Check out the link below. That should answer some questions. And there are recommendations as well. Personally, I've read The Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen and they're BOTH excellent.

Here is a link that might be useful: Time's All-Time Graphic Novels

Its funny - I've never read a graphic novel. I dismissed them as not being "real" books, intended for people who for one reason or another, didn't read all-text books. But I think now that this was an unwarranted prejudice, and I'm interested in trying out a couple to see if I like the genre. I may or may not be a convert, but dismissing them without trying them was really rather narrow of me. I don't think I want to live in a box.

Thanks for the list. I'll start from there.

Rosefolly

Graphic novels tend to divide out into the ones about super heroes (Superman, Batman, etc.) and ones tthat are not. You could look at MAUS, by Art Spiegelman -- the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. It is a story of the Holocaust. Another great one that is non-superhero is WE3, about cyber pets.

Many graphic novels (certainly WATCHMEN and DARK KNIGHT RETURNS) were originally published as separate comic books, and then collected into a trade-papergack format later. Others were more or less destined to be graphic novels from the start, like MAUS.

Brenda

Has anyone here read When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs? I just wondered if that counted as a graphic novel. Perhaps more like a graphic novella...

And he also did a wonderful graphic biography of his parents, called Ethel and Ernest, which is truly lovely.

Hasn't Neil Gaiman done graphic novels? I enjoy his books, and I've been tempted by some of his graphic novels. Has anyone any recommendations for him?

What's the difference between graphic novels and illustrated novels? I've read a few that are called the latter, where part of the stories are told in the pictures themselves; such as Michael Flanagan's Stations; Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine books; Barbara Hodgson's The Tattooed Map and Hippolyte's Island; and Rick Geary's series of famous murders, including The Borden Tragedy.

Are Dennis Wheatley's mysteries that include "real clues" (real hairpins, buttons, etc.) considered graphic novels?

Or does graphic novel mean a more cartoon-book-style format, such as the classic cartoons I read when I was a kid; e.g., Ivanhoe, Beowulf and Robinson Crusoe?

The nice thing about graphic novels is that it's a real broad term. Most of them are like the comic books of old, in bound form. Some of them are quite different. The most recent LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN offering, THE BLACK DOSSIER, includes a pair of 3-D glasses so that you can get the full impact of the characters' trip to another dimension. (LOEG is another fine example of the genre, far better than the Hollywood movie based on the graphic novel, but begin with the first volume.)

Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN books are truly wonderful and well worth reading. There are eight or nine volumes of them, and they actually all connect together and tell one enormous story about the Sandman. Well worth seeking out, but again start with volume one.

My local public library has been dipping heavily into graphic novels, which are very popular among teen readers. So you might see if your library has them in the collection.

Brenda

How do some of these works get the title 'novel' I wonder? Surely they are just picture books with few or no words.
Dyno, do "Splat" "Aaargh" or "Yeek" count as words?
Perhaps the people that purchase then should be classified as lookers rather than readers.
No-one has mentioned the art work that has gone into these books; often of a very high standard.
I'd second Martin's Raymond Briggs recommendation; a fine illustrator. He did a wonderful 'Father Christmas' children's book plus 'The Snowman' which was turned in to a cartoon/film.
Shirley Hughes is another children's writer/illustrator who produced a beautifully detailed book Up and Up about a child carried away by a giant balloon.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Snowman (excuse the advert)

I treasure the copy of God's Man by Lynd Ward given to me by my brother a few years ago. Here is the entry from Wikipedia:

Ward is known for his wordless novels told entirely through dramatic wood engravings. Ward's first work, Gods' Man (1929), uses a blend of Art Deco and Expressionist styles to tell the story of an artist's struggle with his craft, his seduction and subsequent abuse by money and power, and his escape to innocence. Ward, in employing the concept of the wordless pictorial narrative, acknowledged as his predecessors the European artists Frans Masereel and Otto Nuckel. Released the week of the 1929 stock market crash, Gods' Man would continue to exert influence well beyond the Depression era, becoming an important source of inspiration for Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg.[1]

Gods' Man was the first of six wood engraving Ward novels produced over the next eight years, including:

Madman's Drum (1930)
Wild Pilgrimage (1932)
Prelude to a Million Years (1933)
Song Without Words (1936)
Vertigo (1937)

When I first picked up this book, I wasn't sure what to make of it. Now it is one of my favorites - a very powerful work.

Vee --

Good question. What MAKES a work a novel? Is it length? Content? Lack of illustrations? Lack of "words" (shall we call them "pseudo-words"?) such as "splat" or "aarrgghh"? Are we to constrain the term "novel" to merely works that are predominantly comprised of text? What if a work had one or two illustrations? Shall we consign such works to the bonfires of the "non-novel"?

Of course, if a work had equal parts illustration and text, what shall we call those? Picture books? Half-novels? Literature for the illiterate?

Yes vee, graphic novels are just picture books with few or no words. And you are correct -- those of us who purchase such works are lookers and not readers. You see, we don't really know how to read anything other than large, stylized but emotive printed text like "yeek" or "aargh" or "splat". These terms, by the way, follow a unique canon of agreed upon words, conventions, pictures, exclamations, and sock colors that all graphic novels MUST abide by. If they don't abide by them, then they can't be called graphic novels. It is put out by the Graphic Novel Code Authority and all graphic novel purchasers are REQUIRED to buy a copy otherwise they won't understand what's going on (after all, the medium and the paucity of words does not lend itself to expression). A select and secret committee of graphic novel artists and writers get together every full moon to discuss the entries in the canon and they burn their notes afterwards. If the smoke arising from the fire is purple, it means that they have a new definition but if the smoke is colored green, it means that they couldn't agree on a definition or whether to order subs or wraps for lunch.

As a sampling of such terms and their agreed upon definitions, here are a few :

yeek - a codeword for something icky -- as in when someone sees a mouse, you see the term "yeek" with the character pointing at the offending item/creature

aargh - in graphic novels, this is placed in a panel with a stricken character as a form of extreme unction signifying that the character is about to shuffle off this mortal coil (or is in the process of shuffling off but can't seem to figure out where he left his house keys especially when the cabbie's waiting at the door)

splat - a very old and respected brand of cushion that used to buy hidden advertising space in comic books. It is used to signify mushy things suddenly decelerating against a non-yielding surface. The term has migrated to the graphic novel space in honor of the company's previous support of the graphic arts. Unfortunately, the financial support that they provided stopped when the company went bankrupt following a bank run in Honduras after a bizarre banking scandal. The company's employees had discovered that when the company said it was investing their 401k into CDs, the company really WAS investing in compact disks manufactured in Honduras. The company CEO subsequently disappeared but is...

Well, the Encarta Dictionary defines a novel as:
a fictional prose work with a relatively long and often complex plot, usually divided into chapters, in which the story traditionally develops through the thoughts and actions of its characters. I have not looked at many graphic novels-we have acquired a few at the library with more on order-but the ones I have seen do tell complicated, involved stories, and, through the artwork, convey a great deal about the characters' emotions, motivations, and interactions. When we read text, we use our mind's eye to "see the story"...often with a graphic novel, I think the peruser does the reverse-uses the mind's ear to "add the voices" to the pictures.

>often with a graphic novel, I think the peruser does the reverse-uses the mind's ear to "add the voices" to the pictures.

I like this very much, tho I suspect fans of GN will disagree. But it certainly fits with my DH. Most of what David reads are graphic novels - usually of the super hero variety, but he has picked up some Neil Gaiman and others. I still, old school that I am, think of them as comic books, but like you ccr, I've seen the complexity of plot told through the excellent illustrations. Which, considering how much he loves watching movies (more so than I) probably stands to reason. We are both visual learners, but as I get my images through the words, he hears the voices through the pictures.

Dyno, you have restored my faith in the meaning of Readers Paradise; I was just about to give up on a site that appeared to be going down the pan.
And your bravery in discussing investments on a morning when both Stock Exchange and Wall Street traders are wearing brown trousers and wondering if the smoke they see on the horizon is from the conflagration of their large bonuses and profit margins or just the contents of their sock drawers.
nb Get out of Dexys Midnight Runners, they're still in rehab. Put your $$$'s in Kapow-Zap-Grrrr they can only go up.

Vee --

Thank you for that! I wasn't exactly sure how my, er, "composition" would be received.

And yes -- the stock markets are going kablooey -- they may have been better off investing in compact disks made in Honduras! ;-) (I remember going to New York and just watching the people on Wall Street. It was fascinating -- so many people all bent on making obscene amounts of money. I like how Douglas Adams put it -- people seem to premise happiness on little pieces of paper when those pieces of paper don't really know what the heck is going on. Or words to that effect. ;-) )

Yes, I suspect you're right. Dexy's Midnight Runners won't be going up any time soon. However, I hear Yello is making a comeback ...

Ok, all this talk of graphic novels now makes me want to go back to re-reading some of them. I think I'll break out my Dark Knight Returns tonight as light bedtime reading. It's a heck of a lot better than listening to the news of the imploding financial markets.

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words, so it makes sense that graphic novels have fewer words, but it doesn't mean they don't have words, and they can be as powerful and thought provoking as traditional literature.

As a comparison, you might read Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran", a traditional style memoir, and Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" a graphic memoir (ok, neither is a 'novel'). Both are very powerful books on the subject of women's lives in Iran and breaking free of repression.

At first, I was a bit baffled at this thread. Then I realized that I have, in fact, read and liked at least 2 graphic novels. Years ago, I read "Maus" when it first came out and found it very powerful. And I adored "Griffin and Sabine." (Was there also not a sequel to this one?)