Agraphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form ofsequential art. The termgraphic novel is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, andanthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics scholars and industry professionals. It is, at least in the United States, typically distinct from the termcomic book, which is generally used forcomics periodicals andtrade paperbacks.[1][2][3] It has also been described as a marketing term for comic books.[4]
Fan historian Richard Kyle coined the termgraphic novel in anessay in the November 1964 issue of the comicsfanzineCapa-Alpha.[5][6] The term gained popularity in the comics community after the publication ofWill Eisner'sA Contract with God (1978) and the start of theMarvel Graphic Novelline (1982) and became familiar to the public in the late 1980s after the commercial successes of the first volume ofArt Spiegelman'sMaus in 1986, the collected editions ofFrank Miller'sThe Dark Knight Returns in 1986 andAlan Moore andDave Gibbons'Watchmen in 1987. TheBook Industry Study Group began usinggraphic novel as a category in book stores in 2001.[7]
The term is not strictly defined, thoughMerriam-Webster's dictionary definition is "a fictional story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as abook".[8] Collections ofcomic books that do not form a continuous story,anthologies or collections of loosely related pieces, and evennon-fiction are stocked bylibraries andbookstores as graphic novels (similar to the manner in which dramatic stories are included in "comic" books).[citation needed] The term is also sometimes used to distinguish between works created as standalone stories, in contrast to collections or compilations of astory arc from a comic book series published in book form.[9][10][11]
In continental Europe, both original book-length stories such asThe Ballad of the Salty Sea (1967) byHugo Pratt orLa rivolta dei racchi (1967) byGuido Buzzelli,[12][13] and collections ofcomics have been commonly published in hardcover volumes, often calledalbums, since the end of the 19th century (including such laterFranco-Belgian comics series asThe Adventures of Tintin in the 1930s).
As the exact definition of the graphic novel is debated, the origins of the form are open to interpretation.
The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is the oldest recognized American example of comics used to this end.[14] It originated as the 1828 publicationHistoire de Mr. Vieux Bois by Swiss caricaturistRodolphe Töpffer, and was first published in English translation in 1841 by London's Tilt & Bogue, which used an 1833 Paris pirate edition.[15] The first American edition was published in 1842 by Wilson & Company in New York City using the original printing plates from the 1841 edition. Another early predecessor isJourney to the Gold Diggins by Jeremiah Saddlebags by brothers J. A. D. and D. F. Read, inspired byThe Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck.[15] In 1894,Caran d'Ache broached the idea of a "drawn novel" in a letter to the newspaperLe Figaro and started work on a 360-page wordless book (which was never published).[16] In the United States, there is a long tradition of reissuing previously published comic strips in book form. In 1897, the Hearst Syndicate published such a collection ofThe Yellow Kid by Richard Outcault and it quickly became a best seller.[17]
The 1920s saw a revival of themedievalwoodcut tradition, with BelgianFrans Masereel cited as "the undisputed king" of this revival.[18] His works includePassionate Journey (1919).[19] AmericanLynd Ward also worked in this tradition, publishingGods' Man, in 1929 and going on to publish more during the 1930s.[20][21][22]
Other prototypical examples from this period include AmericanMilt Gross'sHe Done Her Wrong (1930), a wordless comic published as a hardcover book, andUne semaine de bonté (1934), a novel in sequential images composed of collage by the surrealist painterMax Ernst. Similarly,Charlotte Salomon'sLife? or Theater? (composed 1941–43) combines images, narrative, and captions.[citation needed]
The 1940s saw the launching ofClassics Illustrated, acomic-book series that primarily adapted notable,public domain novels into standalone comic books for young readers.Citizen 13660, an illustrated, novel length retelling ofJapanese internment during World War II, was published in 1946. In 1947,Fawcett Comics publishedComics Novel #1: "Anarcho, Dictator of Death", a 52-page comic dedicated to one story.[23] In 1950,St. John Publications produced thedigest-sized, adult-oriented "picture novel"It Rhymes with Lust, afilm noir-influenced slice of steeltown life starring a scheming, manipulative redhead named Rust. Touted as "an original full-length novel" on its cover, the 128-page digest bypseudonymous writer "Drake Waller" (Arnold Drake andLeslie Waller), pencilerMatt Baker and inkerRay Osrin proved successful enough to lead to an unrelated second picture novel,The Case of the Winking Buddha bypulp novelistManning Lee Stokes and illustrator Charles Raab.[24][25] In the same year,Gold Medal Books releasedMansion of Evil by Joseph Millard.[26] Presaging Will Eisner's multiple-story graphic novelA Contract with God (1978), cartoonistHarvey Kurtzman wrote and drew the four-story mass-market paperbackHarvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book (Ballantine Books #338K), published in 1959.[27]
By the late 1960s, American comic book creators were becoming more adventurous with the form.Gil Kane andArchie Goodwin self-published a 40-page,magazine-format comics novel,His Name Is... Savage (Adventure House Press) in 1968—the same yearMarvel Comics published two issues ofThe Spectacular Spider-Man in a similar format. Columnist and comic-book writerSteven Grant also argues thatStan Lee andSteve Ditko'sDoctor Strange story inStrange Tales #130–146, although published serially from 1965 to 1966, is "the first American graphic novel".[28] Similarly, critic Jason Sacks referred to the 13-issue "Panther's Rage"—comics' first-known titled, self-contained, multi-issue story arc—that ran from 1973 to 1975 in theBlack Panther series in Marvel'sJungle Action as "Marvel's first graphic novel".[29]
Meanwhile, in continental Europe, the tradition of collecting serials of popular strips such asThe Adventures of Tintin orAsterix led to long-form narratives published initially as serials.[citation needed]
In January 1968,Vida del Che was published in Argentina, a graphic novel written byHéctor Germán Oesterheld and drawn byAlberto Breccia. The book told the story ofChe Guevara in comics form, but the military dictatorship confiscated the books and destroyed them. It was later re-released in corrected versions.
By 1969, the authorJohn Updike, who had entertained ideas of becoming a cartoonist in his youth, addressed the Bristol Literary Society, on "the death of the novel". Updike offered examples of new areas of exploration for novelists, declaring he saw "no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic strip novel masterpiece".[30]
Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin'sBlackmark (1971), ascience fiction/sword-and-sorcery paperback published byBantam Books, did not use the term originally; the back-cover blurb of the 30th-anniversary edition (ISBN 978-1-56097-456-7) calls it, retroactively, the first American graphic novel. TheAcademy of Comic Book Arts presented Kane with a special 1971Shazam Award for what it called "his paperback comics novel". Whatever the nomenclature,Blackmark is a 119-page story of comic-book art, with captions andword balloons, published in a traditional book format.
European creators were also experimenting with the longer narrative in comics form. In the United Kingdom,Raymond Briggs was producing works such asFather Christmas (1972) andThe Snowman (1978), which he himself described as being from the "bottomless abyss of strip cartooning", although they, along with such other Briggs works as the more matureWhen the Wind Blows (1982), have been re-marketed as graphic novels in the wake of the term's popularity. Briggs noted, however, that he did not like that term too much.[31]
In 1976, the term "graphic novel" appeared in print to describe three separate works:
The following year,Terry Nantier, who had spent his teenage years living in Paris, returned to the United States and formedFlying Buttress Publications, later to incorporate asNBM Publishing (Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine), and publishedRacket Rumba, a 50-page spoof of thenoir-detective genre, written and drawn by the single-name French artist Loro. Nantier followed this withEnki Bilal'sThe Call of the Stars. The company marketed these works as "graphic albums".[34]
The first six issues of writer-artistJack Katz's 1974Comics and Comix Co. seriesThe First Kingdom were collected as atrade paperback (Pocket Books, March 1978),[35] which described itself as "the first graphic novel". Issues of the comic had described themselves as "graphic prose", or simply as a novel.[citation needed]
Similarly,Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species by writerDon McGregor and artistPaul Gulacy (Eclipse Books, August 1978) — the first graphic novel sold in the newly created "direct market" of United States comic-book shops[36] — was called a "graphic album" by the author in interviews, though the publisher dubbed it a "comic novel" on its credits page. "Graphic album" was also the term used the following year byGene Day for his hardcover short-story collectionFuture Day (Flying Buttress Press).
Another early graphic novel, though it carried no self-description, wasThe Silver Surfer (Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books, August 1978), by Marvel Comics'Stan Lee andJack Kirby. Significantly, this was published by a traditional book publisher and distributed through bookstores, as wascartoonistJules Feiffer'sTantrum (Alfred A. Knopf, 1979)[37] described on its dust jacket as a "novel-in-pictures".
Hyperbolic descriptions of longercomic books as "novels" appear on covers as early as the 1940s. Early issues ofDC Comics'All-Flash, for example, described their contents as "novel-length stories" and "full-length four chapter novels".[38]
In its earliest known citation, comic-book reviewer Richard Kyle used the term "graphic novel" inCapa-Alpha #2 (November 1964), a newsletter published by the Comic Amateur Press Alliance, and again in an article inBill Spicer's magazineFantasy Illustrated #5 (Spring 1966).[39] Kyle, inspired by European and East Asian graphic albums (especially Japanesemanga), used the label to designate comics of an artistically "serious" sort.[40] Following this, Spicer, with Kyle's acknowledgment, edited and published a periodical titledGraphic Story Magazine in the fall of 1967.[39]The Sinister House of Secret Love #2 (Jan. 1972), one ofDC Comics' line of extra-length, 48-page comics, specifically used the phrase "a graphic novel of Gothic terror" on its cover.[41]
The term "graphic novel" began to grow in popularity months after it appeared on the cover of thetrade paperback edition (though not thehardcover edition) ofWill Eisner'sA Contract with God (October 1978). This collection ofshort stories was a mature, complex work focusing on the lives of ordinary people in the real world based on Eisner's own experiences.[42]
One scholar used graphic novels to introduce the concept of graphiation, the theory that the entire personality of an artist is visible through his or her visual representation of a certain character, setting, event, or object in a novel, and can work as a means to examine and analyze drawing style.[43]
Even though Eisner'sA Contract with God was published in 1978 by a smaller company, Baronet Press, it took Eisner over a year to find a publishing house that would allow his work to reach the mass market.[44] In its introduction, Eisner cited Lynd Ward's 1930s woodcuts as an inspiration.[45]
The critical and commercial success ofA Contract with God helped to establish the term "graphic novel" in common usage, and many sources have incorrectly credited Eisner with being the first to use it. These included theTime magazine website in 2003, which said in its correction: "Eisner acknowledges that the term 'graphic novel' had been coined prior to his book. But, he says, 'I had not known at the time that someone had used that term before'. Nor does he take credit for creating the first graphic book".[46]
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One of the earliest contemporaneous applications of the term post-Eisner came in 1979, whenBlackmark's sequel—published a year afterA Contract with God though written and drawn in the early 1970s—was labeled a "graphic novel" on the cover of Marvel Comics' black-and-white comics magazineMarvel Preview #17 (Winter 1979), whereBlackmark: The Mind Demons premiered: its 117-page contents remained intact, but its panel-layout reconfigured to fit 62 pages.[citation needed]
Following this, Marvel from 1982 to 1988 published theMarvel Graphic Novel line of 10" × 7" trade paperbacks—although numbering them like comic books, from #1 (Jim Starlin'sThe Death of Captain Marvel) to #35 (Dennis O'Neil,Mike Kaluta, andRuss Heath'sHitler's Astrologer, starring the radio andpulp fiction character theShadow, and released in hardcover). Marvel commissioned original graphic novels from such creators asJohn Byrne,J. M. DeMatteis,Steve Gerber, graphic-novel pioneer McGregor,Frank Miller,Bill Sienkiewicz,Walt Simonson,Charles Vess, andBernie Wrightson. While most of these starred Marvelsuperheroes, others, such asRick Veitch'sHeartburst featured original SF/fantasy characters; others still, such asJohn J. Muth'sDracula, featured adaptations of literary stories or characters; and one,Sam Glanzman'sA Sailor's Story, was a true-life,World War IInaval tale.[47]
CartoonistArt Spiegelman'sPulitzer Prize-winningMaus (1980-91), helped establish both the term and the concept of graphic novels in the minds of the mainstream public.[48] TwoDC Comics book reprints of self-contained miniseries did likewise, though they were not originally published as graphic novels:Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), a collection of Frank Miller's four-part comic-book series featuring an older Batman faced with the problems of a dystopian future; andWatchmen (1986-1987), a collection ofAlan Moore andDave Gibbons' 12-issuelimited series in which Moore notes he "set out to explore, amongst other things, the dynamics of power in a post-Hiroshima world".[49] These works and others were reviewed in newspapers and magazines, leading to increased coverage.[50] Sales of graphic novels increased, withBatman: The Dark Knight Returns, for example, lasting 40 weeks on a UK best-seller list.[51]
In India, the graphic novelBhimayana (2011) has been studied as an example of how the form can move beyond comics into a serious literary genre that addressescaste and social justice.[52]
Outside North America, Eisner'sA Contract with God and Spiegelman'sMaus led to the popularization of the expression "graphic novel" as well.[53] Until then, most European countries used neutral, descriptive terminology that referred to the form of the medium, not the contents or the publishing form. In Francophone Europe for example, the expressionbandes dessinées — which literally translates as "drawn strips" – is used, while the termsstripverhaal ("strip story") andtegneserie ("drawn series") are used by the Dutch/Flemish and Scandinavians respectively.[54] Europeancomics studies scholars have observed that Americans originally usedgraphic novel for everything that deviated from their standard,32-page comic book format, meaning that all larger-sized, longer Franco-Belgiancomic albums, regardless of their contents, fell under the heading.[citation needed]
Writer-artistBryan Talbot claims that the first collection of hisThe Adventures of Luther Arkwright, published byProutt in 1982, was the first British graphic novel.[55]
American comic critics have occasionally referred to European graphic novels as "Euro-comics",[56] and attempts were made in the late 1980s to cross-fertilize the American market with these works. American publishersCatalan Communications andNBM Publishing released translated titles, predominantly from the backlog catalogs ofCasterman andLes Humanoïdes Associés.
“As Leigh Gilmore explains, autobiography ‘draws its authority less from its resemblance to real life than from its proximity to discourses of truth and identity, less from reference or mimesis than from the cultural power of truth telling’ ”[57] Maus was the first major autobiographical graphic novel telling the story of what life was like during the Holocaust. Other popular autobiographical graphic novels are Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. Persepolis is about Satrapi growing up during the Iranian Revolution; it's a book telling her story but also what all the Iranians went through during this violent time in their history. Fun Home is a book dealing with the author's complicated relationship with her father and both her and her father coming out. Autobiographical stories always vary because people have so many different experiences and no two stories are the same.[57][58]
Some in the comics community have objected to the termgraphic novel on the grounds that it is unnecessary, or that its usage has been corrupted by commercial interests.Watchmen writerAlan Moore believes:
It's a marketing term... that I never had any sympathy with. The term 'comic' does just as well for me ... The problem is that 'graphic novel' just came to mean 'expensive comic book' and so what you'd get is people like DC Comics or Marvel Comics—because 'graphic novels' were getting some attention, they'd stick six issues of whatever worthless piece of crap they happened to be publishing lately under a glossy cover and call itTheShe-Hulk Graphic Novel ..."[59]
Glen Weldon, author and cultural critic, writes:
It's a perfect time to retire terms like "graphic novel" and "sequential art", which piggyback on the language of other, wholly separate mediums. What's more, both terms have their roots in the need to dissemble and justify, thus both exude a sense of desperation, a gnawing hunger to be accepted.[60]
Author Daniel Raeburn wrote: "I snicker at theneologism first for its insecure pretension - the literary equivalent of calling agarbage man a 'sanitation engineer' - and second because a 'graphic novel' is in fact the very thing it is ashamed to admit: a comic book, rather than a comic pamphlet or comic magazine".[61]
WriterNeil Gaiman, responding to a claim that he does not write comic books but graphic novels, said the commenter "meant it as a compliment, I suppose. But all of a sudden I felt like someone who'd been informed that she wasn't actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening".[62]
Responding to writerDouglas Wolk's quip that the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book is "the binding",Bone creatorJeff Smith said: "I kind of like that answer. Because 'graphic novel' ... I don't like that name. It's trying too hard. It is a comic book. But there is a difference. And the difference is, a graphic novel is a novel in the sense that there is a beginning, a middle and an end".[63]The Times writerGiles Coren said: "To call them graphic novels is to presume that the novel is in some way 'higher' than the karmicbwurk (comic book), and that only by being thought of as a sort of novel can it be understood as an art form".[64]
Some alternative cartoonists have coined their own terms for extended comics narratives. The cover ofDaniel Clowes'Ice Haven (2001) refers to the book as "a comic-strip novel", with Clowes having noted that he "never saw anything wrong with the comic book".[65] The cover ofCraig Thompson'sBlankets calls it "an illustrated novel".[66]
... le caricaturiste Emmanuel Poiré, plus connu sous le pseudonyme de Caran d'Ache (1858-1909). Il s'exprimait ainsi dans une lettre adressée le 20 juillet 1894 à l'éditeur duFigaro ... L'ouvrage n'a jamais été publié, Caran d'Ache l'ayant laissé inachevé pour une raison inconnue. Mais ... puisque ce sont près d'une centaine de pages complètes (format H 20,4 x 12,5 cm) qui figurent dans le lot proposé au musée. / ... cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré, better known under the pseudonym Caran d'Ache (1858-1909). He was speaking in a letter July 20, 1894, to the editor ofLe Figaro ... The book was never published, Caran d'Ache having left it unfinished for unknown reasons. But ... almost a hundred full pages (format 20.4 x H 12.5 cm) are contained in the lot proposed for the museum.
[T]here were real character arcs inSpider-Man and theFantastic Four [comics] over time. But ...Panther's Rage is the first comic that was created from start to finish as a complete novel. Running in two years' issues ofJungle Action (#s 6 through 18),Panther's Rage is a 200-page novel....
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