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Adapted from an address delivered at the 2004 ALAN Workshop. Mr. Shallower accompanied his talk with a beautiful slide show and refers to the slides in this address.
"Graphic novel" is an awkward term. The "graphic" part is okay, graphic novels always have graphics. It's the "novel" part that's a problem, because graphic novels aren't always novels told with drawings. They can be works of non-fiction or collections of short stories or, really, anything you can think of that consists of drawings that convey narrative between two substantial covers.
The term "graphic novel" isn't much better or more accurate a description than the term "comic book." But "comic book" has pejorative connotations, and many people seem either embarrassed or dismissive when confronted by it. Alternatives to the term graphic novel have been suggested-"drawn book," "sequential art," "graphic album." All these terms are just labels to describe different physical manifestations of one artform. But the term graphic novel is one that has caught on and, for better or for worse, it seems we're stuck with it.
I'm here to speak to you about the art of the graphic novel. When you hear the phrase, the art of the graphic novel, you likely think of the drawings, rather than the story. But I bet most of you will agree that writing is an art just as drawing is. I'm going to talk about both.
Let's forget about graphic novels for a moment and think about what I call cartooning. Or you can call it "comic art" or "sequential art." Cartooning is the art of telling a story in pictures, often using written words as in integral part of the drawing. The history of cartooning starts a bit nebulously. Some comic art historians would include the paintings in ancient Egyptian tombs-which combined sequential drawings and hieroglyphic lettering-as comic art. Surely the Bayeux Tapestry-which shows the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066-is a form of comic art. There are plenty of similar examples. But, in general, historians agree that the modern form of comic art began in 1895 in the pages of the newspaper. There are precursors, but R. F. Outcault's The Yellow Kid in the New York World is generally accepted as the first comic strip. Newspaper comic...