Graphic Biography: Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs: Genius by Design are both graphic novel biographies detailing the life of Steve Jobs, most widely known as founder of Apple.
Graphic Biography has more narration rather than dialogue. Dialogue is used to reinforce the ideas talked about in the narration. Genius by Design has character introductions at the beginning, useful so that readers know who’s who and so they have an easy reference they can flip back to while reading the book. Genius by Design is longer than Graphic Biography and expands on the events in Jobs’ life more, as a result. Genius by Design’s narration and dialogue are both used to introduce new ideas, as opposed to Graphic Biography’s tendency to use dialogue only to reinforce ideas talked about in the narration.
Genius by Design has art with has less shading (there’s less types of shading in comparison to Graphic Biography), and characters are drawn with more straight lines than curves, making them look less realistic. Graphic Biography has shading in the art that makes it look more realistic, including wrinkles in clothing, facial shadows, and having differences in color between strands of hair. In Graphic Biography, there’s a larger range of colors used in one panel as opposed to Genius by Design’s use of similar shades and tones of a color in one panel.
Overall, there’s not much to warn about, other than the not-so-great state of Jobs’ early relationships and his unorthodox leadership style (which involved lots of yelling and wanting to get his way). The Genius by Design book uses occasional swearing.
Graphic Biography: Steve Jobs
Saddleback Educational Publishing, 2012