DEFINITIONS FROM NO FLYING NO TIGHTS. Comics. Comic Books. Comic Strip. Comix. Graphic Novel

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1 DEFINITIONS FROM NO FLYING NO TIGHTS Comics When we discuss comics on this site, it is an umbrella terms. Cartoons, comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels are all comics, and may be referred to as such in discussion or in postings. Comics are presented in a particular format, called sequential art, and the most defining different between the above list is length: 1 panel for cartoons (think the New Yorker); 3-4 panels for a comic strip; 30 or so pages for a comic book; and anywhere from 50 to 1,000 pages for a graphic novel. Comic Books Comic books are the periodicals of the comics world. Most comics books are around 30 pages long, and include advertising as well as the continuing storyline. Comic books are by nature serial, and usually tell a continuing story from issue to issue. Today, most comic books cost around $3.99 US, and have become most popular among collectors of comics (and therefore adults) rather than the way readers first discover the format (as they did when comic books were available everywhere, from the grocery store to the dime store.) Comic Strip Comic strips are generally what we see in newspapers and, today, online. Comic strips have all the trademark elements of sequential art: art, text, panels, text bubbles, and sound effects. They are generally only three or four panels long, often humorous, and are intended to be read in one sitting. Most do not have overarching stories -- they may have repeating characters or long-standing jokes, but they are not attempting to convey an actual story arc. Comix This term grew out of the underground comics scene, and was coined to separate what was being created from the mainstream comics world. Comix were for adults, were decidedly not for children, and were more likely to have explicit content. Many artists who emerged from underground comics, like Art Spiegelman and R. Crumb, still use the term, though today's fans and creators do not use it consistently. Graphic Novel Graphic novels are tales told in the format of sequential art, or comics, and are intended to tell a longer story than either a comic book or a comic strip. The term graphic novel was popularized by Will Eisner, the grand old man of US comics, when he presented his stand-alone long work, A Contract with God, as a graphic novel. Graphic novels can range in length from 50 pages to thousands, but they are always intent on telling a longer story arc. In the comics world, you may hear the world trade paperback or collected edition, and in the independent comics world people use graphica or graphic album. Graphic novels may be collected from serials (as are most superhero stories, for example, and most manga) but they may also be created as a graphic novel. Many people may be involved in creating a graphic novel, or it may be done by one creator who both writes and illustrates the story. Graphic novel has become the term accepted in the mainstream,

2 so it is the one we use. Some folks get annoyed at the fact that the novel part of the name indicates all graphic novels are fiction, which is certainly not true, but for now, it's the name that has stuck. Independent Comics Aside from the "Big Two", Marvel and DC, there are a lot of smaller, specialized publishers in the comics world. The biggest is Dark Horse, a publisher that split off from the mainstream in order to publish more literary and risque series and artists. Dark Horse remains one of the largest independent publishers, and they have managed to maintain their reputation for edgy and innovative work. Other notable independent publishers include Fantagraphics, Slave Labor Graphics, Oni Press, Top Shelf, Drawn & Quarterly, IDW, Gemstone, Last Gasp and NBM. In the world of manga, independent manga companies would include Dark Horse, UDON, Seven Seas, and DMP. All of these publishers tend to have a reputation for putting out a particular style or kind of book. NBM is best known for its literary adaptations, while Slave Labor and Drawn and Quarterly are known for giving independent creators a voice. Mainstream comics Mainstream comics publishers are the dominant publishers in the United States. The most obvious are DC Comics (who publish Batman, Superman, and Justice League comics) and Marvel (who publish Spider-Man, The X-Men, and all related titles.) Both have long histories in the industry, and both make their primary money off of the characters. Think of them as the big corporations of the comics industry, akin to Walmart or Barnes and Noble. They are still enormously popular, especially for the series containing their long-standing favorite characters, although in recent years the decline in comic book sales (rather than graphic novels) has cut into their business, as well as the prevalence of illegal online availability of their print comics. They are criticized for going for the lowest common denominator and being conservative in terms of topics addressed. Manga Manga is the Japanese word for print comics. Although manga has associated with a lot of ideas -- the "bigeyed" Japanese art style, the giant robots, the schoolgirls, and higher level of sex and violence -- manga only means comics. In Japan, due to the national culture and history of comics, manga are created for every audience, age range, and sensibility, so there are comics intended for kids as well as comics intended for adults. The confusion often arises from people seeing adult manga and being confused as to how it could be intended for children, and thus the stereotype of manga being full of sex and violence is created. Related to manga, you may also here anime: see the definition of anime. Sequential art Sequential art is the academic title for the format of comics. According to Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics, sequential art is "a story told through the use of juxtaposed words and pictures in sequence." The most recognizable parts of sequential art that set it apart are the panels, text bubbles, and sound effects that integrate the written text and the artwork or images. Underground comics

3 Underground comics began to appear in the late 1960s, and are related very much to that era's hippie and counterculture slant. Noteworthy contributions include Mr. Natural by R. Crumb, American Splendor by Harvey Pekar, and Funny Animals, a periodical which included the first sequence of Art Speigelman's Maus. See also comix. What are comics? For most readers out there, it's not a great stretch to figure out what comics are. The Sunday paper is full of comic strips, from Garfield to Zits, and there are numerous collections out there in book format, from the beloved Calvin and Hobbes collections to Peanuts. For a super-short history: comics as we recognize them started just before the turn of the 20th century. They continued to grow in scope and format until the 1938, when Superman first appeared in Action Comics and the so-called Golden Age of comics began. From that point on, comics and comic books have been circulating all over the world. For more detail on the history of comics, check out The Comic Page. The key to comics is the format. Think about what comics look like on the page -- sequential boxes of drawing, text bubbles to represent speech, squiggly lines (called motion lines) to indicate movement. For the best description of comic art I've found, check out Scott McCloud's excellent book, Understanding Comics. His rather academic definition of comics is this: "...juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer." The keys here are images in sequence on the page designed to tell a story. That story might be a three panel joke and it might be a three hundred page epic. From my subjective point of view, comics represent something between traditional art, screenplays, and films -- they're visual like art and film, but they are full of dialogue and short description like screenplays. The difference between film and comics is what indicates the separation -- in film, the images are displayed in order in the same space, while in comics the images are displayed in order side by side. As Mr. McCloud puts it, space does for comics what time does for film. Comics include the short strips you see in the newspaper -- maybe 3 or 4 panels long, usually telling a very short plot or joke. Comics tend to be either black and white or in solid colors. Comic books are longer -- usually around 32 pages long, but are told in that familiar format of panels and text bubbles. Comic book art tends to be more complex than that of the newspaper comics -- it often contains vivid colors and subtle shading, although every comic is unique to the artists involved. What are graphic novels? Graphic novels, the focus of this site, take the whole storytelling format one step further. The shortest definition of a graphic novel is this: a book-length comic. It's that simple. Artists and writers create longer plots, ranging from 100 to over 300 pages worth of work, all in the comic art format. As with comic books, they are often quite complex in terms of artwork and the layouts get more adventurous.

4 Another term you might hear tossed around is trade paperback, or TPB. This refers to a selection of comic books bound into one, sturdier paperback book. They tend to be the same size as graphic novels and often draw together one plot line from acomic book series. In order not to confuse too many people, I have included some trade paperbacks with the one-shot graphic novels. Why is Maus a graphic novel? Basically, because it's book-length -- it is a longer story than either a comic strip or comic books contains. Now, this can be a sticky definition, as Maus, for example, was published first as a comic book series, and then collected into two bound volumes. So you might say it's current form is a graphic novel, but it was also previously a comic book. In the end, everything really is comics -- these are just terms that have been adopted by the general public to refer to the kind of comic they're reading. There is also sometimes the implication that a graphic novel is somehow better, or more literary, than a comic book or a collection of comic strips. This is not particularly true -- this often is a misunderstanding about the term. For this site, graphic novel just means a difference in length, not a judgment of quality. What is manga? Manga is the Japanese word print comics. Examples include Naruto and Fruits Basket. Japan produces an impressive array of comics and graphic novels for everyone from children to adults. There are many subgenres of manga aimed at specific audiences or for partiuclar age groups. There is a general style to mangathat new readers often reference -- exaggerated eyes and simplified features, simple outlines -- but in truth manga also varies the same way that American comics do. Check out my book Understanding Manga and Anime for more information on this amazing subset of comics -- there are good reasons this subformat is taking over the world! How can I show the naysayers out there that comics and graphic novels are worth reading? A few statistics and comments: In terms of literacy, graphic novels and comics books typically have vocabulary that's twice as complex as what's in a children's chapter book and is three times as complex as when adults have a conversation with children. This is from Stephen Krashen's The Power of Reading. Readers are able to read one full grade level higher in graphic novels than when they read prose because of the support the images provide in understanding the story. Seeing literary devices in comics, including flashbacks, point of view, and such played out in visuals leads readers to see more clearly the same devices used in prose literature and critique how they are used.

5 Graphic novels and manga require a complex, active literacy to read (reading in between the panels) requiring readers to do a lot of work to create the story from its component parts -- see Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics for more info. Remember, too, that graphic novels (and comics, and manga) are not meant to replace books or any other format. Anyone who's read a book and a graphic novel knows the experience is very different in each medium. It's another way to get a story, and it's not better or worse than any other mode of storytelling.