Comics =/= Graphic Novels
May. 4th, 2014 00:53![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eldabeI had an argument with another woman today about the strict definition of "graphic novel."
(It really, really, bothers me when people use the term "graphic novel" to refer to "fancy comic books." I understand that's what the term is morphing into and one day I'm going to have to give up being ridiculously pedantic about this one thing but it is NOT THIS DAY.)
Anyway, I think we started out with her trying to defend the Buffy comics as graphic novels (um, no, they were and as far as I know still are published in pamphlet/floppies and then collected in trade paperbacks, sorry) and then I brought in Will Eisner's A Contract with God as the quintessential example and five minutes later realized that when I said A Contract with God I was referring to the original story and publication but when she said A Contract with God she meant the fairly recent collected works of Eisner titled A Contract with God Trilogy.
Guuuurl, I can't have this conversation with you if you IGNORE ME WHEN I TRY TO CLARIFY OUR TERMS FOR EACH OTHER.
Also, a lot of her argument seemed to boil down to "but I'm taking an undergraduate comics class in a small liberal arts college!" Um, I had a teacher try to teach the first chapter of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics to me in freshman year at my giant state school and I quietly corrected her through two months of class. The professor asked me to come in the next year to introduce Art Spiegelman and the underground comix industry to the next class. I would consider myself highly unequipped for that job but I was more ready for it than that professor.
I said I was fine agreeing to disagree but she was SO UPSET THAT I WOULDN'T AGREE WITH HER. SO UPSET. Then I felt awkward and bad. Conversation fail.
Then again, our whole conversation started when I tried to explain that I'm a big Buffy fan but me and Joss don't always see eye-to-eye so I suppose I should have braced for it.
(It really, really, bothers me when people use the term "graphic novel" to refer to "fancy comic books." I understand that's what the term is morphing into and one day I'm going to have to give up being ridiculously pedantic about this one thing but it is NOT THIS DAY.)
Anyway, I think we started out with her trying to defend the Buffy comics as graphic novels (um, no, they were and as far as I know still are published in pamphlet/floppies and then collected in trade paperbacks, sorry) and then I brought in Will Eisner's A Contract with God as the quintessential example and five minutes later realized that when I said A Contract with God I was referring to the original story and publication but when she said A Contract with God she meant the fairly recent collected works of Eisner titled A Contract with God Trilogy.
Guuuurl, I can't have this conversation with you if you IGNORE ME WHEN I TRY TO CLARIFY OUR TERMS FOR EACH OTHER.
Also, a lot of her argument seemed to boil down to "but I'm taking an undergraduate comics class in a small liberal arts college!" Um, I had a teacher try to teach the first chapter of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics to me in freshman year at my giant state school and I quietly corrected her through two months of class. The professor asked me to come in the next year to introduce Art Spiegelman and the underground comix industry to the next class. I would consider myself highly unequipped for that job but I was more ready for it than that professor.
I said I was fine agreeing to disagree but she was SO UPSET THAT I WOULDN'T AGREE WITH HER. SO UPSET. Then I felt awkward and bad. Conversation fail.
Then again, our whole conversation started when I tried to explain that I'm a big Buffy fan but me and Joss don't always see eye-to-eye so I suppose I should have braced for it.
