Art Spiegelman: Don’t call comics ‘graphic novels’
By Marjorie Kehe | 03.17.09
Speaking to “a gaggle of British adult comic-book fans” at London’s Institute for Contemporary Arts, Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book artist Art Spiegelman told his audience that he loves comic books but hates the term “graphic novels” because he finds it misleading.
“I’m called the father of the modern graphic novel. If that’s true, I want a blood test,” the Economist reports that he said. “ ‘Graphic novel’ sounds more respectable, but I prefer ‘comics’ because it credits the medium. [‘Comics’] is a dumb word, but that’s what they are.”
Spiegelman was at the Institute for Contemporary Arts to promote the new edition of his 1978 illustrated memoir, “Breakdowns: A Portrait of the Artist as Young %@&*!”
The Swedish-born author of “Maus” also discussed some of his more controversial images and, according to the Economist, expressed his “undying love for comic art” and “for the ways in which it allows an artist to communicate directly, no matter how bizarre the message.”
“Comics,” Spiegelman told his listeners, “should be whatever you want them to be.”
Comments
2. Marc Pollitt | 03.17.09
I applaud Spiegelman for decrying the term “graphic novel” as being misleading. Novels are LONG prose narratives, whereas comics are, well, comics.
However, if ALL of the so-called graphic novels in the comics world were plot, character, and dialogue driven narratives, like Spiegelman’s Maus books, I really would not be bothered by the monniker. Unfortunately, “graphic novel” has been expanded to include a wide variety of splash-page-intensive, fight-dominated commonplace tales in the comics medium, with the sole distinguishing features being (1) they have a retail price much higher than a normal comic book; (2) they have been published with a perfect-bound (flat-edged, like a paperback book) spine or in a hardcover edition; and (3) they’re not from Japan or based on Japanese comics, because those books are always separately ghettoized with the term “manga.”
Still, does it really MATTER? The only people who really care about whether they are called graphic novels are award-giving associations that need to discern between long and short comic forms and retail bookstores that need to put up a sign that tells people where to find their Watchmen fix. I teach 12th grade high school English and I require book reports, but just calling a comic book a “graphic novel” does NOT make it a novel in my dictionary. They’re ALL comics–some are just longer (and some better) than others, and I have managed to figure out the difference without much trouble. And, besides, “graphic novel” sounds much cooler than “honkin’ big comic book.”
(by the way–I have somewhere around 6,000 prose books and 10,000 comic books in my personal collection, and I even have both volumes of Mr. Spiegelman’s Maus in graphic novel format)
3. Nick Sedillos | 03.17.09
@ Ron Scheurer: Sticky notes work great for annotating comics (even graphic novels!). There are lots of significant differences between the two media but that’s not one of them, especially if you’re talking about electronic books.
4. kevin m | 03.19.09
The term graphic novel is more appropriate for an evolutionary form that Maus was clearly predicts, but was still not fitting as a label. Watchmen, that descends from a limited run comic series, is just that, it is not a graphic novel, it’s a compendium. No one has yet built the full-on text that defines the species/genre. We are still waiting for it.
5. Torsten Adair | 03.19.09
Kevin M… By your reasoning, “Oliver Twist” is not a novel, either, as it was serialized first, then later collected.
Also comicbooks, comicstrips, single-panel cartoons, graphic novels… they are a MEDIUM, not a genre, just like television and sculpture are media. Call the medium “comics” and define the forms within as comicbooks, or graphic novels, or whatever it is. A haiku is different than an epic poem, but they are both poetry, and use similar techniques and critiques when analyzed. Comics are the same.
From Dictionary.com:
a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes.
While the term “graphic novel” predates Will Eisner’s use, he utilized the phrase in the 1970s so that publishers would differentiate it from “comic books”, which are typically monthly magazines or pamphlets.
Comics are literature. Like prose novels, some are highly disposable (go peruse a bestseller list from the 1950s and see how many titles you recognize). Some are well-written and become backlist.
For all educators: Comics, the real good ones, contain themes, styles, ideas, characters that are just as compelling as regular prose novels. Watchmen is an example. With the word and picture symbiosis, comics are an excellent tool for ESL students or reluctant readers. Hey, if English classes can teach Shakespeare (stage plays and poetry = media different than prose novels) as part of the curriculum, then why not comics? ESPECIALLY if it gets your students excited about the text and ideas? AND gives them something to which they can relate?
I don’t care what people call it, as long as they read.
6. Maddie | 03.24.09
Comics are considered by too many to be literary ghetto like soft science fiction and romance. Once you are place there it is hard to climb out. Call it something else and then you can stop seeing. This isn’t like a used car being called preowned. It’s a bit more serious than that.To be honest for once, I would like people to know that there is more to this genre than superheroes, acid fueled krumb like tomes, foreign works, and tragic yet quirky autobiographies. I don’t see graphic biographies with the graphic novels in the bookstore nowadays.
There is so much more and yet still writers and artists are reluctant to supply or expand upon this kind of content. Name change can do it good. It is that superficial.
P.S. Breakdowns was very entertaining, and I would recommend it to anyone. But will it be called a comic book? And on the subject of Maus. It is a good work, but did the polish have to be pigs?
7. Joe Girard | 04.05.09
There may very well exist an article describing a not-very-well-known artist or comics writer decrying the term ‘graphic novel’, but I’ve never read it, and I don’t expect I ever will. It’s more often well-established comics figureheads like Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and Art Spiegelman who are out there fighting the good fight. But I wonder if struggling artists, writers and publishing houses appreciate the conflict.
Sure, I think we’d all agree with Moore’s indictment of the term as a ‘marketing tool’ but what about comics, not to mention the publishing world en masse, has ever been very profitable? Excepting those at the very top. The reason that comics almost collapsed in the nineties is because of the supply-and-demand that a term like ‘comics’ creates for its readers. And for the image it puts in the minds of every parent who’s ever been asked, “Can I have five bucks to buy a comic book?”
Most people in this thread are referencing Watchmen as their go-to for a great piece of comics. Why? Why not Jens Harder’s entirely wordless ‘Leviathan’? Or Jeff Smith’s 1377-page epic masterpiece ‘Bone’? Or Alison Bechdel’s ‘tragicomic’ autobiography ‘Fun Home’? Which required more than just a dictionary at hand during the reading for me (there’s more literary and cultural allusions in Fun Home than any two novels put together; it’s staggering).
I guess it makes sense that you’d want to reference something that just came out as a movie and that a lot more people than your average comic-nut would recognize. But I think that at the heart of it is that most people don’t know the medium. And why should they? It’s not like Chapters carries more than a shelf and a half at the average location. It’s not like Coles has ever heard the term before. And it’s not like your average independent seller sees the profit in a medium that can’t get its act together in the definition of itself, fragmented into whatever genre the creators have self-applied (which is a bit of a lie; I’ve known a handful of small bookstores with a comics selection to put Chapters to shame). And it’s not like libraries put graphic novel displays outside the “Teen Zone” or “Teen Territory” or “Teen Haven” (actual terms employed by libraries I’ve worked in).
People have burned books due to their content, and museums have been vandalized and firebombed for the same reasons. People are obviously very passionate about these mediums. Put them together in a comic, and you’ve got a recipe for three groups of art-lovers coming together to hate or hold lofty any given piece of work. I’m not surprised that the issue of definition has come up. But if a definition isn’t settled upon, this petty argument could go on forever, eternally crippling the medium (although Alison Bechdel called the banning of Fun Home by a Missouri library for five months ‘an honour’ and ‘part of the evolution of the whole graphic-novel form’ despite passing on the term graphic novel for the book itself).
I find it ironic that the works that best support the idea of a graphic novel are penned by those most resistant to the idea. Neil Gaiman said that hearing his works being elevated to ‘graphic novel’ was like a ****** being told, “No, no, you’re more of a Lady of the Evening.” What I can’t get over in all of these comments, being made by these extraordinary creators, is that they evince, or at least suggest, a low opinion of their medium. Which is clearly not the case given that they’ve all devoted themselves to it. But there’s a carelessness in their words that effects the lives of people way further down the totem pole. I think a more laissez-faire attitude might be in order (ironic for me to say, passionate as I am). If we let the creators decide what their work should be called, I think the most appropriate examples will survive, and the inappropriate ones will die off.
Japan very clearly defines its comics, and as such they are read and enjoyed by no restriction in age, class, or gender. I love the word ‘manga’. Literally it means ‘whimsical pictures’. How great is that! Terms like shonen (manga aimed at male interests) and shojo (manga aimed at female interests) further help delineate genres. And there are classes of manga even further entrenched. Terminology and definition helped manga become easily accessible to various interests, and as such the industry is booming. Artists get to do whatever they want, and not feel pressured into meeting a certain rigid classification (ie. muscles and tights, or lurid subject matter) which is then promoted by a film industry that only wants to adapt examples of muscles and tights or lurid subject matter (ie. Marvel movies, and Sin City).
When Will Eisner tried on the terms graphic novel and sequential art, I think he was trying to move the West in a similar direction as Japan. Time will tell if we get there. And history will show who suffered.
In closing, here’s a funny story: at my old library (one of the biggest in Canada) we had a rack for the graphic novels that shows them all face-forward, making them look more attractive but nullifying the use of a dewy decimal system. So I decided it might be fun to separate the books by genre. First I made one shelf of fiction, and two shelves of non-fiction. Then, in the fiction section, I separated out all the usual genres (horror, romance, sci-fi, noir, war, etc.), and then I put all the superhero books together. In non-fiction I put together autobiographies, war-reporting, histories, how-tos, comic guides, etc.). Then I clearly labeled each shelf. Within a week the labels were removed and the books disorganized. We tried it again by author’s name. Same thing. We tried it again by dewey. Same thing.
And it wasn’t just the patrons. My higher-ups were offended by my project.
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1. Ron Scheurer | 03.17.09
The problem with Graphic Novels is that one cannot underline significant comments in them (assuming there are any) nor write in the margins. Comics are comics. Leave it at that instead of trying to elevate them by euphemistic wording to a class of literature they do not fit .