"Comics" vs. "Graphic Novels"
"Comics" and "graphic novels" are terms that refer to illustrated narratives but signify different formats and perceptions within the medium. Comics typically evoke images of shorter, serialized publications, such as newspaper strips or monthly comic books, often associated with humor and entertainment. In contrast, graphic novels are generally bound book-length works that can carry more literary weight, often exploring complex themes beyond superhero tales. The distinction between the two has sparked debate, as some argue that labeling comics as graphic novels elevates their status, while others feel it imposes a literary aspiration that may not be inherent to the medium.
The term "graphic novel" emerged in the late 20th century to differentiate longer, more serious narratives from traditional comic formats, and has since gained acceptance in bookstores and educational settings. However, this has raised questions about categorization, especially when serialized comic books are compiled into volumes. While both formats can include a range of stories, graphic novels often focus on original content, whereas comics may present ongoing series or character-driven plots. The evolving perception and terminological distinctions reflect broader cultural recognition of comics as a valid art form, regardless of their format, revealing a dynamic interplay between publication style, storytelling, and audience engagement.
"Comics" vs. "Graphic Novels"
Definition
The terms “comics” and “graphic novels” describe works using sequential images to tell stories. However, they also refer to different formats in which comics are published; the former implies a daily or monthly publishing, the latter a book. Calling comics graphic novels lends the medium literary worth. However, equating the two terms has been controversial because some feel the latter term suggests that comics should aspire to be like novels.
Introduction
Comics are increasingly recognized as a significant form of literature, and related terminology is fluid and frequently debated. The terms comics and graphic novels are interchangeable when they refer to the medium of using pictures to tell stories. However, they can also refer to different ways the medium is presented. Comics brings to mind amusing newspaper comic strips or thin monthly magazines, whereas graphic novels refer to thicker books with literary gravitas.
The link between comics and humor comes from the first newspaper comics published in the late 1800s, called “comic weeklies” and later simply “comics.” Later illustrated stories have been called comics, even though they may be neither humorous nor published weekly. In discussions of motion pictures, “films” refers to films in the plural, and “film” can refer to one film or the entire medium; “comic” in the singular, however, is not used to designate the comics medium. The term can only refer to one work or volume or serve as an adjective.
As comics scholarship has spread and deepened, academics and industry insiders, recognizing the confusion surrounding the term comics and its inability to adequately describe all the titles in circulation, have proposed various naming conventions. One of the most popular terms in circulation is graphic novels, invented to disassociate works from the “childishness” of comics. The term was first used by Richard Kyle in 1964 in a Comics Amateur Press Alliance newsletter and was later popularized by Will Eisner, who marketed his 1978 comic A Contract with God as a graphic novel. Before the 2000s, the term was sometimes understood to mean violent or pornographic novels, but wide usage has made the compound noun accurately understood.
Compared to the term comics, which technically only communicates that the stories are funny, graphic novels more accurately describes the medium’s use of pictures to tell stories, and the term is also a better description for comics in book form. However, the use of the term has generated new questions. If Ultimate Spider-Man, for example, is a comic in monthly issues, does it become a graphic novel after it is bound? If so, does a different binding automatically put it in the same category as a work such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1986, 1991), or do other descriptors need to be applied to differentiate between bound comics and stand-alone graphic novels? Also, although “graphic novel” sounds more literary than “comic,” there have been debates over whether it should be used as a substitute, as some have found the term too contrived. Others have pointed to its inaccuracy; the word “graphic” may highlight the medium’s use of images, but “novel” suggests a long fictional story. Exploring the naming conventions for different formats of comics has helped the medium diversify and open artistic possibilities.
Further Distinctions
Comics can be used as an umbrella term to mean all types of graphic publications, regardless of format. Under this definition, a “comic strip” refers to a comic of two or more panels and up to a page, often featuring recurring characters if it is serialized. A “cartoon” is a single-image comic. The “comic book,” which also can be called a “monthly,” a “pamphlet,” or a “floppy,” is a monthly issue that is approximately thirty-two pages in length; this is the most common format used by American publishers such as Marvel Comics and DC Comics.
Comic strips have been published in North America since the late 1800s. However, during the 1930s, the comic book format was initiated by Max Gaines, a salesman for Eastern Color Printing, to collect previously published newspaper comic strips and boost their sales. A subcategory under comics, graphic novels, refers specifically to book-length, completed stories published in one or more bound volumes. However, the term is also applied to volumes of collected comic book series. Sometimes, to differentiate between graphic novels featuring previously unpublished content and those reprinted from serialized comic books, the former are referred to as “original graphic novels” (“OGNs”). In contrast, the latter are referred to as “trade paperbacks” (“trades” or “TPBs”). Most comic book series are collected into paperbacks, so the few hardcover collections can still be generally referred to as trade paperbacks.
Some original graphic novels may be serialized in independent magazines before being issued in a bound volume, and comic books may be collected into volumes. However, for most of comics publishing history, comic book series were issued only in the monthly format, sold at newsstands with other newspapers and magazines, and disposed of after reading. As readers began to collect comics in the 1970s, publishers responded by printing collections. Because original graphic novels and graphic novel collections have become extremely popular, some have predicted that comics as a whole may transition into being published only as graphic novels. However, comic book publishers have established a pattern for working with the monthly comic book through many decades, and comic book creators and readers maintain that comic books have a unique storytelling structure and will continue to draw audiences.
Differences in Publication Format
In terms of publication, there have been a few significant differences between serialized comic books and original graphic novels: production process, publication format, and content. First, due to the structure of major comic book publishers in the United States, publishers often own the rights to characters and divide writing, penciling, inking, lettering, and coloring duties among their employees. A series or character can outlive its initial individual creators; for example, Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1932 but is owned by DC Comics and remains an active character in the DC Universe. Original graphic novels grew from underground comics, which developed outside the mainstream comic book production structure. They are often produced by an individual or a self-selected team that retains the rights to the characters and the work.
Second, comics and graphic novels differ in publication format, leading to differences in story structure. Because the earliest comic books reprinted short comic strips, the first superhero comic books also featured short, completed stories centered on a stable cast rather than stories developed over several issues. In twenty-first century publishing, stories tend to be framed in one issue to create a satisfying monthly reading experience. Although many modern serialized comic books are written with a completed story as a target, early series may continue to tell short stories indefinitely, based on publisher discretion. In contrast, the plot in original graphic novels may build and resolve itself through the entire story and does not necessarily require a specific story structure within a set number of pages.
Third, stories published in the serialized comic book format have overwhelmingly been superhero and crime-fighting stories. On the other hand, original graphic novels are particularly noted for covering more personal stories or nonfiction narratives.
Naming Strategies
Before the wide production of graphic novels, comics referred to comic strips and serialized comic books, which are fast reads compared to prose novels and are associated with humor and entertainment. Thus, comics have largely been regarded as a disreputable and juvenile element of popular culture. Fredric Wertham’s 1954 criticism of comics, Seduction of the Innocent, further confirmed this perspective in the minds of many educators by arguing that comics teach children violent behavior and lax social values. In addition, the production of comic book series, divided among many individuals with apparently limited roles, has been seen as a form of industrial mass production and not necessarily art or literature. One approach to changing the public perception of comics is to rename all comics “graphic novels” to distance them from such associations. Because graphic novels have literary connotations, another approach is to affix nonfiction or literary comics with a more realistic or serious label to distinguish them from comic book series meant primarily to entertain.
The increased number of comics published in the graphic novel format has helped comics become more mainstream. Comics published in the graphic novel format can be more welcoming to new comics readers than those in serial format. They are distributed through the more familiar environment of the bookstore, look like other books, and are more likely to contain complete stories or story arcs; therefore, they do not necessarily ask readers to wait as the series progresses monthly. In addition, original graphic novels have drawn more attention than comics from educators, who have seen in them more literary value, and this has helped readers understand that comics are not all about superheroes.
Others believe, however, that avoiding the term comics panders to a vague idea of literary worth and that there is no need for comics to be similar to prose literature. Scholarship has revealed that comic strips previously considered junk reading have relevance in their ability to chart changing social anxieties in North America. Labeling specific titles as graphic novels to set them apart from other comics is particularly contentious. First, a difference in naming creates a hierarchy within comics. Comic books would still be considered childish and remain obscure when, in reality, they can be mined as rich cultural texts. Second, while there is no inherent link between publication format and content, because series published in the monthly comic book format have been predominantly superhero stories and original graphic novels have been personal or nonfiction stories, format and content have often been conflated. Labeling personal and nonfiction stories as graphic novels risks entrenching the belief that monthly comic books are not a suitable format for personal stories and nonfiction and that original graphic novels should not tell superhero or action stories. This would limit experimentation with different formats of comics.
Impact
As industry professionals, librarians, and academics have grappled with the terms comics and graphic novels and tried to pin down their attributes, they have also come to understand the publication possibilities for comics as a medium and how different forms of publication can affect the reading experience. Despite the differences between the uses of comics and graphic novels and the debates around their similarities, the two terms have remained flexible. Comics writer Neil Gaiman has noted that while his Sandman series (1989-1996) was published serially as a comic book, many people have subsequently referred to it as a graphic novel. The differences between the two terms are also lessening as more serialized comic books are being collected into trade paperbacks. Readers, librarians, and academic scholars have begun distinguishing between comic books and graphic novels based on publication format rather than content.
Realizing that monthly comic books do not necessarily have to contain superhero stories can help readers read more widely. Many libraries and bookstores have a graphic novels section. At the same time, this takes marketing concerns into consideration, as many readers are drawn to comics as a format regardless of genre. One space for all comics encourages readers to consider formats to be similar rather than different.
Original graphic novels are still more likely than serialized comics to be used as teaching materials in schools and universities. However, as more comics are published in the graphic novel format, comics, in general, have become more socially accepted. On the other hand, maintaining the term comics to denote all forms of graphic storytelling is part of a larger push in the arts and humanities to close the perceived gap between high and low culture, and it emphasizes that comics need not be elevated to literary status to be an essential aspect of culture. Superhero comics, comic strips, and Internet comics are regularly discussed at academic conferences and in scholarly journals, and the older term comics is increasingly looked upon favorably.
The debate regarding terminology has also generated suggestions for more precise terms. Many acclaimed graphic novels, such as Maus and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2000-2003), are not fiction, and calling them novels would be as misleading as calling a serious story a comic. “Graphic narrative” has been proposed to cover all comics, and sometimes more precise terms such as “graphic nonfiction” and “graphic memoir” are also used.
In the twenty-first century, this debate over the similarities and differences between comics and graphic novels lingers in literary discussion. While length, format, and publishing method continue to be factors in labeling, many also consider the story's complexity and the target audience as delineating factors. Still, no designation is absolute, and comics and graphic novels blur and cross literary boundaries, and their denotation should be considered individually. Cultural distinctions also play a role in determining if a work is a comic or graphic novel. For example, some believe the Japanese art of manga is a comic, but it is often presented in a long graphic novel style. The debate often seems to be raging in the American literary world and less important in other countries. The relationship between comics and graphic novels remains fluid in the twenty-first century.
Bibliography
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Jasson, Tove. “3 Graphic Novel Vs Comic Differences That Actually Matter.” Visual Thinking Classroom, visualthinkingclassroom.com/graphic-novels-vs-comics-whats-the-difference. Accessed 12 July 2024.
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