Comic Book vs. Graphic Novel Part 2

Alright, now that we've covered the comic book, what exactly is graphic novel? Here is the definition from Diamond Comics, one of the world's largest comics distributors:

Sometimes, multiple issues of a series are collected into one volume. It can be hardcover or softcover. Softcover editions are often called “trade paperbacks,” or just “trades,” regardless of size. A hardcover or a softcover can also be called a “graphic novel.”

When a story is published in the hardcover or soft cover format first (that is, without periodical serialization), it is referred to as a graphic novel and only a graphic novel.

So, basically, a graphic novel can either be looked at as the full season DVD collection of, say Season 1 of Lost, if we use the example from yesterday vs. buying just a single episode from somewhere like iTunes or Amazon. If you did this, it would be equivalent to buying a single comic book.

Now, the definition above also mentioned that a graphic novel can also be a stand alone story. These graphic novels are more equivalent to movies and in many ways, movies and a tv series represent the same differences found between graphic novels and comic books.

A movie is a stand alone story and is not serialized beforehand (for the most part, we won't talk about movies made from serialized things like tv shows and books, etc.). Anyway, a movie can have sequels, but these are also stand alone stories in the same way graphic novels can have sequels. The best examples of this type? Watchmen (By most people's opinions, one of the best of all time), The Spirit, Sin City, 300.


Graphic Novel pics on left, movie pics on right

Now, you might have noticed that most of the comic book characters and graphic novels mentioned here have been turned into movies. We will get to that in a later post :) But there you have it, the difference between comic books and graphic novels. Now go forth and spread our geeky knowledge!