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"Graphic novels, comic books OR literature?" No, no, Emily! Not a disjunction; a conjunction! Graphic novels are both comic books AND literature!

Those of us in the trade simply use the term "graphic novel" (as admittedly problematic as it is) to designate a certain kind of format: one that looks like a book, rather than a "floppy"; one that gets shelved in your bookcase, in other words, rather than encased in Mylar or slabbed in plastic or buried forever in a long box. Or simply thrown away. But the art form is one and the same: comics.

And it's a fascinating form of art/literature -- a kind of hybrid in that it uses static, silent images to tell stories. In fact, one of the more recent textbooks in the field (by cartoonists/educators Jessica Abel and Matt Madden) characterizes the cartoonist's creative enterprise as Drawing Words and Writing Pictures. In comics, these are inseparable.

With Art Spiegelman's Maus having won a special Pulitzer in 1992; Portland's own Joe Sacco having won an American Book Award for Palestine in 1996; Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen having made Time magazine's list of 100 All-Time Best Books ("best books," not best "graphic novels"); Art History and English courses regularly being offered in comics and graphic novels at PSU, PCC, CCC, PNCA, and UofO (and those are just the local colleges); and graphic novels providing the only growth area in a declining book and library market, why oh why does the public at large -- and you! -- continue to refer to "comics" as a pejorative?

Diana Schutz
Executive Editor, Dark Horse Comics

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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