GRAPHIC NOVEL

   To speak of the graphic novel is to speak of a particular kind of COMIC book, but to do so after about 1985 is to risk applying what has become a marketing term to questions of definition, transforming a practical distinction into what looks superficially like a separate genre.The graphic novel proper is a self-contained narrative in comic-book form. It is almost never, in other words, part of an ongoing series like Fantastic Four (from 1961), though there are exceptions, like Dave SIM's Cerebus theAardvark (from 1977), a connected series of stories projected to extend to 300 issues. It should be noted, too, that many graphic novels are initially published episodically in comic-book format, whether or not originally conceived as a single narrative, only subsequently reaching the state which readers tend to recognize as that of a graphic novel; that is, a large (often quarto-sized), usually perfect-bound volume of anywhere from 50 to 300 pages.Through the 20th century, many books have been published which present a fictional tale primarily or solely through a sequence of pictures; the first important artist to become involved in graphic storytelling was probably Frans Masereel (1889-1972), whose nonverbal narratives in woodcut - culminating in Die Stadt (1925; as The City 1988 UK) - vividly encapsulated a 1920s sense of the new century inimagery reminiscent of the medieval Dance of Death. Books like Szegeti Szuts's My War (1931), might also seem to constitute part of a traditionwhich led directly to the graphic novels of the 1970s, but this is almost certainly misleading. Though many graphic-novel writers and illustrators are clearly aware of various forms of visual narrative - including recent painterly experiments in visual narration like A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel (1980) by Tom Phillips (1937-) - the graphic novel itselfderives from the very specific conventions of the comic, in particular from the extraordinarily sophisticated, cinema-derived narrative techniques which have been developed over the decades by comic-book artists, and which distinguish the comic from all other forms of visual storytelling. Masereel may have collaborated on film work (with directors like Abel Gance (1889-1981), but only after having created his novels in terms which were cognate with but which did not borrow directly from the early CINEMA. No more is a recent figure like Glen Baxter a graphic novelist, as we are using the term. His The Billiard Table Murders: A Gladys Babbington Morton Mystery (1990) is certainly a visual novel; butBaxter is a cartoonist rather than a comic-book artist, and his visual pages are frozen images which highlight and comment upon the narrative action, whereas in a true graphic novel the images carry the action. The difference is as between night and day.Though comic-derived tales - like He Done Her Wrong: The Great American Novel: And Not a Word in it - NoMusic, Too (1930) by Milt Gross (1895-1953) - were not uncommon from an early date, the term "graphic novel" was coined, possibly by the author himself, to describe what was itself in fact a collection of linked stories, A Contract with God (graph 1978) by Will Eisner (1917-), but it did not become a widely used label until the release of a strangely ill matched trio - Maus (1980-85 Raw; graph 1987) by Art Spiegelman (1948-), WATCHMEN (1986-7; graph 1987) by Alan MOORE and Dave GIBBONS, and Batman:The Dark Knight Returns (1986; graph 1986) by Frank MILLER - raised the profile of the serious narrative comic book and, in large part because of the low prestige of the comic-book medium, instigated a commercial need for a distinguishing term ("Adult Comic" had already been taken by comics with explicit sexual content).Today, however, many so-called graphic novels are no more than costly collections of entirely routine SUPERHERO tales and the like. Among titles that, by contrast, deserve to be noticed are Ed the Happy Clown (1986; graph 1989) by Chester BROWN, The Magician's Wife (1986 France; graph 1987 US) by Jerome CHARYN and François Boucq,Violent Cases (graph 1987) by Neil GAIMAN and Dave MCKEAN, the various graphic novels serialized in LOVE AND ROCKETS - including Human Diastrophism (graph 1989) by Gilbert Hernandez (1957-) and Ape Sex (graph1989) by Jaime Hernandez - Elektra: Assassin (1986-7; graph 1987) by Frank Miller and Bill SIENKIEWICZ, V for Vendetta (1982-5; graph 1990) by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, A Small Killing (graph 1991) by Moore and Oscar Zarate and The Complete New Statesmen (graph 1990) by John Smith (1967-) with Jim Baikie, Duncan Fegredo and Sean Phillips.The term may have become a commercial tag, but its very existence represented an opportunity for ambitious comic-book artists and writers to begin to test the boundaries of their medium, to demonstrate the organized complexity possible in the interplay between the conventions of written narrative and visual storytelling. The best graphic novels are more than the sum of their parts; they are visions of the world which cannot be paraphrased into any other medium.

   NG/JC