What’s a comic and what’s a graphic novel?
https://i0.wp.com/www.writerandthewolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Copy-of-Blog-Post-Header-With-Frame-11.png?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024 683 Writer and the Wolf Editorial Writer and the Wolf Editorial https://i0.wp.com/www.writerandthewolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Copy-of-Blog-Post-Header-With-Frame-11.png?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1What’s the difference between a comic and a graphic novel? Are they the same thing? Can children’s books be graphic novels?
In the first post in my series exploring Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics I discussed definitions of ‘comics’ as an art form, ultimately settling on McCloud’s label of ‘juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer’.
But what about comics as physical objects? What are they and how do they differ from graphic novels?
What’s a comic?
When we talk about reading a comic, we’re typically using that as shorthand for ‘comic book‘ which is a publication – usually in periodical format like a magazine or newspaper – containing comic art (which we defined earlier). It might feature stories about one particular character or group of characters, like Superman, Hellboy or Godzilla, or it might be an anthology comic which collects different comic characters or series brought together in one publication like The Beano, Phoenix Comic or Monster Fun.
What’s a graphic novel?
When a more long-form, book-length story is told through comics, continuously as one standalone story rather than being split up and serialised, it’s usually referred to as a graphic novel. These are typically published in paperback or hardback and look and feel like a book as opposed to a periodical. They’re much weightier – and more expensive – than a comic book. Middle grade and YA examples include New Kid by Jerry Craft, Drama by Raina Telgemeier, Heartstopper by Alice Oseman and Nimona by ND Stevenson.
Children’s books for younger readers like Dog Man, Captain Underpants, Pizza and Taco and Bumble and Snug are all graphic novels, too, but you can still refer to them as comics if you like because they’re all part of the comics art form!
Sometimes when multiple issues of a comic are collected into one book, it’s referred to as a graphic novel despite not being a novel (but rather lots of shorter stories) and this is a bone of contention in the industry 😬
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