‘Willie Nelson: A Graphic History’
By T.J. Kirsch
Illustrated by Adam Walmsley, Jeremy Massie, Jason Pittman, Havard S. Johansen, J.T. Host, Coşkun Kuzgun, Jesse Lonergan, T.J. Kirsch
NBM Publishing, 96 Pages

‘John Muir: To the Heart of Solitude’
By Lomig, Translation by Christopher Pope
NBM Publishing, 176 Pages

‘Will Eisner: A Comics Biography’
By Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur
NBM Publishing, 300 Pages

‘Audrey Hepburn’
By Michele Bolton and Dorilys Giachetto
NBM Publishing, 176 Pages

Think of graphic biographies as entry-level exposures to a range of cultural figures that will appeal to fans as well as to those who are simply curious and perhaps want to learn why others seem to know so much about which they know practically nothing. 

Has anyone not heard Willie Nelson sing or at least, even by accident,  heard a Willie Nelson song? The first thing you see in this new book is a drawing of Mr. Nelson, with his signature headband, long braids, and guitar. Three bordered captions, each one a sentence rendered in capitals, get you up to speed:

“FOR OVER 70 YEARS, HE’S BEEN PLAYING TO ADORING FANS, WRITTEN COUNTLESS SONGS AND ALBUMS, AND BECOME A WORLDWIDE COUNTRY MUSIC ICON.

“THAT’S A HIGHLY UNLIKELY OUTCOME FOR ANY CHILD BORN IN THE MIDST OF A DEPRESSION IN SPARSELY POPULATED ABBOTT—LOCATED IN HILL COUNTY, TEXAS.

“EVEN MORE UNLIKELY IS THE CONSTANT REINVENTION OF THE MAN, HIS GENRE-HOPPING CAREER(S), AND HIS FANDOM THAT SPANS SEVERAL GENERATIONS.”

Illustrations by different artists proliferate, grounding readers in the chapters about Mr. Nelson’s early years and with titles reflecting his trajectory from “A Humble Picker” to “Elder Statesman.”

For John Muir, famous naturalist and author, it’s best to begin with an epigraph from his writing: “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” The book’s first picture shows him in bed with a bandage over his eyes, waking from nightmares after an accident, and with a poignant caption: “THE BRUTAL REMINDER THAT NOTHING ELSE MAY PASS THROUGH THE DOORWAY OF MY EYES.” He resolves to leave the world of industrial work, to recover his vision by direct contact with nature in virgin forests and unsettled land.

The opening illustration of “Will Eisner” depicts a man on a high-rise balcony, his hands on a railing, gazing above a building across from him, with a spread of panels in the sky — his comics illustrating violent scenes with monosyllabic balloons saying “BANG” and “GOTSCHA” and the like.

Eisner’s biography begins with captions and an illustration of the 25 million emigrants setting sail for America between 1865 and 1900: “Italians, Irish, Slaves, Scandinavians and over 2 million European Jews.” They are pointing toward the Statue of Liberty, with two captions announcing “All coming to seek a better life … in the Land of Opportunity.”

We then get the immigrant story of a father wanting to become a famous painter in a land of sweatshops, with a family constantly on the move and unable to pay the rent, with young Will looking out of the window of a yellow cab and wondering, in five descending captions:

They’re all doing something
Going somewhere,
Who?
What?
Why?

Only gradually and arduously does Eisner become one of the great award-winning artists of the comics. This is a biography that only gradually reveals the significance of its subject.

No need for that kind of approach with Audrey Hepburn. There she is on the cover with her winsome half-smile, elegant and fetching. Such a book simply has to acknowledge that for many readers she is their possession and has to be handled delicately, with just the right assertion that there is more to learn about her, as the first words of the biography declare:

“Everyone has their own Audrey, for some she is always twenty years old, for others she is in black and white and for others in color. Sometimes she is a European princess, a tipsy New Yorker or a UNICEF ambassador. Here you will discover her differently, made of ink and paper in a much more intimate and unvarnished dimension.”

What I like about that introduction is the attention it pays to the medium in which she is presented and how that will affect even those who believe they know her biography quite well.

Welcome to the world of graphic biography, which shows the many different ways a life can be pictured.

Mr. Rollyson is the author of “American Biography.”