Graphic novels vs. comic books
Recently, a number of people in a number of places have been quite unwilling to say the words comic books and have said, instead, graphic novel. This is due to 300 coming out as a movie, of course.
I'm not pleased with it. Oh, it's not a big thing, it's just a burr in the back of my head whenever someone calls a comic book a graphic novel. Like comic book is a dirty word!
In particular, with 300 a lot of people - I'm not pointing fingers at any specific person - have called it a graphic novel. It's not. It was a comic book that was published after it's run as a comic in a trade paperback compilation. (The same is true of, say, The Dark Knight Returns, The Watchmen or V for Vendetta.)
I guess I should be glad people are reading comics at all, regardless of what they call them, and recognizing the talents of the artists and writers that make them - and, to some extent, recognizing the awesome impact that these iconic characters and narrative forms have had on American arts - but I dislike the need to distance the "graphic novel" from the "comic book".
I'm not pleased with it. Oh, it's not a big thing, it's just a burr in the back of my head whenever someone calls a comic book a graphic novel. Like comic book is a dirty word!
In particular, with 300 a lot of people - I'm not pointing fingers at any specific person - have called it a graphic novel. It's not. It was a comic book that was published after it's run as a comic in a trade paperback compilation. (The same is true of, say, The Dark Knight Returns, The Watchmen or V for Vendetta.)
I guess I should be glad people are reading comics at all, regardless of what they call them, and recognizing the talents of the artists and writers that make them - and, to some extent, recognizing the awesome impact that these iconic characters and narrative forms have had on American arts - but I dislike the need to distance the "graphic novel" from the "comic book".
Labels: comic books
5 Comments:
You say "potato and I say potarto"?
On second thought, you may be too young to know the song.
BBIM,
If it was just that, I'd shrug and go with it. But what set me off was I was reading this site, blog surfing, and this guy said that he doesn't read comic books, but he reads GRAPHIC NOVELS, as he poo-poo'd Captain America's death in a way that demonstrated to me that he knew very little about the character, hehe.
If it was just a po-TAH-to, po-TA-to thing, I'd shrug. ;)
What can I say? I see no reason why the word " graphic novels" has any more status over the word "comic". But then, I am no aficionado.
Yeah, I think it's more about the pretention involved in using the different word than the word itself. It's about people liking the genre of comics and wanting to do so without the stigma that sometimes comes with it. So, they try to escape the stigma by passing it on to others who enjoy the same genre but in a different way. They say "Oh, well, we're not like those other geeks. What we're reading is art" hehe. When it would be nicer if we could all just agree that while we may have our different preferences in what we like to read, it's all pretty cool.
BBIM - My kids love that song. They dig on some Louis Armstrong!
Sure, I use the phrase 'graphic novel', mostly because that's what it is: as you say, a compilation of a continuous stories originally published as comic books.
I don't go for the 'artsy fartsy' crap meself. I dislike pretentiousness, especially in myself.
Harlan Ellison thinks the CB is a high art form, & infers as much in his 'Dream Corridors'.
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