TPB vs. comic book vs. graphic novel. Hooboy. This could turn into a real can of worms...

OK, a little history. By his own account (and while he was no Stan Lee, he wasn't above self-mythologizing on occasion), in the early '70s, Will Eisner was attempting to interest traditional book publishers in publishing his comic work. He was having trouble, because at the time, the term "comic book" carried a stigma and had definite associations with juvenile, disposable entertainment. Book publishers weren't interested in publishing comic books. So Eisner created the term "graphic novel" to basically trick publishers he was pitching to into thinking they were looking at something other than a comic. The term's creation was, as far as I can tell, 100% marketing-driven, with no alteration to the work it was initially used to describe (which admittedly was aimed at a more mature audience than the 12-year old boy who was the stereotypical North American comic reader at that time.)

There has been some dispute over who coined the term first, and experiments in longer-form, more mature comic storytelling had taken place prior to this, most notably by Gil Kane, IMO. But as far as I can tell, this is the origin of the term (if not the format) that's most widely accepted by those who care about such things.

The late '70s and early '80s were a vibrant time for the North American comics scene, esp. after the establishment of the comic book direct market, which sold comics to comic-specific retailers on a non-returnable basis, lessening some of the risk on the publishing side and allowing some self-publishers to break into the edges of traditional comics readers' awareness (Dave Sim's CEREBUS, Wendy and Richard Pini's ELFQUEST.)

The format of the trade paperback became more commonly used for comic material around this time, as creators took advantage of new possibilities available in terms of formatting and creator ownership, which until the mid-'70s, possibly a bit later, was an absolutely unthinkable arrangement for the major superhero publishers and the bulk of the mainstream creators of the time. I don't believe work for hire came into existence as a legal copyright term until '76 or so, but the arrangement was pretty much assumed by everyone, especially the publishers.

With the direct market taking some of the risk out of the equation on the smaller publishers' side (sales through the DM were made with no risk of returns, while comics available on newsstands reportedly had around 2/3s of their entire print runs returned/pulped. So the smaller publishers couldn't offer as much of a page rate as the majors, many of them did allow for creator ownership and/or participation (which few considered of much value at the time.)

At the same time, Heavy Metal began publishing in North America, which I imagined opened some peoples' eyes to the European comic tradition, which was to publish long-form stories in serialized form, with the intent ultimately being to collect it all in a more permanent format.

Somewhere along the way, the term "graphic novel" gained some traction as a sales tool, often one that implied more mature content. If that was ever the actual case, it didn't last long, as Marvel and DC began publishing 48-64 page stories in an 8x11 format, some of which (Elric, Killraven) were for mature readers, some of which (Emperor Doom, The New Mutants) were basically slightly larger versions of the superhero adventure fare they were traditionally known for.

From where I stand, when the direct market started accepting the term for ANY 48+ page comic story in a trade paperback format, it lost any legitimacy it might have had as a description for a long-form comic story with more mature themes.

Continued.

But the term hung on regardless, as a marketing term if nothing else. Around that time, the term graphic novel might be used to describe a 600 page volume of Cerebus to any comic that had a spine instead of saddle-stitching.

The more literary-minded artcomix creator community at some point developed a much more specific meaning for the term. For that faction, it was properly used to describe long-form comics stories (possibly even those released in serial, saddle-stitched formats)--to my (limited) knowledge, Art Spiegelman's MAUS was the poster child for that definition of the graphic novel.

I might not have as big an issue with the term if the artcomix crowd definition was commonly accepted by the majority. But it isn't, and I don't think it ever has been--if it was, it certainly wasn't after Hollywood became interested in "graphic novels", most of which used the term as it was originally intended, as a marketing tool to people who don't like to think they're reading comic books, namely Hollywood producers.

So, my stand on the whole thing is that, if anything that's a comic can be defined as a graphic novel (and as I alluded to in an earlier post comment, I have heard of people defining individual comic strips that way), then the term is effectively interchangeable with comic books. I'm comfortable with calling a spade a spade; to me, "graphic novel" smacks of a pretension few creators have actually earned.

There are several notable creators who maintain there is, or at least ought to be, some substantive difference between the term comic book and graphic novel (FROM HELL artist Eddie Campbell, IIRC PERSEPOLIS creator Marjane Satrapi). My interpretation of their argument is that their work is not well-served sitting on the same shelf as Batman and Lady Death, that their is a material difference in intent, subject matter, and visual styles between what they'd like to define as graphic novels and what they'd like to define as comic books.

To me, creators trying to define their comic work as graphic novels are akin to Margaret Atwood claiming she doesn't write science fiction. They don't want their work tarred with the same brush as "lower" work. Again, it's pretentious, and again, it's an argument they've lost in practice if not in theory, as the majority still basically use comic book and graphic novel interchangeably.

Continued again.

Differences between Campbell's autobiographical work and, say, Cowboys & Aliens absolutely do exist, and I believe they ought to be recognized. In comic shops, the generally are; in bookstores, it's another story. Most North American bookstores perceive "graphic novels" not as a medium but as a genre, or at least they shelve them that way, which does a disservice to all the books in the section, which ought to, at minimum, be shelved by genre inside the graphic novel section, if not put on the shelves in the appropriate genre section of the store with prose novels. And that's assuming they even have graphic novel sections--there was a smaller franchise outlet locally that shelved all graphic novels in the science fiction section, including Persepolis.

But as far as I'm concerned, that's something to be dealt with as a genre problem, while it seems some want to make a distinction between comics and graphic novels that doesn't exist. I've never heard anyone argue that Casablanca, Silence of the Lambs, and Dude, Where's My Car? are all films. I've gotten into arguments over whether From Hell, Archie, and Batman are all comics.

While I'm not above using the term graphic novel to sell my books, for myself I prefer to distinguish between formats rather than subject matter. The traditional 32 page pamphlet is a comic book; a trade paperback is, well a trade paperback, if I'm feeling really officious I might distinguish between a trade paperback collection of material previous published in serial form vs. a story that was designed solely as a single storytelling unit; hardcovers work the same way.

While I'd rather those were the accepted definitions, because they more or less accurately define material based on objective format considerations, I'm well aware that for the general public has been trained to see comic books as pamphlets and/or kids stuff and graphic novels as something else. It's not accurate, IMO, but it's effectively the concensus opinion at this point.

Finally, in my own defence, I did mention that the reasons for my preference for TPB to graphic novel were too boring to get into, but you asked...

When I told my local comic book shop I was interested in working with an artist to adapt an idea to comic book format, they suggested I read Drawing Words and Writing Pictures by Jessica Abel.

Who, I should add, once drew me.

Correction: "...that Casablanca, Silence of the Lambs, and Dude, Where's My Car? are NOT all films."

Here's my rant about GN vs TBP I wrote a few years back.

http://on-the-scene.blogspot.com/2008/07/did-you-know.html

In short -- Graphic Novel is a marketing gimmick to try and make comicbooks sound more literary.

Books worth checking out if you're interested in writing comics:

-for a very basic description of how the medium works, Scott McCloud's UNDERSTANDING COMICS

-for more detailed exploration of how comics work, Will Eisner's COMICS AND SEQUENTIAL ART and GRAPHIC STORYTELLING

-for examples of different writing styles, PANEL ONE and PANEL TWO from About Comics, books that feature comic scripts from a variety of established talent. If nothing else, the reader will discover that, unlike screenwriting, there is no such thing as a standard script format in comics. There are also many examples of professional scripts online these days.

-I've heard good things about THE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO CREATING A GRAPHIC NOVEL, THE DC COMICS GUIDE TO WRITING COMICS, Peter David's book on writing comics, the name of which escapes me at the moment, and WRITING PICTURES, DRAWING WORDS, but I can't recall reading any of them personally.

-For a less nuts and bolts, more philosophical treatise on the subject, ALAN MOORE'S WRITING FOR COMICS

-Editor Lee Nordling has a series of three articles floating around online on the specific subject of how to pitch comics, something that a lot of the other How-To books seem to ignore

-Finally, one of the most valuable books I've ever read relative to comics writing is David Mamet's ON DIRECTING FILM. Written with a different medium in mind, Mamet's emphasis on juxtaposition of a minimum number of uninflected images to tell a story visually is, thanks to the space limitations inherent in the medium, something would-be comics writers would do well to consider.

That www.projectfanyboy.com link is almost all Lee Nordling stuff.

He did a semester workshop type thing and all his "classes" are posted there.

Lee's 3 parter on pitching and logline construction is priceless. It used to have a home on the Platinum webpage. Not sure if it still does.

Thank you, James!! What a great resource. Typo in link, correct url is: forums.projectfanboy.com.