Over the next eight months, Superman, Spiderman and a number of other superheroes will fly into the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library.

The library is getting a collection of 300 graphic novels through a competitive grant from the Library Services and Technology Act. Getting the grant was pivotal in jumpstarting the collection, and library director Katrina Stokes said over time the library will continue to add more graphic novels to the shelves.

“We’re getting about 300 to start and then going forward we can add a few more with our general acquisitions practice every year,” Stokes said.

Marvel, DC Universe and The Walking Dead are just some of the graphic novels the library is adding to the collection from now through June. At this time, about 60 of the illustrated books are already on the shelves including “The Walking Dead: Compendium.”

“That is out on the shelves now and just waiting to be checked out, which I’m sure it will be before long once word gets out,” Stokes said.

This is the library’s first graphic novel collection. Stokes said the demand for graphic novels was high and before the library only a few options on the shelf for people looking to read the illustrated stories.

“We’ve had a number of people come in asking if we had any, and we had very few,” Stokes said.

Other than demand, another reason the library decided to start a collection of graphic novels was with the hopes of attracting more readers to the library, she said.

“(We’re) just trying to attract a whole new generation to remind them that the library is here, that we have something for everyone including that which interests them,” Stokes said.

Evangeline Cessna, local history librarian, said graphic novels are for all age readers. Graphic novels geared towards children and young adults will be placed in those respective sections of the library. The graphic novels for adults are located by the reference desk on the upper floor.

To receive the grant, Stokes had to explain the library’s need for the money and the types of programming they would offer to the public if they were awarded the funding. The first new program at the library is the recently acquired Umbrella License allowing movies to be show to the public. Stokes hopes to start hosting movie viewings as early as December, many of which could be the superhero stories seen in many graphic novels.

“There are so many superhero movies now we could easily do those. We could even do some of the animated stuff so there would be something for the kids,” Stokes said.

As another part of the new programming, the library is working to promote the Teens Tweet Books contest where young adults are asked to write a mini-book review on twitter using a different hashtag each month. This month the library is focusing on #Manga — a type of Japanese graphic novel.

“At the end of the month whoever has the most likes will win the contest and we’ll have a prize,” Stokes said.

Cessna said the library recently received a donation of about 300 Manga graphic novels from a person’s personal collection.

“Someone donated those to us and we were so glad. They were all in very good shape,” Cessna said.

Stokes said the donation saved the library a lot of the grant money to be spent on other graphic novels.

“It was so thoughtful and generous of them. We were so pleased to get them,” Stokes said. “Book donations really do help us out.”