While living in Venice Beach, Calif., Katherine Milton, director of the Ohio University Aesthetic Technologies Lab (@Lab), was first introduced to graphic novels at friend’s dinner party.

After meeting the group of graphic novelists, she was amazed by the intricacies of the art form and its blend of multiple disciplines, such as mythology, history, graphic design and English, Milton said.

When she came to OU in 2004, Milton knew she wanted to do something with the art form at the @Lab.

Four years later, after noticing more student interest in graphic novels, Milton decided to ask her friend from California, graphic novelist Joshua Dysart, to bring a creative team to Ohio for a panel discussion, she said.

The panel, “The Life of a Graphic Novel with Joshua Dysart and Friends,” will take place today and feature Dysart, who is best known for his series Violent Messiahs; writer and editor Scott Allie, who wrote The Devil’s Footprints and edited for Hellboy; and artist Ronald Wimberly, who worked on The Life of M.F. Grimm.

Dysart, who will be moderating the discussion, said that while each will present their roles in the industry, they are really interested in the audience’s questions. The panel will also address how comic books have affected other forms of pop culture.

“It is seldom recognized what we’ve done for culture,” Dysart said. While movies have created more awareness about graphic novels, they have not increased overall readership because superheroes like The Hulk and Superman receive the most hype in movie releases but overshadow the rest of the industry.

This trip to OU, which is his first university visit, will hopefully spread the word, he said.

“I would like to see more people getting more from the medium, [and] demand more mature growth of [it],” he said. Milton said she hopes to see an increase of graphic novels within academia because they have strong ties to a variety of disciplinary interests, including art and English.

It would be an innovative and exciting choice to bring a graphic novelist to the Spring Literary Festival, said Kevin Haworth, a visiting English professor and the coordinator for special programs such as the festival, which will also open today.

Haworth offered a course last quarter that examined graphic novels, and he is planning on publishing an article this year about the experience.

He and Milton worked together to make sure that the graphic novel panelist and the Spring Literary Festival events did not overlap so that people could attend both, Milton said.

“We’re not trying to compete with the Literary Festival but to complement it,” she said.