While the comic medium is usually regarded as one where only stories of superheroes in suits and masks seem to come from, I can see this as a much more powerful medium, serving as the middleman between the text heavy novel and the visually and audibly intense film. Whereas a novel is mostly regarded as perfectly whole without a single picture in a version, even if there were pictures in some other versions, this doesn't apply to comics since they are, after all, graphic novels.
There are certain feelings and descriptions that raw text is hardly able to depict as well as an image can, and here I sense a great power in the comic medium. But I have yet to see a comic that truly reflects its alternative name: the graphic novel. If the Watchmen is indeed the best comic ever produced, I'll have to say this genre did not fulfill its potential, perhaps overridden by negative connotations generated by the majority of works created in this medium. But even then, I do not believe such attempts have never been made: to create a graphic novel that is made to rival the text novel.
What I want to discuss here is the potential and possible future of the graphic novel; works that would not instantly position themselves as superhero tales, works that would be worth being taught in high schools and recorded as classics. Perhaps this genre did not have the best start, but neither did science fiction - it took quite some time for masterpieces to emerge, and it was regarded worthless among critics as a genre for quite a while, yet now, works such as Dune, Fahrenheit 451, even the sarcastic and ironic The Stainless Steel Rat can be found in literary criticisms and are considered classics.
If any one of you read, or has heard of quality unconventional comics that do not follow the regular pattern of what movies have been based on so far, I would want to find them and discuss them. Please note that, as always, I am not interested in comics-as-adaptations of text novels or other media, because while they are viable as comics, they were, most probably, made for the commercial reason, not because of the visual strength of the graphic novel as a genre.
I hate the term graphic novel. To me they're all just comics. But I know that's not the point. For me, the best comic I ever read was Maus. This one is a classic, but I'll just copy and paste the review I've already written for it.
MAUS I
"I'm sure there are lots of really great books about WWII and the Holocaust. I have never read them. The only book I've read about the Holocaust was Maus. And I suspect it's possibly one of the greatest books written on the subject.
It's sad, it's funny, it's touching, it's tragic, it's endearing, it's sentimental, it's all sorts of things that are great.
I think the primary focus of Maus goes beyond the Holocaust, though. It's about generation gaps and family. Most readers will be able to relate to how difficult it can be to relate to one's parents. And the way that sort of conflict between generations is shown in this book is relieving and cathartic.
And the French are frogs. Hilarious. ?
And then for MAUS II
"Maus II is a little more grueling than the first one as a large portion of it takes place in the actual concentration camp. Nevertheless, the ending is ever more sweet as a result. If you read the first, well, you just gotta read the second. ?"
I hate the term graphic novel. To me they're all just comics.
And that's because most graphic novels are silly, demanding a more light name such as "comics"... A graphic novel would be something great. Considering that you hate the term, I can conclude you have not read such.
I don't find a statement like "A graphic novel is essentially a long comic book." to be very accurate, but that's not to say it doesn't hold any water. I much prefer graphic novel to comics. Not that I don't enjoy comics. But graphic novels usually have much broader and much deeper plots and characters.
While it is true many graphic novels are published under the Vertigo company which is a subsidiary of DC Comics. DC comics is famous for characters such as Superman and Wonder Woman. But under the Vertigo portion is where you find the much grander literary works such as Watchmen, V For Vendetta, Hellblazer, Sandman, Preacher, 100 Bullets (and maybe 30 Days of Night, I think Vertigo did that one too). These titles may contain super heroes (as is the case with watchmen) but often they are not super heroes much in the same way as mainstream DC. Them being a super hero is secondary or even tertiary to the main story, which usually deals with much more philosophical or religious or political material.
Or sometimes they don't. Others such as those that are I guess considered gothic horror or gothic fantasy usually deal with someone or a group or people finding who the really are, in the case of Darrian Ashoka in the Dawn series he is coming to terms with the realisation he is the embodiment of Cernunnos, the horned god of Death, and the woman he loves and idolises is if fact the wife of Cernunnos. Or like most things present in the gothic genre as a whole it is full of vampires and other such monsters from fantasy.
Too a lesser extent you can, to a point, classify manga as graphic novel. As several manga share many of the same traits of graphic novels of western society. Probably one ofthe most notable manga in this regard is Ghost in the Shell, with its philosophical debates about the nature of the soul and whether or not it is possible that a robot can possess a soul, and similarily when robots learn to feel, who decides what is human? It also deals alot with the works of Isaac Asimov, clearly since the name of the manga is similar to asimov's work "Ghost in the machine". The burring between the line of human and robot appears in a lot of graphic novels and in comics, but it's in Ghost in the Shell that it is really questioned, where as in most comics very little thought is given to what the blurring of that line actually means.
Perhaps another point of differentiating between comic and graphic novel is the amount of "graphic" violence, language drug use and sexual content present. Graphic novels are rather "graphic". While present in comics, it is in much smaller doses compared to the graphic novel. Even if they are about the same thing. Frank Miller's Batman graphic novels (which he actually got complaints about and was asked to stop making them) is quite removed from the Batman in the majority of DC comics. Frank's Batman is much more brutal and forceful and not above the law, often seen breaking bones and killing the scum of the underworld, be they pimps, whores, drug dealers, drug addicts mobsters, as well as the usual minion of the bad guys (like Two Face and the Joker).
Graphic novels do tend to catch a bit of crap from being passed off as mere comics and being lumped in with the throngs of rather generic super hero stuff. Which is sad. I wouldn't call Godspeed: The Kurt Cobain story a comic like I would call Witchblade or Tomb Raider, and not just because its about Kurt Cobain of Nirvana fame, but that is part of it. I wouldn't call it a comic because of the nature of it and how deep it goes into it's subject matter, which isn't so much about the band Nirvana, but delves into Kurt's addictions to various drugs as well as his creative processes he used to his songs and to make his art (some of which he made from blood and semen). Hardly seems like a comic that. But it does help if you like Nirvana/Kurt if you read that one. But it is good. It won a few writer's awards
But that is up to your personal interpretation.
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-Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth.
They are the same thing. Graphic novels are extended stories that are generally consolidated into one single long book (novel) instead of told over a series of smaller books (comics).
Nothing more, nothing less.
Just because comics have been stereotyped as superhero stories doesn't put graphics novels in a different category. There are plenty of "comics" that aren't about superheroes just like there are a lot of "graphic novels" that are.
Same thing, different terminology.
Someone who reads graphics novels but avoids comics needs to get slapped of their pretentious pedestals.
They are the same thing. Graphic novels are extended stories that are generally consolidated into one single long book (novel) instead of told over a series of smaller books (comics).
At least you said generally. Nice one there. People often forget that qualifier.
Frank Miller's Sin City is a graphic novel and it has 8 volumes, and while each one is a continuation of the same story, each one is also a separate story. I guess the phenomenon that best describes that situation is Stand Alone Complex. (The Standalone Complex deals primarily with the capability of any particular ideology to manifest itself socially without necessitating a reference to an initial origin or source, or is defined as a collection of individuals or groups, with no connection to each other, working towards the same ideals provided and inspired by an unknown source. This is something that is heavily discussed in Ghost in the Shell) And each one is a decent size, a good inch or so in thickness. Can't say I've read too many comics that were that thick, not without stacking several issues together.
Personally I would (perhaps mistakenly to some) classify manga as graphic novel. Especially something like Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond, which is the manga version of the novel Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. Vagabond is as ongoing series and so far numbers 30 volumes (24 have been traslated into english).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
-Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth.
They released individual monthly issues, and when they had enough, they consolidated them into books. These consolidations are often referred to as... surprise... graphic novels. Since the Spawn run is approaching 200 issues, there are multiple graphic novel variations. I believe most of them are comprised of 10 monthly issues, but I could be wrong since I actually have all the comics and never purchased any of the graphic novels.
It would be just as easy to break a typical graphic novel like 300 into 32 page comics as it is taking a bunch of 32 page comics and putting them together into a novel. It's why they are the same thing.
Any confusion on the names based on actual content is largely based on stupid stereotypes and misinformation.
Might work in the case of Spawn. Or any case where you combine several issues into one or more volumes. I doubt you can break up a graphic novel volume into separate issues.
In a few instances graphic novels do comes as more conventional "comic" sized issues, yet are still called graphic novels. Various works by Joseph Michael Linsner and Alan Moore being classic examples of this.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
-Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth.
Considering that you hate the term, I can conclude you have not read such.
I have little faith in your conclusions. They're usually pretty wrong. As per this case. I have read them. And I'm just saying that I call them comic books because I don't like the term graphic novel. It couldn't be any simpler than that.
A graphic novel is a name for a bigger work, usually, and it's also used for large reissues of comics for some reason. That's not really why I used that term. I could care less what termers mutilated the idea for... (and as far as I am aware, they did, indeed, mutilate it)
What I'm trying to do is get away from the conventional idea of what a comic/graphic novel should be and bring it down to the very basic definition:
text with pictures that cannot be removed without damaging the work
That's the real definition. Comic, graphic novel, manga, and whatever else is all really the same thing. They're more like subgenres of something bigger.
To Siaynoq
You have not even listed them. You're telling me you read something that amounts to Dune, but forgot it? Maus doesn't count. When the term "comic" makes you cringe applied to something is when you've found something good.
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There are certain feelings and descriptions that raw text is hardly able to depict as well as an image can, and here I sense a great power in the comic medium. But I have yet to see a comic that truly reflects its alternative name: the graphic novel. If the Watchmen is indeed the best comic ever produced, I'll have to say this genre did not fulfill its potential, perhaps overridden by negative connotations generated by the majority of works created in this medium. But even then, I do not believe such attempts have never been made: to create a graphic novel that is made to rival the text novel.
What I want to discuss here is the potential and possible future of the graphic novel; works that would not instantly position themselves as superhero tales, works that would be worth being taught in high schools and recorded as classics. Perhaps this genre did not have the best start, but neither did science fiction - it took quite some time for masterpieces to emerge, and it was regarded worthless among critics as a genre for quite a while, yet now, works such as Dune, Fahrenheit 451, even the sarcastic and ironic The Stainless Steel Rat can be found in literary criticisms and are considered classics.
If any one of you read, or has heard of quality unconventional comics that do not follow the regular pattern of what movies have been based on so far, I would want to find them and discuss them. Please note that, as always, I am not interested in comics-as-adaptations of text novels or other media, because while they are viable as comics, they were, most probably, made for the commercial reason, not because of the visual strength of the graphic novel as a genre.
My comic will be unconventional. At least more so than the typical good guy beating the bad guy, rinse and repeat.
Vote:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17929
MAUS I
"I'm sure there are lots of really great books about WWII and the Holocaust. I have never read them. The only book I've read about the Holocaust was Maus. And I suspect it's possibly one of the greatest books written on the subject.
It's sad, it's funny, it's touching, it's tragic, it's endearing, it's sentimental, it's all sorts of things that are great.
I think the primary focus of Maus goes beyond the Holocaust, though. It's about generation gaps and family. Most readers will be able to relate to how difficult it can be to relate to one's parents. And the way that sort of conflict between generations is shown in this book is relieving and cathartic.
And the French are frogs. Hilarious. ?
And then for MAUS II
"Maus II is a little more grueling than the first one as a large portion of it takes place in the actual concentration camp. Nevertheless, the ending is ever more sweet as a result. If you read the first, well, you just gotta read the second. ?"
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
While it is true many graphic novels are published under the Vertigo company which is a subsidiary of DC Comics. DC comics is famous for characters such as Superman and Wonder Woman. But under the Vertigo portion is where you find the much grander literary works such as Watchmen, V For Vendetta, Hellblazer, Sandman, Preacher, 100 Bullets (and maybe 30 Days of Night, I think Vertigo did that one too). These titles may contain super heroes (as is the case with watchmen) but often they are not super heroes much in the same way as mainstream DC. Them being a super hero is secondary or even tertiary to the main story, which usually deals with much more philosophical or religious or political material.
Or sometimes they don't. Others such as those that are I guess considered gothic horror or gothic fantasy usually deal with someone or a group or people finding who the really are, in the case of Darrian Ashoka in the Dawn series he is coming to terms with the realisation he is the embodiment of Cernunnos, the horned god of Death, and the woman he loves and idolises is if fact the wife of Cernunnos. Or like most things present in the gothic genre as a whole it is full of vampires and other such monsters from fantasy.
Too a lesser extent you can, to a point, classify manga as graphic novel. As several manga share many of the same traits of graphic novels of western society. Probably one ofthe most notable manga in this regard is Ghost in the Shell, with its philosophical debates about the nature of the soul and whether or not it is possible that a robot can possess a soul, and similarily when robots learn to feel, who decides what is human? It also deals alot with the works of Isaac Asimov, clearly since the name of the manga is similar to asimov's work "Ghost in the machine". The burring between the line of human and robot appears in a lot of graphic novels and in comics, but it's in Ghost in the Shell that it is really questioned, where as in most comics very little thought is given to what the blurring of that line actually means.
Perhaps another point of differentiating between comic and graphic novel is the amount of "graphic" violence, language drug use and sexual content present. Graphic novels are rather "graphic". While present in comics, it is in much smaller doses compared to the graphic novel. Even if they are about the same thing. Frank Miller's Batman graphic novels (which he actually got complaints about and was asked to stop making them) is quite removed from the Batman in the majority of DC comics. Frank's Batman is much more brutal and forceful and not above the law, often seen breaking bones and killing the scum of the underworld, be they pimps, whores, drug dealers, drug addicts mobsters, as well as the usual minion of the bad guys (like Two Face and the Joker).
Graphic novels do tend to catch a bit of crap from being passed off as mere comics and being lumped in with the throngs of rather generic super hero stuff. Which is sad. I wouldn't call Godspeed: The Kurt Cobain story a comic like I would call Witchblade or Tomb Raider, and not just because its about Kurt Cobain of Nirvana fame, but that is part of it. I wouldn't call it a comic because of the nature of it and how deep it goes into it's subject matter, which isn't so much about the band Nirvana, but delves into Kurt's addictions to various drugs as well as his creative processes he used to his songs and to make his art (some of which he made from blood and semen). Hardly seems like a comic that. But it does help if you like Nirvana/Kurt if you read that one. But it is good. It won a few writer's awards
But that is up to your personal interpretation.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Just because comics have been stereotyped as superhero stories doesn't put graphics novels in a different category. There are plenty of "comics" that aren't about superheroes just like there are a lot of "graphic novels" that are.
Same thing, different terminology.
Someone who reads graphics novels but avoids comics needs to get slapped of their pretentious pedestals.
Vote:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17929
Frank Miller's Sin City is a graphic novel and it has 8 volumes, and while each one is a continuation of the same story, each one is also a separate story. I guess the phenomenon that best describes that situation is Stand Alone Complex. (The Standalone Complex deals primarily with the capability of any particular ideology to manifest itself socially without necessitating a reference to an initial origin or source, or is defined as a collection of individuals or groups, with no connection to each other, working towards the same ideals provided and inspired by an unknown source. This is something that is heavily discussed in Ghost in the Shell) And each one is a decent size, a good inch or so in thickness. Can't say I've read too many comics that were that thick, not without stacking several issues together.
Personally I would (perhaps mistakenly to some) classify manga as graphic novel. Especially something like Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond, which is the manga version of the novel Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. Vagabond is as ongoing series and so far numbers 30 volumes (24 have been traslated into english).
They released individual monthly issues, and when they had enough, they consolidated them into books. These consolidations are often referred to as... surprise... graphic novels. Since the Spawn run is approaching 200 issues, there are multiple graphic novel variations. I believe most of them are comprised of 10 monthly issues, but I could be wrong since I actually have all the comics and never purchased any of the graphic novels.
It would be just as easy to break a typical graphic novel like 300 into 32 page comics as it is taking a bunch of 32 page comics and putting them together into a novel. It's why they are the same thing.
Any confusion on the names based on actual content is largely based on stupid stereotypes and misinformation.
Vote:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17929
In a few instances graphic novels do comes as more conventional "comic" sized issues, yet are still called graphic novels. Various works by Joseph Michael Linsner and Alan Moore being classic examples of this.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Vote:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17929
What I'm trying to do is get away from the conventional idea of what a comic/graphic novel should be and bring it down to the very basic definition:
text with pictures that cannot be removed without damaging the work
That's the real definition. Comic, graphic novel, manga, and whatever else is all really the same thing. They're more like subgenres of something bigger.
To Siaynoq
You have not even listed them. You're telling me you read something that amounts to Dune, but forgot it? Maus doesn't count. When the term "comic" makes you cringe applied to something is when you've found something good.