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A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of . The term graphic novel is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and work, though this practice is highly contested by comics scholars and industry professionals. It is, at least in the United States, typically distinct from the term comic book, which is generally used for comics and trade paperbacks.

(2025). 9781440868863, Libraries Unlimited.
It has also been described as a marketing term for comic books.
(2023). 9781009182942, Cambridge University Press.

Richard Kyle coined the term graphic novel in an in the November 1964 issue of the comics Capa-Alpha.

(2025). 9780786457625, McFarland. .
(2025). 9781461655978, Scarecrow Press. .
The term gained popularity in the comics community after the publication of 's A Contract with God (1978) and the start of the Marvel Graphic Novel line (1982) and became familiar to the public in the late 1980s after the commercial successes of the first volume of 's in 1986, the collected editions of 's The Dark Knight Returns in 1986 and and ' in 1987. The Book Industry Study Group began using graphic novel as a category in book stores in 2001.


Definition
The term is not strictly defined, though 's dictionary definition is "a fictional story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as a ". Collections of that do not form a continuous story, or collections of loosely related pieces, and even are stocked by and as graphic novels (similar to the manner in which dramatic stories are included in "comic" books). The term is also sometimes used to distinguish between works created as standalone stories, in contrast to collections or compilations of a from a comic book series published in book form.
(2025). 9781592572335, .
(2025). 9781556526336, Chicago Review Press. .

In continental Europe, both original book-length stories such as The Ballad of the Salty Sea (1967) by or La rivolta dei racchi (1967) by ,A complete edition was published in 1970 before being serialized in the French magazine , as per ( WebCitation archive); and collections of have been commonly published in hardcover volumes, often called , since the end of the 19th century (including such later Franco-Belgian comics series as The Adventures of Tintin in the 1930s).


History
As the exact definition of the graphic novel is debated, the origins of the form are open to interpretation.

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is the oldest recognized American example of comics used to this end.. Originally published at defunct site CollectorTimes.com It originated as the 1828 publication Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois by Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer, and was first published in English translation in 1841 by London's Tilt & Bogue, which used an 1833 Paris pirate edition. The first American edition was published in 1842 by Wilson & Company in New York City using the original printing plates from the 1841 edition. Another early predecessor is Journey to the Gold Diggins by Jeremiah Saddlebags by brothers J. A. D. and D. F. Read, inspired by The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck. In 1894, Caran d'Ache broached the idea of a "drawn novel" in a letter to the newspaper and started work on a 360-page wordless book (which was never published). In the United States, there is a long tradition of reissuing previously published comic strips in book form. In 1897, the Hearst Syndicate published such a collection of The Yellow Kid by Richard Outcault and it quickly became a best seller.


1920s to 1960s
The 1920s saw a revival of the tradition, with Belgian cited as "the undisputed king" of this revival.
(2025). 9780415291392, Routledge New Accents Library Collection.
His works include Passionate Journey (1919).Reissued 1985 as Passionate Journey: A Novel in 165 Woodcuts American also worked in this tradition, publishing Gods' Man, in 1929 and going on to publish more during the 1930s.

Other prototypical examples from this period include American 's He Done Her Wrong (1930), a wordless comic published as a hardcover book, and Une semaine de bonté (1934), a novel in sequential images composed of collage by the surrealist painter . Similarly, Charlotte Salomon's Life? or Theater? (composed 1941–43) combines images, narrative, and captions.

The 1940s saw the launching of Classics Illustrated, a series that primarily adapted notable, novels into standalone comic books for young readers. Citizen 13660, an illustrated, novel length retelling of Japanese internment during World War II, was published in 1946. In 1947, published Comics Novel #1: "Anarcho, Dictator of Death", a 52-page comic dedicated to one story. Comics Novel #1 at the . In 1950, St. John Publications produced the , adult-oriented "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust, a -influenced slice of steeltown life starring a scheming, manipulative redhead named Rust. Touted as "an original full-length novel" on its cover, the 128-page digest by writer "Drake Waller" ( and ), penciler Matt Baker and inker proved successful enough to lead to an unrelated second picture novel, The Case of the Winking Buddha by Manning Lee Stokes and illustrator Charles Raab. It Rhymes With Lust at the Grand Comics Database. In the same year, Gold Medal Books released Mansion of Evil by Joseph Millard. Mansion of Evil at the Grand Comics Database. Presaging Will Eisner's multiple-story graphic novel A Contract with God (1978), cartoonist wrote and drew the four-story mass-market paperback Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book ( #338K), published in 1959. Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book #338 K at the Grand Comics Database.

By the late 1960s, American comic book creators were becoming more adventurous with the form. and Archie Goodwin self-published a 40-page, -format comics novel, His Name Is... Savage (Adventure House Press) in 1968—the same year published two issues of The Spectacular Spider-Man in a similar format. Columnist and comic-book writer also argues that and 's story in #130–146, although published serially from 1965 to 1966, is "the first American graphic novel". Similarly, critic Jason Sacks referred to the 13-issue "Panther's Rage"—comics' first-known titled, self-contained, multi-issue story arc—that ran from 1973 to 1975 in the Black Panther series in Marvel's as "Marvel's first graphic novel".

Meanwhile, in continental Europe, the tradition of collecting serials of popular strips such as The Adventures of Tintin or led to long-form narratives published initially as serials.

In January 1968, Vida del Che was published in Argentina, a graphic novel written by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and drawn by . The book told the story of in comics form, but the military dictatorship confiscated the books and destroyed them. It was later re-released in corrected versions.

By 1969, the author , who had entertained ideas of becoming a cartoonist in his youth, addressed the Bristol Literary Society, on "the death of the novel". Updike offered examples of new areas of exploration for novelists, declaring he saw "no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic strip novel masterpiece".

(2025). 9781845130688, Aurum Press Limited.


Modern era
Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin's (1971), a /sword-and-sorcery paperback published by , did not use the term originally; the back-cover blurb of the 30th-anniversary edition () calls it, retroactively, the first American graphic novel. The Academy of Comic Book Arts presented Kane with a special 1971 for what it called "his paperback comics novel". Whatever the nomenclature, Blackmark is a 119-page story of comic-book art, with captions and , published in a traditional book format.

European creators were also experimenting with the longer narrative in comics form. In the United Kingdom, was producing works such as Father Christmas (1972) and The Snowman (1978), which he himself described as being from the "bottomless abyss of strip cartooning", although they, along with such other Briggs works as the more mature When the Wind Blows (1982), have been re-marketed as graphic novels in the wake of the term's popularity. Briggs noted, however, that he did not like that term too much.


First self-proclaimed graphic novels: 1976–1978
In 1976, the term "graphic novel" appeared in print to describe three separate works:
  • by , published in August 1976 under the Fiction Illustrated imprint and released in both regular 8.5 x 11" size, and a designed to be sold on newsstands, used the term "graphic novel" in its introduction and "a " on its cover, predating by two years the usage of this term for 's A Contract with God. It is therefore considered the first modern graphic novel to be done as an original work, and not collected from previously published segments.
  • by (adapted from a story by Robert E. Howard), Morning Star Press, 1976, also a non-reprinted original presentation, used the term 'graphic novel' to categorize itself as well on its dust jacket and introduction.
  • George Metzger's Beyond Time and Again, serialized in underground comix from 1967 to 1972, Beyond Time and Again at the Grand Comics Database. was subtitled "A Graphic Novel" on the inside title page when collected as a 48-page, black-and-white, hardcover book published by Kyle & Wheary.

The following year, , who had spent his teenage years living in Paris, returned to the United States and formed Flying Buttress Publications, later to incorporate as (Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine), and published Racket Rumba, a 50-page spoof of the - genre, written and drawn by the single-name French artist Loro. Nantier followed this with 's The Call of the Stars. The company marketed these works as "graphic albums".

The first six issues of writer-artist Jack Katz's 1974 Comics and Comix Co. series The First Kingdom were collected as a trade paperback (, March 1978), The First Kingdom at the Grand Comics Database. which described itself as "the first graphic novel". Issues of the comic had described themselves as "graphic prose", or simply as a novel.

Similarly, by writer and artist (, August 1978) — the first graphic novel sold in the newly created "" of United States comic-book shops — was called a "graphic album" by the author in interviews, though the publisher dubbed it a "comic novel" on its credits page. "Graphic album" was also the term used the following year by for his hardcover short-story collection Future Day ().

Another early graphic novel, though it carried no self-description, was The Silver Surfer (Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books, August 1978), by Marvel Comics' and . Significantly, this was published by a traditional book publisher and distributed through bookstores, as was 's Tantrum (Alfred A. Knopf, 1979) described on its dust jacket as a "novel-in-pictures".


Adoption of the term
Hyperbolic descriptions of longer as "novels" appear on covers as early as the 1940s. Early issues of ' All-Flash, for example, described their contents as "novel-length stories" and "full-length four chapter novels". All-Flash covers at the Grand Comics Database. See issues #2–10.

In its earliest known citation, comic-book reviewer Richard Kyle used the term "graphic novel" in Capa-Alpha #2 (November 1964), a newsletter published by the Comic Amateur Press Alliance, and again in an article in 's magazine Fantasy Illustrated #5 (Spring 1966).Per Time magazine letter. Time ( WebCitation archive) from comics historian and author R. C. Harvey in response to claims in Arnold, Andrew D., "The Graphic Novel Silver Anniversary" ( WebCitation archive), Time, November 14, 2003 Kyle, inspired by European and East Asian graphic albums (especially Japanese ), used the label to designate comics of an artistically "serious" sort.Gravett, Graphic Novels, p. 3 Following this, Spicer, with Kyle's acknowledgment, edited and published a periodical titled Graphic Story Magazine in the fall of 1967. The Sinister House of Secret Love #2 (Jan. 1972), one of ' line of extra-length, 48-page comics, specifically used the phrase "a graphic novel of Gothic terror" on its cover. Cover, The Sinister House of Secret Love #2 at the Grand Comics Database.

The term "graphic novel" began to grow in popularity months after it appeared on the cover of the trade paperback edition (though not the edition) of 's A Contract with God (October 1978). This collection of was a mature, complex work focusing on the lives of ordinary people in the real world based on Eisner's own experiences. Comic Books, Tragic Stories: Will Eisner's American Jewish History, Volume 30, Issue 2, AJS Review, 2006, p. 287

One scholar used graphic novels to introduce the concept of graphiation, the theory that the entire personality of an artist is visible through his or her visual representation of a certain character, setting, event, or object in a novel, and can work as a means to examine and analyze drawing style.

Even though Eisner's A Contract with God was published in 1978 by a smaller company, Baronet Press, it took Eisner over a year to find a publishing house that would allow his work to reach the mass market. Comic Books, Tragic Stories: Will Eisner's American Jewish History, Volume 30, Issue 2, AJS Review, 2006, p. 284 In its introduction, Eisner cited Lynd Ward's 1930s woodcuts as an inspiration.

The critical and commercial success of A Contract with God helped to establish the term "graphic novel" in common usage, and many sources have incorrectly credited Eisner with being the first to use it. These included the Time magazine website in 2003, which said in its correction: "Eisner acknowledges that the term 'graphic novel' had been coined prior to his book. But, he says, 'I had not known at the time that someone had used that term before'. Nor does he take credit for creating the first graphic book".. WebCitation archive

One of the earliest contemporaneous applications of the term post-Eisner came in 1979, when Blackmark sequel—published a year after A Contract with God though written and drawn in the early 1970s—was labeled a "graphic novel" on the cover of Marvel Comics' black-and-white comics magazine Marvel Preview #17 (Winter 1979), where Blackmark: The Mind Demons premiered: its 117-page contents remained intact, but its panel-layout reconfigured to fit 62 pages.

Following this, Marvel from 1982 to 1988 published the Marvel Graphic Novel line of 10" × 7" trade paperbacks—although numbering them like comic books, from #1 ('s ) to #35 (Dennis O'Neil, , and 's Hitler's Astrologer, starring the radio and character the , and released in hardcover). Marvel commissioned original graphic novels from such creators as John Byrne, J. M. DeMatteis, , graphic-novel pioneer McGregor, , , , , and . While most of these starred Marvel , others, such as 's Heartburst featured original SF/fantasy characters; others still, such as John J. Muth's , featured adaptations of literary stories or characters; and one, 's A Sailor's Story, was a true-life, World War II naval tale. Marvel Graphic Novel: A Sailor's Story at the Grand Comics Database.

Cartoonist 's -winning (1980-91), helped establish both the term and the concept of graphic novels in the minds of the mainstream public. Two book reprints of self-contained miniseries did likewise, though they were not originally published as graphic novels: (1986), a collection of Frank Miller's four-part comic-book series featuring an older Batman faced with the problems of a dystopian future; and (1986-1987), a collection of and ' 12-issue limited series in which Moore notes he "set out to explore, amongst other things, the dynamics of power in a post-Hiroshima world".Moore letter These works and others were reviewed in newspapers and magazines, leading to increased coverage.Lanham, Fritz. "From Pulp to Pulitzer", Houston Chronicle, August 29, 2004. WebCitation archive. Sales of graphic novels increased, with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, for example, lasting 40 weeks on a UK best-seller list.

(2025). 9780957789630, Eddie Campbell Comics.


European adoption of the term
Outside North America, Eisner's A Contract with God and Spiegelman's Maus led to the popularization of the expression "graphic novel" as well. Stripgeschiedenis [Comic Strip History]: 2000-2010 Graphic novels at the Lambiek Comiclopedia (in Dutch): "In de jaren zeventig verschenen enkele strips die zichzelf aanprezen als 'graphic novel', onder hen bevond zich 'A Contract With God' van Eisner, een verzameling korte strips in een volwassen, literaire stijl. Vanaf die tijd wordt de term gebruikt om het verschil aan te geven tussen 'gewone' strips, bedoeld ter algemeen vermaak, en strips met een meer literaire pretentie". / "In the 1970s, several comics that billed themselves as 'graphic novels' appeared, including Eisner's 'A Contract With God', a collection of short comics in a mature, literary style. From that time on, the term has been used to indicate the difference between 'regular' comics, intended for general entertainment, and comics with a more literary pretension". Https://www.lambiek.net/aanvang/2000graphicnovel.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Archived from the original on August 1, 2020. Until then, most European countries used neutral, descriptive terminology that referred to the form of the medium, not the contents or the publishing form. In Francophone Europe for example, the expression bandes dessinées — which literally translates as "drawn strips" – is used, while the terms stripverhaal ("strip story") and tegneserie ("drawn series") are used by the Dutch/Flemish and Scandinavians respectively.Notable exceptions have become the German and Spanish speaking populaces who have adopted the US derived comic and cómic respectively. The traditional Spanish term had previously been tebeo ("strip"), today somewhat dated. The likewise German expression Serienbilder ("serialized images") has, unlike its Spanish counterpart, become obsolete. The term "comic" is used in some other European countries as well, but often exclusively to refer to the standard American comic book format. European scholars have observed that Americans originally used graphic novel for everything that deviated from their standard, 32-page comic book format, meaning that all larger-sized, longer Franco-Belgian , regardless of their contents, fell under the heading.

Writer-artist claims that the first collection of his The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, published by Proutt in 1982, was the first British graphic novel.Méalóid, Pádraig Ó. "Interview with Bryan Talbot", BryanTalbot.com (Started 6th May 2009. Finished 21st September 2009).

American comic critics have occasionally referred to European graphic novels as "Euro-comics", and attempts were made in the late 1980s to cross-fertilize the American market with these works. American publishers Catalan Communications and released translated titles, predominantly from the backlog catalogs of and Les Humanoïdes Associés.


Criticism of the term
Some in the comics community have objected to the term graphic novel on the grounds that it is unnecessary, or that its usage has been corrupted by commercial interests. Watchmen writer believes:

Glen Weldon, author and cultural critic, writes:

Author Daniel Raeburn wrote: "I snicker at the first for its insecure pretension - the literary equivalent of calling a a 'sanitation engineer' - and second because a 'graphic novel' is in fact the very thing it is ashamed to admit: a comic book, rather than a comic pamphlet or comic magazine".Raeburn, Daniel. Chris Ware (Monographics Series), Press, 2004, p. 110. .

Writer , responding to a claim that he does not write comic books but graphic novels, said the commenter "meant it as a compliment, I suppose. But all of a sudden I felt like someone who'd been informed that she wasn't actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening".

(1999). 9781563896446, Vertigo.

Responding to writer 's quip that the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book is "the binding", Bone creator Jeff Smith said: "I kind of like that answer. Because 'graphic novel' ... I don't like that name. It's trying too hard. It is a comic book. But there is a difference. And the difference is, a graphic novel is a novel in the sense that there is a beginning, a middle and an end".Smith in . writer said: "To call them graphic novels is to presume that the novel is in some way 'higher' than the karmicbwurk (comic book), and that only by being thought of as a sort of novel can it be understood as an art form".

Some alternative cartoonists have coined their own terms for extended comics narratives. The cover of ' Ice Haven (2001) refers to the book as "a comic-strip novel", with Clowes having noted that he "never saw anything wrong with the comic book".. The cover of 's Blankets calls it "an illustrated novel".


See also
    • : in this context, a form of artist's book approaching closely (but preceding) the graphic novel
  • List of award-winning graphic novels
  • List of best-selling comic series
  • , profusely illustrated books


Bibliography
  • (2025). 9781477309148, University of Texas Press.
  • Arnold, Andrew D. "The Graphic Novel Silver Anniversary", Time, November 14, 2003
  • Beerbohm, Robert Lee; Wheeler, Doug; West, Richard Samuel; Olson, Richard (2008). "The Victorian Age: Comic Strips and Books 1646–1900 Origins of Early American Comic Strips Before The Yellow Kid", in Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide #38, pp. 330–366.
  • Couch, Chris. "The Publication and Formats of Comics, Graphic Novels, and Tankobon", Image & Narrative #1 (Dec. 2000)
  • (2025). 9780826429360, Continuum International Publishing Group.
  • Gravett, Paul (2005). Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know. New York:Harper Design.
  • Groensteen, Thierry (2007). The System of Comics Jackson:University Press of Mississippi. .
  • McCloud, Scott (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Tundra Publishing.
  • Tychinski, Stan. "A Brief History of the Graphic Novel". brodart.com. (n.d., 2004)
  • Weiner, Stephen; Couch, Chris (2004). Faster than a speeding bullet: the rise of the graphic novel. .
  • (2025). 9780786443024, McFarland.


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