I have been pondering something for weeks now, and I felt I must bring it to a public forum to further explore the idea.  When did it become correct to claim your movie was based on a graphic novel when in fact it was based on a miniseries of comic books?  As I watched the 30 Days of Night trailers on TV I was struck every time by the “Based on the Groundbreaking Graphic Novel.”  Really?  I guess I didn’t realize that any comic that was collected later in trade format could be considered a graphic novel.  But I’m already getting right to the ranting, let me step back a little…

I thought perhaps the dictionary.com definitions would help me, but they did little for my argument.  They define comic books as a magazine with one or more comic strips (which really, then, includes any magazine with one little comic strip, even political magazines), and graphic novels as a novel with one or more comic strips.  These are lame definitions.  To myself, and most comic book fans I’ve met, a comic book is a book that is released serially about 22 pages at a time.  Sometimes this is in miniseries form, or sometimes it’s more of an ongoing thing.  A graphic novel by my definition is a novel written in comic form but published all in one go.  I feel that the vision for each is different, as well as the writing necessary to make each cohesive.  In a miniseries format, even if you want it to be collected later, you are going to have to pace your story differently in order to make the readers want to buy the next issue.  When it’s a graphic novel, you already have the sucker with his/her hands on your book, so you just have to keep them entertained from page to page.  It requires less effort, really, than ensuring someone will buy the next issue.  And you know, I had the point argued that there are novels released in serialized form, such as Stephen King’s The Green Mile, so because they were released serially are they not novels?  I just don’t feel it’s an apt comparison.  Each part of The Green Mile was long enough to be a book in it’s own right, and was really written to be a novel, but just cut up for the extra attention.  I think it would be a better comparison to a series of trades, or even longer comics like some of the books Ted Naifeh puts out.

The reason this bothers me is simply that it is a blow to the efforts to legitimize the industry we love.  There is this new belief that sure, art and literature can be published in a comic form, but ONLY if it is in a graphic novel.  We have made such strides in past years , only to be stopped by our own industry?  This whole legitimacy of only the graphic novel would not exist if creators would stand up and say, “You know what, I create good work and I do it in a serialized fashion.  I’m not working on a graphic novel, I’m working on a comic book.  Remember that, Hollywood.”  Look at Brian K. Vaughan.  He’s a man that at this point could do whatever he wanted in the comics industry, realistically.  He chooses to do certain work in a comic book format, and certain work in graphic novel format.  When the Y: The Last Man movie comes out, are they going to claim it’s from the “groundbreaking graphic novel”?  I don’t think anyone can deny that Y is a comic book through and through.  Why are we letting Hollywood and people outside the industry diminish the contribution of comic books?  Is it because we’re just tired of fighting the stereotypes, so now we’re just going to sit back and allow the collective consciousness to believe that comic books are about superheroes and aimed at kids, and graphic novels are for the intellectual?

Am I alone in feeling this way?   I don’t think I am, but if I’m not, why aren’t more people standing up and talking about this?  Certainly, if we wish to totally legitimize our industry, we need to teach outsiders that outstanding, groundbreaking work can be released as a comic book, not just as a graphic novel.  If we can’t do that, then all of the gains we’ve made since the beginning of the comic is for naught.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 8:51 am and is filed under Comics, Janelle Siegel, Op-Ed, Shots in the Dark. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.