NYT Magazine: Are Comics The New Mainstream Novels?

securitas writes "The New York Times Magazine cover story this week is a (typically) long feature about the rise of comic books and graphic novels into mainstream culture, with writer Charles McGrath (former editor of the Book Review) stating: 'Comic books are what novels used to be -- an accessible, vernacular form with mass appeal ... perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit.' McGrath cites the mid-1980s birth of a movement that began and fizzled with Maus (Art Spiegelman), Love & Rockets (Hernandez Bros.) Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller). The current renaissance in graphic novels include non-fiction Palestine (Sacco), non-fiction Persepolis (Satrapi) which has sold 450,000 copies, Ghost World (Clowes), American Splendor (Pekar), Road to Perdition (Collins) and Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, which won the 2001 Guardian Prize for best first book and has sold 100,000 in hardcover. McGrath interviews Marjane Satrapi, Julie Doucet, Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Alan Moore, among others. The article also has a multimedia interactive feature with many of the graphic novelists (registration required) in the magazine article."

Comments

Re:Manga?

[elmegil]

perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit

You really ahve to wonder what he thinks of Japanese manga culture in his heart of hearts. I'd hardly call the Japanese "dumbed-down culture".

Mostly about the writers

[erick99]

This is fairly long article at ten pages. I really wanted to know how many words are in a "graphic novel" versus a traditional novel. Do these novels get non-readers to read? Who are readers of these novels? I was disappointed that the article is largely about the writers with some consideration about how the books are laid out. The information about the authors is good, but the other stuff would have been very nice as well.

Cheers!

Erick

Did you notice that the article implies...

[Nadsat]

that the most maintstream is political propaganda? It subvertedly cites how such media as Fox News is technically considered comic book material, somehow striking a chord for those looking for good old school girl pr0n.

sigh--cap it all.

You're not far off.

[MisanthropicProgram]

I know this retired film maker. We were talking about "Road to Perdition". I asked, "Since it's a comic book or graphic novel - whatever - , I guess the film makers didn't have to story board the movie, and as a result, saved some money."
He said, "That's right. It make things a lot easier and cheaper."

There you go.

Re:You're not far off.

[prator]

A friend of mine was an extra on Sin City recently. He said that they were using the graphic novel as the actual script.

-prator

Re:Dumbed-down

[lovecult]

Funny you should say that.
Some of Dickens work as serialized in newspapers, just as comics now are.
Great Expectations was published that way.

Plenty o mainstream authors writing lit w/o comics

[mactari]

I think that's a bit harsh for novels and graphic novels. Some of the comics cited above are difficult, intelligent stories with involved character development and a good story to tell.

Please, are you kidding us? I read Batman: The Dark Knight Returns which was okay, but at the back it already admitted they basically made up the last two parts on the fly under pretty intense deadline pressure. And it shows, similar to the way Coleridge's Kubla Khan took something of a dive after he was bothered out of his drug-induced state and the dropped his inspiration -- except I'm not sure Dark Knight part 1 is exactly Coleridge at his best.

Look, I enjoyed Spider-Man vs. Wolverine as much as the next fellow and I'm glad comic book characters have outlets to behave a little more maturely than they do in a short monthly comic, but if you want to find great mainstream literature these days, take a look at Umberto Eco or Toni Morrison, not Frank Miller, please. Graphic novels are perhaps better called the new graphic novellas; they simply aren't replacements for 200-600 pages of truly great writing.

Hulk: The End

[Himring]

AKA, "The Last Titan." It is hands down the best comic I've ever read. It is dated 2002, but it must have been a series. I've not seen any others in it (if it is), but the one concerning The Hulk sucked me in like no other:

The End: The chronicles of the final days of earth's mightiest heroes and villains. Marvel comics and the creators who defend the characters tell the stories that were never meant to be told.

If you're a comic book fan/marvel fan/hulk fan then you gotta run, not walk, and get this one....

Re:Dumbed-down

[TheRaven64]

Graphic novels are almost always dialogue driven. This is a lot harder to write, since any exposition must be implicit. In a textual novel, the writer can easily go off for a few chapters and provide background information. With a graphic novel it is a lot more difficult, because exposition that is obviously exposition looks artificial and out of place. Calling it dumbed down definitely undersells the writers.

Re:Plenty o mainstream authors writing lit w/o com

[surreal-maitland]

that depends on what you're looking for in literature. if you're looking for great prose and a mastery of the english language, you're absolutely right. you're going to find that in umberto eco and toni morrison and not in a graphic novel. however, if, as the previous poster cited, you're interested in a complex, interesting story and character development, you can find that in the watchmen, transmetropolitan, or any of a number of other comics. graphic novels are almost totally a different artform than literature, and i don't think it's fair to compare the two.

Comics are more difficult than a novel to write

[fudgefactor7]

Now, I know what you're saying "Fudgefactor7 has gone off the deep end...again," but hear me out.

A novel, let's say has 100 to 200 thousand words, and about 400 to 600 pages, all text. It's in a readable language (for instance, English) and has characters, development, a plot (one hopes), evokes moods (like anger or sadness or joy). It's a difficult thing to write a good novel.

By comparison, a graphic novel has to accomplish roughly the same thing in fewer pages (ususally there are 22 pages in a single issue, and usually no more than 20 issues in a miniseries, thereby making the number of pages no more than 440 pages, at the very most.) This, naturally, will not be all text, but mostly images with some sparse text and narration bubbles. The mood of the comic is depicted not by a paragraph of words, but by imagery. Choosing good words in a nvoel is hard, yes, but an image is worth, as they say, a thousand words--you have to get it right. And you have to get it right every page, every panel, every frame. In a written text, you can be given leniency in word choice, you can break the mood for narration purposes, or as a flashback--in a graphic novel, you can't ever break the mood or you lose the story and potentially the reader.

In a way, you have to deal with style and substance instead of style over substance, that a tratitional novel has as a restriction.

Plus to make a good graphic novel you have to have a good writer and a good artist. With a traditional novel, you need only a good writer (which sometimes is hard enough.) Combinations of good writer and good artist are magical when it comes together, and an abomination when it does not.

Finally, a traditional novel, if it sells 100000 copies is a pretty good deal, but that few comics can mean the death of an entire series--millions are printed and many more need to be sold just to make the publisher more happy. And on top of that, the creativity of a comic has to be repeatable throughout the entirety of the storyline, over months of work; a traditional novel only needs to be initially creative and not necessarily creative throughout. (How many of you read a novel that started great, then immediately became a rehash of some other, better, idea? I know I have. Sure, comics fall prey to this as well--as is evidenced by the amount of crud out there--but by far they're a more creative and vibrant force than the "real" authors in the bookstore.)

That's my 2-cents anyway...

Letter I sent to the Times yesterday

[amarodeeps]

Here you go Slashdotters, my two cents. I'm sure you'll have some good criticisms of this letter as well:

Dear NYTimes,

I'm glad to hear that comics are showing a renaissance and newfound respectability right now. It would seem from the piece that this is largely the result of major bookstores assigning more particularly-labeled sections to the 'graphic novel' section, and also the product of indie film adaptations of indie comics gracing our theaters in the last few years; this rather than, say, increased sales of comics, the expanded potential for creation and distribution that software tools and the Internet has brought, or the success of comic-derived or influenced films such as Brian Singer's X-Men series, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series or the Matrix trilogy (and to a lesser extent manga such as Tezuka Osamu's manga Metropolis or Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell). Point being, with Spider-Man 2 having something of an edge on the recent adaptation of Pekar's American Splendor in terms of viewership, I might argue that Spider-Man would have been worth a mention.

That is, it would have been worth a mention unless the renaissance McGrath speaks of has nothing to do with the volume of "comix" or "sequential art" readership, but only the volume of a certain narrowly defined artistic content that lies within the pages of some comics. It's good to know that, as in mainstream fiction lit, comics with a sci-fi or fantasy theme (especially super-hero comics "churned out in installments by the busy factories at Marvel and D.C.") have escaped the title of 'high-art'--perhaps then those comics will also continue to escape the hubris of mainstream art-lit as sci-fi has. Based on the piece, it would seem as though comics as high art didn't really happen until Mr. Spiegelman put out Maus. Or maybe we should go back to R. Crumb, who seems to provide the alienated loser blueprint for the majority of artists examined in the article (forgive my gross generalization; I recognize their talent and own some of their works). It would seem that in this alternative comic universe, Stan Lee is exclusively a pulp writer with no complexity or lasting impact and Will Eisner doesn't even exist (the omission of any mention of Will Eisner I find to be one of the strangest inconsistencies in the entire piece).

I'd like to point out that writers such as Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Kurt Busiek (among many others, like the incomparables Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore) are all accomplished and talented, and dare I say it, they occasionally make art. The scathing socio-political satire of "Transmetropolitan," the postmodern philosophical complexity of "The Filth," the film noir dialogue and themes of "Alias" and "Powers," the super-hero drama of Astro City--all of these were worth Mr. McGrath's time, especially considering the lack of range of the artists that were profiled--are (semi-)autobiographical alienation stories the best or most important of what comics can express? And while I could go into greater depth on this item, I think Mr. McGrath should consider his implication that the 'assembly line' artists working with such writers are interchangeable. He might also have discussed Neil Gaiman's veering back toward the 'real novel' world with his publication of some books without pictures...but then perhaps we're back at the 'sci-fi ain't literature' dilemma.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in his conclusion Mr. McGrath unbelievably suggests that "this is a medium probably not well suited to lyricism or strong emotion." I find this ironic considering the elegant sample from Seth's "Clyde Fans: Book One" that was included in the piece and especially in regards to the depth and complexity of emotion in the McSweeney's sample from Chris Ware. I've also found the work of Adrian Tomine (whom you profiled two paragraphs above this absurd statement!) to be some of the most gut-wrenching and real stuff I've ever read or seen, in any format--and there's many more writers out there. How could one say something so foolish after reading even a smidgen of the collection of serious work in this medium?

Sincerely,
Dave

bah

[cherokee158]

Video is more likely to replace mainstream novels than comic books.

More people watch TV than read (sadly), and given another decade or two, we should all start having a very portable way to view video directly from the net.

I think comics may well be supplanted by home-brewed animation. A technically literate illustrator can create his own animated short in about the same amount of time as it once took to complete a monthly comic, using today's tools. As the tools evolve, it may become even easier. (Right now, programmers still don't seem to fully grasp what it is artists need from their tools. But more and more traditional artists are finally beginning to cross over into the digital medium, so I expect they will make themselves heard, and the tools...and the content... will improve.) We are also seeing more and more hybrid electronic formats, which look less like comics and more like animation all the time.

Forget dead trees. We will all be publishing ourselves electronically before long.

Actually, much of Europe in general.

[MtViewGuy]

Europe has a very long tradition of doing great comics, to say the least.

I think we should thank Heavy Metal magazine for bringing attention to quality European comics and graphic novels, even if what we see in Heavy Metal is strongly adult-oriented. I remember reading an English-translated Barbarella serial there, and it was vastly more interesting than the movie.

By the way, Disney comics published by their Disney Worldwide Publishing (Italia) division are extremely popular and well-regarded in its native Italy and in translated versions sold in France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and in the Scandinavian countries. If you can get a hand on Topolino, PK3 or W.i.t.c.h. (the original 60 page per issue Italian comic), you'll note just how superb European comics can be.

Masturbatory Power Fantasy

[buckhead_buddy]

What really stinks about comics are the way the one genre of teenage masturbatory power fantasy has taken over everything. I quite enjoyed those as well, but if 97% of the marketplace recycles the same plot pieces then it gets really boring. Imagine how boring a world with 97% of one genre of music would be (rap/country/classical). Whatever appreciation you had for the genre will die in over-exposure, simplistic plot lines without end, and just plain ennui.

Looking at movie storyboards (and by extension movies), it's curious why they're so varied in content while comics come no where near that level of diversity. As much as I like Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, they aren't really groundbreaking. They use some variations of the suparearo genre that aren't typically allowed (aging characters, indifference to humanity, continuity ended).

There is a spark left with titles like In the Shadow of No Towers, 52 Timil Deeps, Larry Gonnick's Cartoon History series.

I just wish it didn't seem like the whole of mainstream comics was awash with variations on the 47 plotlines dealing with superpowers.

Re:"Maus" and "Dumbed-Down?"

[arpy]

I remember reading Maus (and RAW) around 6th/7th grade and being moved and impressed too. I think that the Pulitzer prize it won was a "special" Pulitzer (not sure of the details.)

An interesting (and insightful) comment by Art Spiegelman, Maus' author, on comics as a medium: "Comics echo the way the brain works. People think in iconographic images, not in holograms, and people think in bursts of language, not in paragraphs." (Quoted here, but it isn't the original source.)

They Lost Me..

[Anonymous Coward]

When the author keeps refering to "D.C. Comics" I just tune out the rest. Is basic fact checking gone at the New York Times? The company is "DC Comics" and has been for a good long while.

Re:"Lord of the Rings"

[quisph]

"Lord of the Rings" was in written word form first.

Er... So were The Godfather and Gone With the Wind.

How serious should we take an article...

[PythonCodr]

... that never mentions Cerebus the Aardvark when discussing graphic novels?

Re:Dumbed-down

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to think comics and anime was for the lazy and stupid people. I thought this through high school and college.

Then one day, I found I was just plain bored. Bored of TV, bored of mags, didn't want to read another reference book. I walked by a comic store, spent $15. I sat down and read a few. I was utterly blown away.

I try to read voraciously--O'Reilly books, biochem, bio, and chem textbooks are stacked up as I speak and reference them all the time. On an average day, I probably read about 200 pages from books (on the small side), watch about 3 hours of TV a day (mainly History channel), read 1 mag completely a day (mainly metal shop mags and Scientific American), read 20+ websites (/., undeadly.org, news.yahoo.com, news.google.com, Ars, Toms, Anandtech, etc.). I've read popular novels, sci fi esp. Gibson, even looked at romance novels at one point (blushingly fun, but generally trashy).

In terms of inventiveness, story arcs, creativity, comics and manga hands down beat down everything else and do so near consistently. This is not a matter of "dumbing down" but where the creativity is coming from as well as the culture of the audience.

For example, I like prose, but it's difficult to understand sometimes because many of the modern day stuff is trash or references things so off the ball, I have no idea what they are talking about. The good prose is like classical music; most of the stuff is older, already analyzed, so once read, you're done. Occasionally you'll fine the poetic equivalent of Arvo Parte, but it's really unlikely. (Most of my musical tastes has been slowly migrating to blues and jazz lately.)

I read manga, if I don't understand something, I can buy an import and ask a friend who speaks Japanese maybe what's going on, look online and see who else has read it. The creativity cannot be put aside, and the outlandishness and slapstick humor remains. If I want something more gritty, I go more US comics. There is just something about drawing, the lines and color (where not B&W) choice and selection, thinking why they decided this or that point of view or that delivery, that pen, that angle, what's going on in the scene, being able to flip back to reference an earlier part, etc.

Walk into a comic store sometime, and just look around. The amount of material is huge, even compared to a bookstore, where the latter typically has rehashed volumes mimicking a bestseller. As of now, I spend about $20 a week on manga and comics, about $40 a week on anime, in addition to my other media habits.