A note to the Editor: I used a filter for Google images and this one can be reused for commercial purposes.
To understand what a graphic novel is, one must first understand comics. As Scott McCloud says in his graphic novel Understanding Comics (HarperPerennial, 1994, ISBN: 0613027825, 9780613027823), comics is basically a form of sequential art. This means that there is a visual as well as textual element to comics. Comics can come in the form of comic strips, but when a comic is put together in the form of a book, it can be termed a graphic novel. Many graphic novels are considered unsuitable for children, with their graphic portrayals of sex and violence.
Graphic Novels And Comics: What's The Difference?
The length and content of comics and graphic novels is where they usually differ, so one can say that graphic novels are more complicated forms of comics. Graphic novels are not to be confused with comic magazines, which contain a collection of comic strips. They are like a novel, where the story is told in a visual and textual way, and not just a collection of short comic strips. It contains its own story with a definite introduction, body and conclusion. Some of the most popular modern graphic novels are by authors such as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Art Spiegelman and Marjane Satrapi.
Films Based on Graphic Novels
Many graphic novels have been adapted into movie versions that have proved to be quite successful. Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen , Watchmen, etc. have all been made into popular movies. 300 by Frank Miller is another graphic novel that was made into a very successful film. Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis about Satrapi's life in Iran and Europe is another example. Critics and general audience, however, often criticize the film versions for being inadequate representations or adaptations of the graphic novels that they are based on.
Why Read Graphic Novels?
Reading graphic novels is fast becoming a popular hobby. Discovering the wonderful ways in which pictures and words can combine to tell a rich and vibrant story is making people take graphic novels very seriously. Art lovers certainly enjoy the range and variety of styles employed by graphic novel artists to tell their tales -- from framing to lettering to coloring, many methods are employed to give the particular graphic novel its unique characteristics.
Many people think that reading graphic novels is akin to the "childish" activity of reading comics. By adopting this attitude they are depriving themselves of some amazing art and literature that the creative genre of comics has given birth to. Ultimately, that's what graphic novels are -- comics, albeit many times, complex and very hard hitting. Sometimes we are so involved with the conventional idea of serious reading being only made up of words that we reject outright the idea that pictures and words can come together to tell very relevant stories.
Maus: a survivor's tale (Pantheon Books, 1986, ISBN: 0394747232, 9780394747231), for example, is a graphic novel about Art Spiegelman's own fathers' survival story of the Holocaust and explores the relationship between him and his father and it has been complicated by his father being a survivor. It is an anthropomorphic story, which means that animal heads have been used to replace human heads in the story, which adds a very interesting dimension to what Spiegelman is trying to convey in his graphic novel.
More and more readers are discovering the joys of reading graphic novels and are embracing the marriage of art and words to explore the strange and beautiful worlds these graphic novels are opening up for anyone who picks them up.
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