From: Walker Evans <wlevans_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:10:41 -0500

 

Interesting perspective, Alison! There's also a sizable contingent (usually long-time comics readers, though not always) who find the term "graphic novel" unnecessarily pretentious and get turned off by people's desire to artistically legitimize book-length comics like Fun Home by distancing them from the term "comic."

I like the Scott McCloud approach personally. I think it's necessary to draw that distinction between content and format, especially as comics become more popular, diverse, and mainstream. It's true that the term "comics" can evoke the weekly, disposable kind of comics that you mentioned (comic strips), but it's also an extremely recognizable term and automatically makes people think of a series of pictures with talk bubbles and whatnot. The terms "graphic novel" and "sequential art" are less clear. From the librarian's perspective, clarity and usability of the collection are paramount. I'd rather see comics labeled as "comics," and just allow the public perception of them as "low art" to catch up to the actual state of the genre.

Walker
Received on Tue 19 Oct 2010 02:10:41 PM CDT