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Brad Brickley
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Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | 1
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Local paper The Herald and an interesting article with a local take about teens reading graphic novels about many subjects.
I guess I can live with the knowledge I know what they're really supposed to be called. Comicbooks. I said it.
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John Byrne
Beam Me Up, Scotty!
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 12:20pm | IP Logged | 2
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Brad Brickley
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | 3
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I know, you know, everyone here knows, but it's a conspiracy I tell you, A CONSPIRACY!
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Paulo Pereira
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | 4
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I'm okay with books of a certain format being referred to as 'graphic novels' but the term doesn't work as a wholesale replacement for 'comicbooks.'
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John Byrne
Beam Me Up, Scotty!
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 12:24pm | IP Logged | 5
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Unless you're an aging fanboy, a snooty Hollywood director, or a sadly
misinformed "journalist".
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Greg Kirkman
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | 6
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I want a pinback button with that phrase on it.
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JT Molloy
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | 7
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I'll call it a Graphic Novel if it was drawn and written as a self contained
large story and not a collection. That's it!
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Wallace Sellars
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | 8
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I want a pinback button with that phrase on it.
---
Cafe Press, here I come!
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Brad Brickley
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | 9
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The biggest problem I have with being called graphic novels, is listening to some TV presenter trying to sound like they know what they're talking about when they start in on some latest "Graphic Novel" tidbit. It's almost like watching an old clip of some TV guy back in the 50's trying to be hip "dancing" to rock and roll. It's sad really.
As for the article, I think it's cools that kids are reading comics, but at the same time it's kind of sad that they're not reading the original books of something, almost like a Classics Illustrated, but maybe that's something they can come back to later. I know I read plenty of Classics Illustrated before I read the books.
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Brad Krawchuk
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | 10
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My general thoughts...
Comic Book - an ongoing series or mini-series.
Trade Paperback or Hardcover - a collected edition of said above.
Graphic Novel - a trade or hardcover containing material that wasn't previously released as a comic book. Can be part of a series of ongoing graphic novels (as novels can be part of series).
I own the Ultimate Spider-Man HC collections, I have the Graphic Novels Pride of Baghdad and The Alcoholic, and I collect the comics Secret Six and Green Lantern.
Then again... Dickens wrote Great Expectations as a series of articles that were later collected in one book as a complete novel. So I could live with things like Watchmen, Y the Last Man, Preacher, Sandman, etc being considered "Graphic Novels" since, as collected together, they form one story. I'd never call a collected edition of Superman or Green Lantern or Spider-Man a graphic novel, though - they are ongoing characters, and even the collections I have which are "complete" still build off of stuff that happened before, and lead to stuff that comes later.
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | 11
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This side of the Pond, "graphic novel" was originally coined to describe a
specific format, also called "bookshelf edition". Jim Starlin's DEATH OF
CAPTAIN MARVEL was, as I recall, the first American "graphic novel" --
completely original material packaged in a upscale, more expensive format.
Always eager to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, Marvel pretty
quickly cheapened that term by taking any inventoried crap that happened
to be lying around and printing it on "good" paper. A lot of stuff intended
for annuals ended up as "graphic novels".
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Josh Goldberg
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | 12
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So, then, what format was Frank Miller's four part "Dark Knight" as originally published?
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Josh Goldberg
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | 13
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I'm asking because it was more expensive and seemed to be higher quality paper, but other than that, it was a four part comic book miniseries.
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Josh Goldberg
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | 14
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Or are there some things that just defy rigid catergorization?
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John Farnham
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | 15
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So, by today's (Watchmen's) definition of "graphic novel" - I've got John Byrne's Man of Steel graphic novel, John Byrne's collection of Fantastic Four graphic novels, John Byrne's Captain America graphic novel.....
silly
I agree, Starlin's Death of Captain Marvel, Claremont/McLeod's New Mutants, John Byrne's She-Hulk, etc -- those are graphic novels. If something is originally written to be episodic (monthly comics with beginnings and endings every 22 pages) and then collected - it's a trade paperback or a hardcover collection.
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Donald Miller
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | 16
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Josh asked:
So, then, what format was Frank Miller's four part "Dark Knight" as originally published?
Then answered:
it was a four part comic book miniseries.
And it is as simple as that.
Don
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | 17
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DAKR KNIGHT RETURNS was published originally as four "bookshelf format"
issues -- basically scaled down graphic novels. The format and the term
were invented for several reasons, some of them legal, and at least one was
because stuff was coming out that did not qualify as "graphic novels" in the
strictest sense.
GENERATIONS 1 & 2 were also published in "bookshelf format", as was
DARKSEID vs GALACTUS: THE HUNGER.
OMAC sort of invented its own slot, by being on "cheaper" paper in B&W.
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Orlando Teuta Jr
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | 18
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I've used the word Comic-book all my life, and I'm not stopping. I have yet to hear anyone correct me or question me when I'm talking about comic-books. Everyone knows what they are. JB is right, it's mostly the "...aging fanboy, a snooty Hollywood director, or a sadly
misinformed "journalist" that seem to be embarrassed to call them what they are.
(Being a couple of months away from 40, am I considered a aging fanboy?)
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | 19
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"Fanboy" as we use it hereabouts (and as originally coined) is a pejorative,
designating the over-the-top trainspotter type fans.
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Paulo Pereira
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | 20
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QUOTE:
| Then again... Dickens wrote Great Expectations as a series of articles
that were later collected in one book as a complete novel. So I could
live with things like Watchmen... |
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Agreed. And many of Dickens' works were originally published in serial form. Also, Stephen King's The Green Mile was originally published as a series of novelettes.
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Troy Nunis
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | 21
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I think "bookshelf" was also termed "prestige" format - and it too was beaten into the ground by tons of weak material (particularly batman and JLA drek) which seemed to replace the notion of having "annuals" for a while. Basically good/shiny paper and a cardstock cover?
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Brad Brickley
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | 22
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Are calling them Graphic Novels selling more comicbooks? Are they making more inroads this way? Will it help them survive and flourish? Are we getting our panties in an uproar over the term while at the same time forgetting that the product itself is the important thing?
I like the term comicbook, but if Marvel, DC, Darkhorse, or IDW can sell X number more of Capt. Fonbone by calling it a Graphic Novel instead of comics, isn't that better overall?
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Paulo Pereira
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | 23
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The funny thing is this uncertainty over what to call comicbooks has been going on for nearly two decades, yet the term 'comicbook' survives.
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Rick Senger
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | 24
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I think the first time I heard the term "graphic novel" (or something close to that) was a Denny O'neil / Marshall Rogers prose story called "Death Strikes at Midnight and Three" from DC Special Series #15 (a Batman Dollar Comic from summer, 1978)... I love Marshall Rogers' art, particularly on Batman, but even back then I felt like this was a pretentious term for what was a kinda disappointing effort. Somehow the term doesn't bother me as much now, but it does seem like the comic book term analog for "action figures" replacing "dolls."
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F. Ron Miller
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| Posted: 06 March 2009 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | 25
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As a kid I was acquainted with the term and that, in and of itself, was
enough to turn me off. Because at the time I wanted to read comic books.
I'm pretty sure the first graphic novel I purchased was the Lee/Kirby Silver
Surfer thing. I remember feeling slightly disappointed --kind of wishing it
were a comic book instead.
I'm not sure that saying if the work had been published prior as comic
books makes it no longer eligible for graphic novel status is completely
fair. There's a lot of grey area. Maus for example, stands for me, as a
graphic novel even though it was serialized in Raw.
In a related genre I consider the works of Dickens and Verne as novels
even though they were once serialized in newspapers.
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Topic Closed)
