What does it take to make a graphic novel? Which brings up another question: why would anyone make a graphic novel?
How do you make a graphic novel?
- Thread starter Joe Washington
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What is your beef with comic books?
"How do you make a graphic novel?"
1) Make a comic book.
2) Be embarrassed that it's a comic book.
3) Give it a pretentious-sounding label to avoid admitting it's a comic book.
1) Make a comic book.
2) Be embarrassed that it's a comic book.
3) Give it a pretentious-sounding label to avoid admitting it's a comic book.
The stages of producing a comic book or graphic novel are:
1) Write a script (either using full script with complete panel breakdowns or the "Marvel method" of broader descriptions of what happens on each page, with dialogue and caption boxes added in later after the art has been done), 2) work from the script to produce the art in pencil, 3) ink the pencil artwork, 4) the letterer adds in all text in speech balloons, caption boxes, sound effects and so forth, 5) the colorist colors the artwork (unless it's a black and white comic book). These jobs can each be done by a separate person or one person can handle more than one of the jobs (such as a writer/artist or an artist who handles both pencil and ink work). If it's work done for a major comic book company there'll also be an editor to coordinate everything and (hopefully) enforce quality control.
For creative fulfillment and economic remuneration. Which brings up another question: what is it about the medium of comic books that you find so befuddling?
Nah, it's useful to have a term that differentiates between comics as monthly periodicals (which is what most people automatically think of when they hear "comic" or "comic books") and the medium's long-form alternative.
I doubt most people know or care that many comics are published monthly.
I'm asking these questions merely of curiosity and to hear other people's opinions about graphic novels.
I have nothing aganist graphic novels. I'm actually a big fan of them. Preacher, Watchmen, the Dark Knight Returns, Y: The Last Man. Over the past two years or so, I've developed a whole new appreciation for comic books like that and their way of storytelling.
I have nothing aganist graphic novels. I'm actually a big fan of them. Preacher, Watchmen, the Dark Knight Returns, Y: The Last Man. Over the past two years or so, I've developed a whole new appreciation for comic books like that and their way of storytelling.
The first "graphic novel" was Jim Starlin's The Death of Captain Marvel. The difference in format meant that a somewhat more adult story could be told in a longer than 22 page story and that it would be distributed to bookstores rather than news stands. Different audience, different format, different subject matter (which was watching the titular character of the Marvel Universe face and die of cancer.)
The term has since become more generic.
There are some stories that couldn't really exist in any format besides graphic novel. For instance: Maus. That's too serious to be a comic book; you need the visual element, so it can't be a novel; but to animate it and have voices, as in a movie...eccch. That just wouldn't sit right, not exactly sure why.
You're reading Trade Paperbacks not Graphic novels . All of those were published as monthy comics before getting collected as Trade Paperbacks.
Most people don't read comic books at all, but even amongst those who don't there is an awareness of comic books and the term itself conjures up the image of the periodical format. Whether they know it's published monthly or not is neither here nor there.
But my point was actually referencing people who are engaged in the medium rather than those who aren't, and for those people "comic book" is pretty much synonymous with the monthly periodical (at least within the context of the American and UK comics scene), and having "graphic novel" as a term for the medium's long-form is handy within the comics culture.
I see. That hasn't come across at all in the way you've phrased your questions about comics and graphic novels, but now you've provided more context.
Trade paperback collections and hardcover collections of material previously published in periodicals are graphic novels. They're not original graphic novels (OGNs), but they are graphic novels.
That was the first time Marvel published a self-described graphic novel, but it was by no means the first graphic novel ever published. You can see a history of the format and the use of the term here.
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I'm old school, so I dont see that slapping 6 issues of a comic into a single book and adding a forward makes that book a graphic novel. I'm also old enough to remember comics that were published bi-monthly, quarterly and annually. Not to mention the occasional oneshot.
It just comes down to a question of format really. Prior serialization doesn't mean a storyline can't be collected as a novel in long-form. That applies to comics and prose fiction alike (such as the novels of Charles Dickens in the latter case).
You and me both. One-shots and annuals are still around, though. Quarterlies not so much.
Books that used to be on a quarterly schedule or semi-monthly (9 times a year) are still around only now they're just really, really late monthlies. (I'm looking at you FLASH:REBIRTH and THOR...and anything by Brian Hitch...)
I don't see the problem with Graphic Novel as a term - Blankets is a graphic novel, Detective comics 687 is a comic book.
Or indeed:
1) Make a comic book
2) Make some more comic books over the following few months
3) reprint them in one volume
4) Give them a convenient label so people will know it'll be a bit less floppy, more expensive, and available in a wider range of stores than stages 1 and 2 were.
But my example of Blankets doesn't fit in that, neither do many other graphic novels that are simply released as 500 page books. However, the problem with many of these discussions is that people seem to use comic books to mean "superhero comics".
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