The past few years have seen numerous comic strips adapted for cinema, ranging from the fairly innocuous Spiderman, X-Men and Hulk movies, to those with a harder edge from the pen of Alan Moore - "From Hell', and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". This has only added to the popularity of the genre, and when you factor in the marketing appeal of Manga products such as Pokemon and currently, Yu-Gi-Oh!, for the very young, it's no wonder that libraries and bookstores are sitting up and taking notice of this genre at last.

Former comic writer and screenwriter Gerard Jones in his latest book, "Killing Monsters - why children need fantasy, superheroes, and make-believe violence", looks at the positive aspects of graphic novels and the genre as a whole, particularly in relation to their effect on young people.

Jones has conducted comic workshops with children and youth across America, and has found that young people love fantasy and comic book violence because it gives them coping skills they desperately need. For critics of the Pokemon phase, which seemed to be based on violent fights between bizarre monsters - Jones replies that to the children, the comics, books and movies were about relationships. The humans cared for the Pokemon, teaching them to use their powers in battle, while the monsters taught their trainers the virtues of patience, empathy and nurturing.

Instead of viewing children as passive consumers and watchers of mass media and pop culture, the author suggests that they are instead users of that media and culture - they choose and interpret and participate in the entertainment, as active users of the fantasies it represents.