So I'm in the midst of reading the Watchmen "Graphic Novel" I picked up recently. I have the original comics and so I figure this is probably the third time I've read it in my lifetime thus far. Of course when it originally came out back in the mid-eighties I was much too young to understand the serious nature or tone of the series. But buying a DC 'maxi-series' back then was the 'thing to do', so I read it not really thinking it was good or bad and filed it away in a comic box of some sort. I think later in my teens I dug it out and read it again and thought it was sorta 'different', 'neat'... whatever -- and told my friends "hey if you're looking for something else to read except X-Men or Batman, you should read this."

Anyways that brings us to now. And of course with the anticipation of the Watchmen film next year (hopefully it'll get released despite the current legal wranglings) I wanted to read it again. Instead of digging them out of a long box god knows where in my place, I decided to be like a lot of other suckers out there right now and bought the affordable "Graphic Novel" collection.

I'm sure I don't have to go on and on about how good it is (yes it will blow your mind), or that it's written by the brilliant Alan Moore... yada yadda yadda. What I'm here to comment about is HOW IN THE WORLD DID THIS BECOME TERMED A "GRAPHIC NOVEL" !?? As many of you may realize this is a collection of 12 (?) "comic books" published 20+ years ago by DC. I mean what the heck does a "Graphic Novel" mean anyways? Is it a term someone came up with because the term "comic book" sounded too geeky? And to irritate me more is the fact that Time Magazine's blurb on the front cover of the "Graphic Novel" goes even further by calling it "one of the top 100 'Novels'..." I betcha there's barely a handful of people whom work at Time who knows anything about the comic medium.

Like Alan Moore once said: "the term 'Graphic Novel' was invented by someone in DC's Marketing Dept." I couldn't agree more. Someone all of the sudden proclaimed these softcover collections "Graphic Novels" in order to put a different marketing spin on things... simple as that. The same goes for The Dark Knight Returns (by Frank Miller) -- it is now known as a "Graphic Novel" uh uh... it was a four issue prestige format comic book mini-series published back in 1986.

Novels are Novels, and Comic Books are Comic Books. I understand you gotta call a comic series collection something. I mean I don't even understand the term "Trade Paperback" sometimes. Oh my god, I have an idea... how about the term "A Comic Book Series Collection"? (I dare comic retailers to take away their signage that says "Graphic Novel" and replace it with that term ) What next? When book publishers find they've become too 'geeky' (perish the thought!) will they start calling their novels a "Fancy Comic Book"? a "Comic Hardback"? a "Mini-Thick Book"?

...ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

I totally agree mate! I made a blog about the same topic a few months back:

http://www.hypergeek.ca/2008/06/im-not-afr...ead-comics.html

Alan Moore himself calls them "big comics"!

It's not a marketing scheme (well, not entirely). It has to do with the length and style of the content.



Compare with:


Being that it's the greatest in length compared to other similar media, it's not a short story or a novella. That fact that it is not prose, but rather drawn, makes it graphical. Thus, you get a graphic novel.

Edit: I just noticed that Edkaye is member 157 and I'm 158. Neat.