? Isn’t “novelists explore the possibilities of an emerging medium” a better story?