NEWS: Graphic Novels Grow Up

I don't care much about the name, other than the fact that none of the common ones are particularly descriptive. "Comics" isn't much better than "funnies" -- the term originally described comic strips, and collections of strips, that were actually meant to be funny. The name stuck, even as the content changed.

"Graphic novels" might be better if the term actually described fictional stuff. But even Harvey Pekar's collections are called "graphic novels" -- even though they're autobiographical nonfiction.

Will Eisner liked "sequential art," which is pretty descriptive, but sucks any sense of fun out of the enterprise.

So yeah, I still use "comics" more often than not, but every now and then it makes me cringe a little.

hmm. seems like ive read this article before. yeah, 5 years ago, and ten years ago. maye even 15 years ago. in 5 years, i expect another 'omg! comics are like mature and stuff!'

Graphic novels works for me. What bugs me is that all graphic novels get lumped together instead of being seperated into different categories: like, "Graphic novel: Autobiographies" or "Graphic Novel: Science Fiction". I recognize that there aren't enough books made in North America alone to support different subsections like that, but at least it would make things a lot more reasonable to me. After all, it's not like you walk into B&N and grab a random book under "Novel" and start expecting to enjoy it, right?

I can dream...

(edited to fix a [/ mistake thingie)

[Edited on Oct 15, 2005 by Vauxhall]

I was with you right up until the end. The New Yorker is easily my favorite magazine. But yes, the term "graphic novels" makes me cringe.

This is a good point and need to be reposted, dammit.

Obviously he hasn't read Scott McCloud's informative book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.

I like the New Yorker, too. Also one of my favorites, along with the Atlantic Monthly. But still.

Fuck THAT shit. What do those shitbags do that's more impressive or important than what Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Joss Whedon, Frank Miller or Alan Moore do every single month, year in and year out? More literary works? Give me a goddamn break. Read Watchmen (which slummed it as a monthly book!) and tell me that's not literary. On the flipside, Blankets was one big Death Cab For Cutie song.

''Graphic Novels'' are for intellectual bullies who can't bring themselves to read ''comics''. Go blow yourselves, we don't want you.

[Edited on Oct 16, 2005 by SuperNintendo]

Something else Neil Gaiman's said was lamenting the fact that most comics are for adults now. If kids aren't reading comics, the art form might die out.

As long as there's bored kids drawing on math tests, there will always be cartoonists.

True that. I get to hear it all the time at my work- there's actually one regular who comes in who works at the local paper and he tells me that they don't have problems running reviews on 'graphic novels' but the second it has a ptoagonist with spandex or superpowers it loses any literary merit in their eyes, and it frustrates the hell out of him. Tell me that reading Batman:Arkham Asylum doesn't have literary merit when you compare it to the almost standard indie GN thats essentially an autobiography with often subpar art and a somewhat cookie cutter sense of emo filled ennui. Not to say there isn't good stuff in that genre, but I don't think there's nearly enough people who read that stuff with the hypercritical dissecting and nitpicking they hold superhero books up to.

There's a stigma and a number of embarrassing connotations associated with the term 'comic books.' Consequently it's unsurprising that the mainstream media waste column inches justifying to their readers why they review a comic books.

Sweet I will have to look into those I am big fan of graphic novels.

graphic novels are original comics in bound type form

trade paperback is collected comics previously published


Also i am so sick of these articles jabbering on about how comics have grown up. Theyve been printing these since Marvel came on the scene ina big way back in 1961 when FF and spiderman were all the rage on college campuses.

in america comics that are "grown up" will never ever, EVER, be very popular. i love comics but there is stigmistism on them that will always be there. mostly because people are fucking stupid

I always thought the difference between a comic and a graphic novel was the length? I own tonnes of 2000AD, X-Men, Spiderman, Iron man etc. as well as a good chunk of manga. And I refer to all my issues as comics. If it's a book length comic, it's a graphic novel. As for the first graphic novel I owned, I was bought:



By my eldest brother, from whom I've inhereted almost half my collection of comics. And watchmen is still one of my favourite comics ever

I figure that the term graphic novel is a marketing term, just so people will start taking an interest in comics again. And if it works, then fine. If not, there's a solid base for readers to work from regardless (ie. comic book shops)...it's just a question of being able to publish a diverse set of works that appeal to a broad range or readers...not just satisfy one or two within a genre.

What I think is interesting is seeing how many people will cite Alan Moore's works as graphic novels...especially since they were all introduced originally on a monthly basis. It's true that the entire work was meant to be read in one sitting, as all good novels are. However, since they were all originally introduced as single monthly issues (or bi-monthly, or whatever), they may have received criticism because they were originally perceived as being just comics.

I think what truly ends up defining something as a graphic novel is time. History and solid discussions on the literary merits of various works will help broaden horizons and add to the cultural value of the work. So I guess, in a kinda high-handed way, I'm really glad this discussion even exists

Dickens originally wrote in installments in newspapers, but they're still considered novels by everyone nowadays. The fact that something is serialised doesn't necesserily mean anything, it's all part of one work.

As far as the defenitions of comic and graphic novel go, a lot of people seem to have misinterpreted it. A graphic novel is just a long comic. I consider my 'armor wars' book a graphic novel, the same way that I consider 'dark knight returns', 'wathcmen' or 'akira' to be graphic novels. It's all about the published length, not the artistic merit.

As for the comic genre as a whole, it's grown up with it's audience. Traditional comica aimed at the youth are failing, because they aer not the comic generation and rely on other sources of entertainment (I don't know a lot of people my age who read comics or graphic novels). Generation X was the comic generation, generation Y is the computer game generation. Generation X (loathe as I am to use the term, it's conveniant) are now becoming the new artists and philosophers of western society and are now publishing their work in a medium suited to them, and their ideas are similarly aimed at members of their own generation, and therefore comics are an ideal medium. I'm glad of the increasing maturity in comics, because I'm beginning to get a little bored of the same old stuff in brainless comics, and prefer something that gives me something the chew on for a while instead.

Are comic artists the philosphers of the 21st century? The other way around? Or am I talking a load of rubbish?

A weirder thought would be using video games as vehicles for philosophy...

Actually, this has been one of the great things about comics for me. Since it's a relatively small medium outside the usual superhero stuff from Marvel or DC, which these days I mostly read only if a "name" author is writing it (Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Straczynski, Warren Ellis, Joss Whedon, etc.), I'm a *lot* less discriminating about what genres I read. And more often than not I enjoy it. I'm fairly sure I'd never have read something like "Blankets" if it hadn't been a graphic novel. Or "Box Office Poison". Or...

I suppose this probably means that I'd like similar things in prose, but there I have so many, to my mind more exciting, competing works in the fields of fantasy and SF, with the occasional foray into horror or hardboiled crime drama.

Given it's been seven years since this thread ended, I'd like to highlight some of the prominent concepts, particularly this one.

If we pause and think about the game Halo, I'm sure we'd all realise the gravitas of it's social messaging. Gaming, these days, does depend on comic books. Some comic book writers have been approached to help write gaming storyboards. I'd like to think that the video game isnt the death of the comic, but rather the trancendance. We've only had interactive media for a comparably short time, and already we've done some amazing things.