Graphic Novels
Graphic novels are one of the most popular and fastest growing types of literature on the market today. Graphic novel is a format that a story is presented, not a genre. Francisca Goldsmith in The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Graphic Novels defines them as being “book-length format containing sequential art narrative.” Eddie Campbell, author of the graphic novel Alec and the illustrator of the graphic novel From Hell believes that “graphic novel signifies a movement rather than a form…to take the form of a comic book, which has become an embarrassment, and to raise it to a more ambitious and meaningful level…forging a whole new art which will not be a slave to the arbitrary rules of an old one” (Gravett 9).
Graphic novels differ from comic strips which present a single idea, and that idea is often a joke or a gag, that is told through typically three to five panels. Comic strips present a single idea which is usually a joke or a gag that is revealed through several panels, usually between three to five panels. Comic books contain multipage and are typically multi-issue stories that are published as serials. Comic books are also different from graphic novels, as comic books are published as serials and are the work of multiple artists and writers who are employed by a studio, such as Marvel or DC Comics, as multipage and multi-issue stories. Graphic novels are a bounded narrative with a complete story arc (beginning, middle, and end) that encompass multiple genres and are designed for a wide range of readers at a wide range of ages. Graphic novels may be fiction or non-fiction, personal narratives, historical memoir, fantasy, horror, political satire, biographical accounts, adventure, science fiction, etc.
In the 1970s, the field of comic studies first appeared as an academic discipline. The following is a description of comic studies from the University of North Texas.
“Comics studies is a field of academic research focused on comics and sequential art, including comic books, comic strips, cartoons, graphic novels, animation, digital media, and film.
Comics studies can include the theory, history, philosophy, aesthetics, or cultural relevance of comics, as well as the industrial production, marketing, and collection of comics or comic art. It may draw on scholarship from a broad range of disciplines including history, literary studies, media and communication studies, art & art history, sociology, linguistics, philosophy, business & marketing, library & information science, or legal studies (particularly in regard to first amendment & censorship issues).
Since the 1990s, comics studies has developed into an active field of scholarly research, with a number of books, journals, conferences, and programs devoted to the topic.”
“Comics Studies: Introduction.” Guides, https://guides.library.unt.edu/comics-studies.
And yet, comics and graphic novels are still considered less than as an academic tool for instruction. Graphic novels are long comic narratives which are written for mature audiences. They are not the periodicals that were published weekly or monthly for children and have pages filled with advertising that targets young readers. Graphic novels offer depth of plot, theme, and character development. In a graphic novel the illustrations extend and enrich the text. The images are not illustrations designed to simply amplify or repeat the text. The images offer essential information that is necessary to understand the narrative that is relayed through the text. The text in turn provides information that is not provided by the image. The text is not a caption for the image. When reading a graphic novel readers are required to not only decode the words and the illustrations for meaning and purpose, but also identify the events that occur between the sequences shown on the page. Explicit and implicit reading is required for each graphic novel. Reading the text requires decoding skills such as with reading a traditional novel. The images require the reader to interpret what they are seeing. The reader must interpret the point of view, the facial and body language, the use of shading and white space, as well as the orientation of the panels flow as the narrative moves forward. Readers are required to apply visual and verbal literacies at the same time when reading a graphic novel.
One of the best resources to use when beginning a study of graphic novels is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.
Reading a graphic novel requires the traditional decoding skills required in a standard book, but the reader must also interpret within the images the facial and body language of the characters shown, determine point of view, analyze the purpose of the illustrator’s use of white space and shading, and the orientation of the flow of panels as they carry the narrative forward. A reader must utilize verbal and visual literacies at the same time to read a graphic novel. The reader is creating the intellectual space with their melding of word and image synchronically.
Misconceptions
Resistance to graphic novels stems from the belief that combining text and images is considered fine for children’s books and that children are expected to “grow out of” reading such texts and start reading real books. Graphic novels are assumed to be too easy or that the images detract from what the authors could have expressed in words alone. Some of the other misconceptions about graphic novels are that they are just funny books and that they leave nothing to the imagination. Others believe that graphic novels take no time to read.
“Others perceive graphic novels only as gaudy escapism, whether superheroic, fantasy-based science fiction, or hard-boiled, for adolescent males, all furious spectacle and special effects and little depth or humanity like their movie counterparts.” (Gravett 8)
Gravett, Paul. Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know. Collins Design, 2006.