Thursday, April 19, 2007  
Graphic Novels in The Walrus

:: Posted by Bryan @ 4/19/2007 12:30:00 AM
I don't think this was online before:

Writing for The Walrus magazine last summer, Lea Zeltserman reviews a quartet of non-fiction graphic novels, laughably referred to as "graphics", including Dragonslippers by Rosalind B. Penfold:

Graphic novels, or graphics, mine a rich heritage, from Francisco Goya's Disasters of War, his series of etchings recounting the atrocities perpetrated by Napoleon's army during its occupation of Madrid, to the political cartoons of Otto Dix and George Grosz, each of whom documented World War I and the rise of the Nazis, to the underground comics movement of the 1960s and 1970s. A startling proportion of the current offerings are non-fiction, rendering history, journalism, and memoir into a frame-by-frame marriage of words and pictures. Art Spiegelman set the stage for all this activity in 1986 with his Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, a depiction of his parents' experiences during the Holocaust, in which he cast cats as the Nazis and mice as the Jews. The inheritors of Maus's legacy include journalistic works by Sacco from his trips to Palestine and Bosnia, Marjane Satrapi's two-volume memoir of growing up in revolutionary Iran, and Rosalind Penfold's account of abuse.


Why use comics, an idiom perhaps best suited to humour and satire, to depict events as tragic as the Holocaust or the war in Bosnia or spousal abuse Non-fiction graphics may be symptomatic of a greater malaise --a creeping weariness with our hyper-digitized, over-photographed reality. Photojournalism has left us inured to the gory traumas it portrays. Graphics, on the other hand, are visceral and intimate, their scribbled outlines contrasting with the sharp edges and sharper colours of photography.


I hope the next book review in the Walrus begins, "Novels, or novs, mine a rich history, from Homer's Odyssey to the poetry of e.e. cummings ...."

Labels: ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 3comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 

3 Comments:

Blogger Eric Dyck said...

Heh.

Hey, every inane buzzword that lasts a week has to start somewhere.

At least they didn't spell it with an "x".

Thursday, April 19, 2007 2:48:00 PM EDT  
Blogger max said...

You mean Graphics? It's not a new one actually, D&Q has used it for a few years and I think they got it off the NY comics scene – comes from about the same time as sequential art was made popular, apparently some think It’s more literary sounding. It’s pretty useless, though, seeing as it’s already used by graphic designers widely – great way to confuse things.

Thursday, April 19, 2007 8:06:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Bryan said...

Well, I've never seen it used before as a serious substitute for "graphic novels". I can understand using it as shorthand in conversation or on a comics blog, since "graphic novel" is such a shitty term anyway, but saying "also known as graphics" is a stretch. Known to whom? I think it's an honest mistake --I suspect that many journalists new to the form can't really believe that the term "graphic novel" hasn't been shortened in some way or that serious artists actually refer to their books as GNs. Not that I think it should be --if anything, "graphics" sounds even more pretentious. But for most of the population, I think that "graphics" are the pictures you find inside graphic novels. They are also what we see on our computer screens and video games and on the sides of packages. Graphics are pictures/images/charts.

A quick google search doesn't reveal much common usage. Both Slave Labor Graphics and Puffin Books' graphic novel line use the word in their name. A lame article in Canadian Bookseller says GNs are "also called graphica".
http://www.cbabook.org/canadianbookseller/features26.asp

Anyone else use the term? Maybe I don't read enough New York cartooning forums...

Friday, April 20, 2007 3:39:00 AM EDT  

Post a Comment

Hi, welcome to the blog! If you want to let us know about an event or share PR, write us at Sequential@Spiltink.Org.

For discussion of posts, corrections or relevant links to the story feel free to fire away and post here! We love hearing from you guys. cheers! :)

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home






Archive by Region
Alberta - British Columbia - Calgary - Gatineau - Halifax - Moncton - Montreal - New Brunswick - Newfoundland - Nova Scotia - Ontario - PEI - Quebec - Saskatchewan - Saskatoon - Toronto - Vancouver - Victoria - Winnipeg -

Archive by Month
August 2002 - September 2002 - October 2002 - November 2002 - December 2002 - January 2003 - February 2003 - March 2003 - April 2003 - May 2003 - June 2003 - July 2003 - August 2003 - September 2003 - October 2003 - November 2003 - December 2003 - January 2004 - February 2004 - March 2004 - April 2004 - May 2004 - June 2004 - July 2004 - August 2004 - September 2004 - October 2004 - November 2004 - December 2004 - January 2005 - February 2005 - March 2005 - April 2005 - May 2005 - June 2005 - July 2005 - August 2005 - September 2005 - October 2005 - November 2005 - December 2005 - January 2006 - February 2006 - March 2006 - April 2006 - May 2006 - June 2006 - July 2006 - August 2006 - September 2006 - October 2006 - November 2006 - December 2006 - January 2007 - February 2007 - March 2007 - April 2007 - May 2007 - June 2007 - July 2007 - August 2007 - September 2007 - October 2007 - November 2007 - December 2007 - January 2008 - February 2008 - March 2008 - April 2008 - May 2008 - June 2008 - July 2008 - August 2008 - September 2008 - October 2008 - November 2008 - December 2008 - January 2009 - February 2009 - March 2009 - April 2009 - May 2009 - June 2009 - July 2009 - August 2009 - September 2009 - October 2009 - November 2009 - December 2009 - January 2010 - February 2010 - March 2010 -