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Graphic Novel V. Comic Book
Penguin Incarnate
King of KafiristanRegistered User regular
King of KafiristanRegistered User regular
Here's and opinion piece I wrote for my school newspaper. I couldn't come up with a particularly clever or useful title for it, so instead I'll just tell you that it is about my irritation with the term "graphic novel." Enjoy.
***
Free Comic Book Day was this week. The day operates on the theory that, if you enjoyed this Hellboy short-story for free, then you’d be willing to pay for a bigger one later on. Once, years ago, there was a time when a single issue could sell millions of copies nation wide. Since the boom of the 1990's, the comic industry has fallen on hard times. Nowadays, the number one issue nationwide might crack one hundred thousand copies. Free Comic Book Day, movies and re-launches are all apart of the industry’s attempts to bring in new readers to the industry, which I’m all for. But there’s one way that the industry has tried to grab new readers, and that is by re-dubbing comic books as “graphic novels.â€
The phrase appears in movie trailers, on posters, and, apparently, even in class. I’m irritated, because it’s a movement that has come from marketing, not from the readers and not from the writers. Some slick guy in marketing figured out that comic books was a term associated with lots of ugly things– pocket protectors, tights, virginity– and that Joe Q. Public just wouldn’t be interested in that kind of a thing. Graphic novels, though, that has a ring of sophistication. You can hold a graphic novel in one and a latte in the other and not feel like a nerd.
I imagine that the American Indians had the same reaction when the pilgrims tried to co-op the things they knew and loved.
“Man, this is pretty good. What do you guys call this?â€
“Maize.â€
“Nah, too ethnic. We’re gonna call it ‘corn.’â€
Except that I’m not wracked with small pox when this happened.
The term is also a disguise. It says “It’s okay to read Watchmen, it isn’t a comic book, it’s a graphic novel.†The story hasn’t changed since it was written, but now that it’s a graphic novel, maybe now people are willing to take it seriously. It’s a disguise because, as I understand it, graphic novels can be “literature†where as comic books are just “genre.â€
Raymond Chandler and Kurt Vonnegut made their entire careers writing“genre†literature. Even Cormac McCarthy is best known for writing a western, a crime thriller, and a post-apocalyptic drama. If you go back and you look hard enough you can write any author off by calling their work “genre.†Poe wrote horror. De Sade made porno. Homer wrote alternate history. The category a piece of work falls under shouldn’t determine whether it’s a good story or a bad one.
I realize that the “graphic novels†have been around for years. Originally, it referred to a kind of comic that is published as one volume instead of as a serial. Where my problem comes from is that the prettier, more marketable term is obscuring what a comic actually is– which is kind of the point. It’s not an entirely honest move, but maybe calling comics something else is what the industry needs. Thinking like that might even lead to an industry where people buy comics simply because they enjoy them. What a world that would be. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go see Charlie Chaplain dressed as a robot fight The Dude.
***
Free Comic Book Day was this week. The day operates on the theory that, if you enjoyed this Hellboy short-story for free, then you’d be willing to pay for a bigger one later on. Once, years ago, there was a time when a single issue could sell millions of copies nation wide. Since the boom of the 1990's, the comic industry has fallen on hard times. Nowadays, the number one issue nationwide might crack one hundred thousand copies. Free Comic Book Day, movies and re-launches are all apart of the industry’s attempts to bring in new readers to the industry, which I’m all for. But there’s one way that the industry has tried to grab new readers, and that is by re-dubbing comic books as “graphic novels.â€
The phrase appears in movie trailers, on posters, and, apparently, even in class. I’m irritated, because it’s a movement that has come from marketing, not from the readers and not from the writers. Some slick guy in marketing figured out that comic books was a term associated with lots of ugly things– pocket protectors, tights, virginity– and that Joe Q. Public just wouldn’t be interested in that kind of a thing. Graphic novels, though, that has a ring of sophistication. You can hold a graphic novel in one and a latte in the other and not feel like a nerd.
I imagine that the American Indians had the same reaction when the pilgrims tried to co-op the things they knew and loved.
“Man, this is pretty good. What do you guys call this?â€
“Maize.â€
“Nah, too ethnic. We’re gonna call it ‘corn.’â€
Except that I’m not wracked with small pox when this happened.
The term is also a disguise. It says “It’s okay to read Watchmen, it isn’t a comic book, it’s a graphic novel.†The story hasn’t changed since it was written, but now that it’s a graphic novel, maybe now people are willing to take it seriously. It’s a disguise because, as I understand it, graphic novels can be “literature†where as comic books are just “genre.â€
Raymond Chandler and Kurt Vonnegut made their entire careers writing“genre†literature. Even Cormac McCarthy is best known for writing a western, a crime thriller, and a post-apocalyptic drama. If you go back and you look hard enough you can write any author off by calling their work “genre.†Poe wrote horror. De Sade made porno. Homer wrote alternate history. The category a piece of work falls under shouldn’t determine whether it’s a good story or a bad one.
I realize that the “graphic novels†have been around for years. Originally, it referred to a kind of comic that is published as one volume instead of as a serial. Where my problem comes from is that the prettier, more marketable term is obscuring what a comic actually is– which is kind of the point. It’s not an entirely honest move, but maybe calling comics something else is what the industry needs. Thinking like that might even lead to an industry where people buy comics simply because they enjoy them. What a world that would be. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go see Charlie Chaplain dressed as a robot fight The Dude.
Penguin Incarnate on
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Also: This is a lie.
I mean, the term has legitimacy, but it's all fucking comics people
I was disappointed
Since that's what it is
A novel that has pictures
although "comic book" isn't much better, because most comic books aren't very comic
I was so confused
I might like to distinguish collected works that tell a coherent, narrative story in one swoop rather than be long-running, self-contradicting, endlessly retconned cash cows.
So like the Sandman, while long, and in individual form might be a comic book, is a graphic novel once it's collected. The same for Animal Man, Y: The Last Man, or very writing-intensive things like the Filth, Daniel Clowes pieces, or the Watchmen . It's a question if there's a coherent narrative, not quality - you can have a crappy, trashy graphic novel the same way you can have a potboiler romance or action novel.
On the other hand, you can comic books that are bite-sized but very expressive and original - one-offs, Punisher War Journal #4, or Crumb's stuff, or the air pirates or whatever.
I think there is some legitimacy to the term, and I think that it isn't as overused as many people claim, or else we'd be hearing it even more, in reference to the super-hero films which are still considered "comic book" movies.
"Sequential art"? That is way worse then the term Graphic Novel.
This is the perfect example of why you should start writing something a day before it is due.
still have no idea what to write about
And this, the perfect example of why you should proofread!
i'm pushing it to the limit
i guess ill do another story with my internet detective character who is basically just Aaron Stack from Nextwave and HK-47 shhhhhh
you are a loser and a scoundrel and are now my worst enemy
i never said I wouldn't work charles bronson in there somewhere
i'll also do something with GG Allin because I watched Hated today
G.G. Allin is what GWAR would be if they took themselves too seriously. Shocking, offensive, irrelevant, and lame.
Home to the Contagion Role-Playing Game! News about Corpus Christie and the Cape Girls.
Except he was a fucking idiot with a small dick.
his dick was pretty small
Home to the Contagion Role-Playing Game! News about Corpus Christie and the Cape Girls.
What the fuck is going on in your horribly mangled abortion of a sig