Comments on: comic books the new novel?

comic books the new novel?

Grod — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:29:34 -0800

Are ~~comic books~~er...I mean Graphic Novels the new novel?

By: inksyndicate

inksyndicate — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:31:26 -0800

Didn't everyone ask this like ten years ago?

By: WolfDaddy

WolfDaddy — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:32:22 -0800

I'm not afraid to put my TPB copies of The Sandman out on my bookshelf, if that's what you mean.

By: PenDevil

PenDevil — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:36:45 -0800

Well considering the financial slump the comic industry has going through for the past 5 years then no.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:44:25 -0800

Are Bazooka Joe wrappers the new Classics Illustrated?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:49:18 -0800

No.

By: Grod

Grod — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:49:47 -0800

Nah, but maybe the Garbage Pail Kids are.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:50:06 -0800

also, comics cost way to much damn money. $3 for 5 minutes of entertainment? yeah right.

By: Grod

Grod — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:54:38 -0800

So, tell me, did anyone who has commented read the article? We're talking “Graphic Novels”, they're longer. Think Maus, think Batman: The Dark Night Returns.

By: tdismukes

tdismukes — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 09:03:46 -0800

It's a pretty good article, but how in the world can someone write that many words on the history of the form without mentioning Will Eisner?

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 09:12:08 -0800

because the article's focus is on currently active creators? I know Eisner's alive and kicking, but of the folks the article highlights, Spiegleman's the least currently-active, and he's actually been working. It's only the fabulous diversity of American media outlets that prevented our seeing his recent stuff until Eggers and Ware sampled it for us recently. I actually wanted to hear more about Pekar - but then, I have a selfish reason for that, which must remain discreetly held.

By: Evstar

Evstar — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 09:17:12 -0800

By: Faze

Faze — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 09:17:46 -0800

The besetting sin of "graphic novel" comics is padding. That is, when the artist does panel after panel after panel that is nearly identical. Sometimes it is done to support a dialogue, in which case it is simply a bad directorial choice. Sometimes it is supposed to give incredible significance to some small variation between panels. Sometimes is a deliberate pacing device. In all cases, it more or less fails. Robert Crumb used to do this repeated-panels-with-small-variations bit to great effect, but then Crumb did everything to great effect.

By: freebird

freebird — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 09:48:00 -0800

I'd consider having enjoyed "The Watchmen" to be about as valid a measure of being well-read as, say: Jane Austen, Patrick O'Brien, or the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy. Less so than Gravity's Rainbow or Ulysses, more so than Tom Clancy, Candace Bushnell, or J.D. Salinger. In other words, novels run a wide range of cultural acceptance and creative worth, along many many axes. So I find the question ill-posed.

By: muckster

muckster — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 09:57:06 -0800

Nothing's the new anything, but there is some great work being done in comics. The new issue of McSweeney's, mentioned in the article, is edited by Chris Ware and presents a handsome overview. Ware's Jimmy Corrigan is absolutely brilliant, gorgeous, and surprisingly moving--a must-read if you're at all interested in the form, as is all of Clowes' work. I've also enjoyed Alan Moore's Promethea lately, a more traditionally superhero-influenced book that turns into a very trippy lesson in mysticism and is about to reach its conclusion. There's a lot of great stuff out there to be explored--but is anybody still truly dismissing comic books altogether? I thought that fight was won when Spiegelman won his Pulitzer.

By: dagnyscott

dagnyscott — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:05:49 -0800

Actually, the article SHOULD have mentioned Eisner because it incorrectly attributed the term "sequential art" to Scott McLoud [sic]. That's the problem with these articles, they all come from someone well-versed in mainstream literature who discovers something like Maus and suddenly thinks he's qualified to write on the subject.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:08:50 -0800

The thing is Grod, that graphic novels still cost exponentially more money than regularl novels. I've made several efforts to get better aquainted with the medium but I couldn't afford popping out $50 CND for a new novel every week it was costing me, despite my love for the art. Maybe it's just where I'm shopping? Do what I do (granted, one of my jobs is at a book store). Order the ones you want to read, then read them. If you like them, buy them and read them again, if you don't, leave them on the shelf. The cost may come down on some mainstream books now that B&N has started reprinting graphic novels at discounted rates (only Marvel so far).

By: biffa

biffa — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:17:24 -0800

By: o2b

o2b — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:21:25 -0800

Here's a great AskMe thread about graphic novels.

By: effugas

effugas — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 11:01:37 -0800

Well, one major thing that Graphic Novels have made me do is completely lose interest in comic books. Not that I was ever hugely into them, but I actively go out of my way now not to even peruse them until they're bound up nicely in a single collection for me to read in a single sitting. If comic books are chapters, I want complete books.

By: dame

dame — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 12:27:50 -0800

No. Pictures and words communicate differently. Novels have more words.

By: jpburns

jpburns — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 12:31:33 -0800

Blatant self-link: I recently did a ~~comic~~ graphic novel... (my first... be gentle with me...)

By: mikeyb

mikeyb — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 12:43:05 -0800

Chris Ware is a genius.

By: fizz-ed

fizz-ed — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 13:30:17 -0800

The only thing that bothers me about this is the snobbery of some of the new graphic novel readers - those who can't come to terms with the fact that they are reading comics, and feel the need to elevate them to some higher level of importance. As though comics and graphic novels are in no way related. I worked at a bookstore for 5 years and was one day chewed out by a snooty customer because we had shelved Maus in the comics section (the comics section was divided into two sections - humour/sunday funnies and graphic novels). This customer stated that Maus was literature and had no business being in the comics section. I've been a comic reader my entire life. I agree that Maus is a great and a very important book (well, 2 books), but I can't divorce it from being a comic. As a shopper, I look for my comics/graphic novels in the comics section. That's where they should be. This woman, however, did not want to have to be forced to shop out of the comic section and asked that in future we shelve Maus in history. I just bring this up because she wasn't the only person. There seems to be a new breed of graphic novel readers who would not be caught dead reading a comic.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 14:29:06 -0800

There seems to be a new breed of graphic novel readers who would not be caught dead reading a comic. My guess is that those people will give up on graphic novels once the attention is off them.

By: Satapher

Satapher — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 15:37:24 -0800

no new novels will be written from this point on

By: jpburns

jpburns — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 16:46:55 -0800

I just finished a book on the Voltaire of comic books, Jack Kirby.

By: bingo

bingo — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:07:08 -0800

Not that everyone who bothered to read this thread didn't know about it already, but Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics talks about this with a great deal of erudition (and in comic-book form, too).

By: jpburns

jpburns — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:50:38 -0800

... and the follow-up, Reinventing Comics...

By: Grod

Grod — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 18:30:09 -0800

jpburns, I like. Question, did you do that on the computer (wacom + photoshop or painter or something?) or draw and scan?

By: OntologicalPuppy

OntologicalPuppy — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 23:35:13 -0800

Anyone who's in to graphic novels/independent comics/alternative forms of media should check out the ganzfeld. I own all of the volumes so far, and can't wait for the next. The publishers, PictureBox, Inc. are responsible for the new Wilco book and cover art on the new album, A Ghost Is Born.

By: jpburns

jpburns — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 04:15:21 -0800

Question, did you do that on the computer (wacom + photoshop or painter or something? ) or draw and scan? Both. I drew it in pencil, then scanned it, adjusted it, and colored it in the computer. The original was laid out as a traditional comic book, and was later cut apart to make the web version. Another short work I did is here.

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 15:33:33 -0800

fizz-ed: I don't have personal experience with the attitude you mention, but your conception of it is quite widespread in the comics community. Peter Bagge went on about it at annoyed, amusing length when I interviewed him in December. I too note effugas's reluctance to pick up the 'pamphlets,' as they are known.