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Underground > Comic Books >

Relax, everyone! Comics aren't literature!

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MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

15:01 / 08.11.06

So. In a recent column in Wired, Tony Long -- who has not read Gene Yang's American Born Chinese -- insists it shouldn't be eligible for a National Book Award because it's a comic book.

Or, to quote him, the comic book does not deserve equal status with real novels, or short stories. It's apples and oranges... If you've ever tried writing a real novel, you'll know where I'm coming from. To do it, and especially to do it well enough to be nominated for this award, the American equivalent of France's Prix Goncourt or Britain's Booker Prize, is exceedingly difficult.

My first reaction is "fuck you, Long." I read the bulk of American Born Chinese when it was being serialized on Modern Tales, and it's great. It works both as a surface read and as something with real thematic resonance on acclimatization, stereotypes and heritage vs. fitting in. As youth literature, it's freakin' fantastic.

Gene Yang himself has written a more reasonable and measured response than I might have in his place.

After thinking about this (actually, during the time it took me to type the above) I've started to shift a bit in my thinking. I can certainly see how "but it's not fair, he's using pictures can enter into your mind when you compare a prose work with a words-and-pictures work; but as Yang says, those lines blur with a lot of contemporary work.

I seem to recall this kerfuffle got kerfuffled a few years ago when a Gaiman Sandman story got nominated for a... Hugo? Memory fails. But it's not a new debate. And I can see both sides of the argument.

Will this ever be resolved?

Is it better to just work on having bigger, better comics awards that get mainstream recognition, or to work on having comics accepted within more mainstream categories for "extra credibility?"

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

15:13 / 08.11.06

I think you are missing a good portion of your post Matt.

15:36 / 08.11.06

Are comics literature? As much as any form. Some is. The majority isn't. I got told that was stupid at the last Dreddcon I went to but as it was said by someone dressed as Venus Bluegenes then I didn't worry too much.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

16:06 / 08.11.06

A fix is attempted, but in the meantime please see the Wired column here if this link doesn't go all wonky on me. You'll get the gist.

18:31 / 08.11.06

Some novels use pictures - so the anti-comics-are-literature folks are going to have to phrase their point pretty carefully.

Kurt Vonnegut's BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS and CURIOUS INCIDENT OF A DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME both contain charts, maps and illustrations and BREAKFAST in particular wouldn't be nearly the book it is without illustrations.

Also, to further muddy the waters, the argument could be made that novels originally published with illustrations (much of Dickens and I belive ALICE IN WONDERLAND among others) are actually bastardized when they're reprinted without the illustrations and an illustrated novel that wins, say, the Booker should share the prize between the author and the illustrator. Granted not all writers work as closely with their illustrators as Dickens did, so this point only stands for those who do.

I'm not making a grander point here than illustrating (pun!) how slippery the slope gets when you decide that pictures have no place in "real" novels.

00:04 / 09.11.06

I'm still trying to figure out what his argument is. So Graphic Novels can't be 'literature' because they have pictures in them?

Is that it? Is that what he's trying to say? He doesn't even tell us why, he just presents it as if it were a fact.

His point of view is the equivalent to me saying:
"Why isn't the phone book nominated for an award? Or the dictionary? The dictionary has more words in it than any of the nominees."

00:15 / 09.11.06

One could argue, like Alan Moore sometimes does, that comic books (not graphic novels, as he doesn't care for the term) can do more than a prose novel. One of Moore's best features is his ability to compare and contrast the words on the page with the image being presented, sometimes with ironic effect and sometimes for aesthetic reasons. To do a similar effect in prose, it's not nearly as easy. Most metaphors in prose are of a binary kind, but with images and words, you can have a crystalline effect, with many facets.

08:51 / 21.11.06

One could argue, like Alan Moore sometimes does, that comic books (not graphic novels, as he doesn't care for the term) can do more than a prose novel. One of Moore's best features is his ability to compare and contrast the words on the page with the image being presented,

tbh It does more for "him" as he has complete control over the end product, which is something I don't trust really.

"Stop telling me how to think maaaaan."

If I had to choose I'd say I prefered graeme's way of working, entering into more of a dialogue with the artist rather than being very prescriptive (or is it descriptive?) like Moore. Grant seeems to let the artist interpret his/her own angle some artists can do that (Quitley)other artists dont seem as hot on it (Silvestri),

Moore's schebang seems a bit "wanky" somehow. THE BEARD IS LIKE GODS BEARD.

I think thats where Comics have the potential to be something very different to literature when done well.

Literature tends to be the product of one person, similarly comics that are considered to be more on the "literary" end of the scale tend to predominantly be the product of a single person, like Chris Ware, Mr Moore or Daniel Clowes.

Where comics have the potential (imo) to offer something different to that "monolithic framework" presented by most literary comics, is the interaction between artists and writers. I tend to think "Claremonts" X-men and the higher end of Morrisons stuff to be examples of this.

IMO Comics can be both literature and something (arguably) "better" than literature.

18:58 / 21.11.06

Whether or not Moore is dictator of the end result is slightly besides the point. I'll give you an example:

There's no way you can describe this without words and convey the same "comic book" feel. It's not through the wall, it's around the wall. Sure, that sentence works fine, but does it carry the same mind-blowingness?
It's a very "comic book" image that would take a lot of skill to portray convincingly in a prose work.
(Image is taken from Moore's mini-series 1963 for Image Comics)
I don't think this idea is limited to simply Moore, I'm just using him as an example.

And, an even better example of what you can do with comics and not with prose is issue 12 of Promethea. On one page, you have Promethea, the Caduceus, the tarot card, Crowley telling a joke and an anagram of Promethea using Scrabble tiles. How do you have multiplicity like that without re-arranging the text? And you'd need pages and pages to describe one page of this comic book.

I'm preaching to the choir, here, but comics are most definitely literature, and equal to, no better and no worse. People like Moore can argue that comics do more, but that's them. Me, I likes both.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

19:24 / 21.11.06

A more interesting question, to me, is should comics even try to be recognized as "literature?"

Should the graphic novelists strive to be recognized alongside print works, or should the effort be spent in legitimizing recognition of graphic works themselves?

Maybe what we lack is our Booker Prize. I'd argue that the Eisners are similar in statue to the Stokers, or mayyyybe the Hugos, but we there definitely isn't any "spectacular" award for graphic fiction.

Rachel Evil McCall

19:42 / 21.11.06

Precisely how long ago was it that Maus won the friggin' Pulitzer? Why does this argument even exist anymore?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:08 / 21.11.06

Jimmy Corrigan also won the Guardian Book award, I believe.

Though why anyone's bothered one way or the other is beyond me, really. Ballard is still "an SF writer", despite having written very little in the way of SF recently. Pynchon isn't, despite having Godzilla show up in Vineland.

I think a healthier approach would be to have the Eisners taken more seriously. Then we wouldn't have to worry about whether the cool literature kids would let us join their club or not.

FWIW, I believe comics are (or can be) literature. But TV shows aren't eligible for the Oscars either, despite (say) the last episode of Millennium series 2 being far superior to Outbreak, to pick an example at random.

20:09 / 21.11.06

Maybe instead of literature or whatever, there should be a 'narrative on paper' award. A prestigous one with a good sounding name. The Pulitzer, the Whitbread, Booker or Whiting or any of those high-angle awards all sound pretty good, as do The American Book Award or the National Book Award, et cetera. But if comics can't get in... I think it's a matter of, by allowing for a comic to win the National Book Award, or a Pulitzer, there has to be an allowance on all parts, even those against the win, but for the prize, that some comics are just as good as some books. And some are better.

The problem, as I see it, is that comics are infinitely better off being associated with other print mediums than they are with films, due to ownership, ratings, and other concerns, but at the same time, they aren't prose or poetry (and what keeps those to apart, sometimes, is a little specious itself), and they really have to be their own thing. Apparently, people don't want things to be legit on their own terms, but they must be put up against something else, something arbitrarily designated as the worthwhile or the important, and made to compete on its field, using its rules.

Comics don't use the same rules or do the same things prose does, or a film, any more than movies do the same things, in the same way that a painting or a well-built house does. They are comparable, but really, it's how a comic stacks against other comics, how a sculpture does in comparison to other sculptures that should give a mark of real achievement. I mean, saying comicbook x is better than movie y, only works if they're equally good or doing the same things. The movie may suck, and the comic be great. They both might suck, and therefore as a representative of all comics or all movies or whatever, the whole field seems to suck.\

Dead loss.

In closing, and kinda totally off-topic except it shows up above and elsewhere, this "apples and oranges" shit has got to be retired. Both could be entered into a Best Fruit Competition, or cut up and stuck in a frozen treat, or eaten by hand, and so on and so on throughout forever.

miss wonderstarr

20:10 / 21.11.06

There's no way you can describe this without words and convey the same "comic book" feel. It's not through the wall, it's around the wall

Those two frames made me want to read 1963 again, and to be honest, reminded me WHY I LOVE COMICS, but ironically... Moore did write a description of those two panels. It was probably a lengthy description, and it was certainly enough to enable the artist to imagine it.

miss wonderstarr

20:12 / 21.11.06

Hold on, did you mean "describe this without words", or "describe this with words"... I've confused myself.

21:46 / 21.11.06

Moore did write a description of those two panels. It was probably a lengthy description, and it was certainly enough to enable the artist to imagine it.

If it was lengthy, it wasn't as efficient conveying the visual information. An image would be most efficient.

miss wonderstarr

22:02 / 21.11.06

But my point is that the artist drew the picture from Moore's description in words. It was a literary passage before it was a comic book image. Presumably the writing conveyed the idea clearly enough for the artist to know exactly what he meant, and what to draw.

I agree that comics can show some things more efficiently and more powerfully than any other form. It just struck me as ironic that they originate in the written word of the script.

Maybe your point just above is that if it was a lengthy description, then it wasn't as effective at conveying the idea as the two panels of art. I can go for that.

miss wonderstarr

22:03 / 21.11.06

If it was lengthy, it wasn't as efficient conveying the visual information. An image would be most efficient.

Oh yeah. Well done me for reading your post, then rewriting it in my own post, and saying "is that maybe what you meant?"

Sorry, I think I need to go to sleep.

Murray Hamhandler

22:26 / 21.11.06

Comics ≠ literature in much the same way that films ≠ literature. They (often) perform a similar function, but they really are apples and oranges. Literally.

22:46 / 21.11.06

Comics may or may not be "literature".

WIRED columns certainly aren't.

22:51 / 21.11.06

But my point is that the artist drew the picture from Moore's description in words. It was a literary passage before it was a comic book image

The power of the word is everything, they say. Once there was nothing, and then God spoke and everything was created. So they allege.

I concede that the image must have originated in words. It's just "faster" by using a combo of text and image.

Whatever. This is all besides the point. Comics are a type of literature with different rules and such.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:58 / 21.11.06

But my point is that the artist drew the picture from Moore's description in words. It was a literary passage before it was a comic book image.

Hmmm. But that wasn't a literary passage, was it? It was a set of instructions to create an intended artwork. I'm thinking of, say, something like a Damien Hirst sculpture. That will have an idea written down at some point, and then diagrams, orders and invoices for the materials, and so on, but none of those mean that the sculpture existed as a set of instructions or invoices before it became a sculpture except in a broad sense.

On the other hand, one could imagine a novel being written based on 1963, as there was a novel of the Death and Return of Superman (for reasons that remain obscure to me). And in that novel somebody would either have to find a way to describe what was communicated very easily in the comic, or skip or rewrite the scene - as I think in the novelisation of TD&RoS, the entire involvement of Hal Jordan was left out - because, since the novel did not involve crossovers and there was no need to set up Jordan's heel turn, there was no reason within the structure of that medium to bring a new character on in the third act.

00:17 / 22.11.06

And in that novel somebody would either have to find a way to describe what was communicated very easily in the comic, or skip or rewrite the scene

Pardon my thick-headedness, but are you saying that this novelisation thing is of a different skill level, or of a different quality? Or... I apologize, I can't figure out your point.
(Non sarcasm, non violent post)

miss wonderstarr

06:24 / 22.11.06

Hmmm. But that wasn't a literary passage, was it? It was a set of instructions to create an intended artwork. I'm thinking of, say, something like a Damien Hirst sculpture. That will have an idea written down at some point, and then diagrams, orders and invoices for the materials, and so on, but none of those mean that the sculpture existed as a set of instructions or invoices before it became a sculpture except in a broad sense.

Moore's case would probably be slightly different to most, as his script probably could pass the test of being a "literary passage" (ie. it would be "well-written" by conventional standards), and could probably stand alone as an interesting piece of writing... as "art".

Someone else's script that ran "OK Jim, in this frame we see Bats race thru from LEFT... give it some heavy angles on the cape, we want him in real kick-ass mode" would be more like the idea behind a sculpture, I'd say, in that it's of interest only to see the workings behind the "finished" piece. Moore's script could arguably stand as a "finished" piece. Arguably. Perhaps that's a tenuous argument... as I don't think his scripts have ever been published as works on their own, and as I noted, he is probably the most "literary" of comic book scripters.

lord nuneaton savage

08:30 / 22.11.06

Um, not that it matters that much, but isn't he also notorious for filling his scripts up with guideline sketches?

Janean Patience

08:33 / 22.11.06

I don't think his scripts have ever been published as works on their own

There was a book collecting the first few scripts of From Hell, with sketches from Eddie Campbell, published before Taboo ran into trouble. I saw it in a comic shop in Coventry and thought "Interesting. Maybe I'll pick it up some other time."

It's now incredibly rare and sought after. Well done me.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:42 / 22.11.06

Moore's case would probably be slightly different to most, as his script probably could pass the test of being a "literary passage" (ie. it would be "well-written" by conventional standards), and could probably stand alone as an interesting piece of writing... as "art".

Almost certainly true, but in what sense is that the test of being a literary passage? Some of the posts to Barbelith are very well-written, but I don't think they are literary passages, necessarily. I would say that the proposition that one set of instructions for a comic artist is literature and the next is not needs a better supporting argument than the apparent quality of the writing of each. Both of them are sets of instructions towards the creation of a piece of work - a comic strip. So, if we look at Alan Moore's published scripts, are they literature because they have been put between covers and put on a shelf? I'd say no - they are a reference text for people who are interested in the process by which a work - the comic book from which the scripts were developed - was created. They are supplementary reading. If one were to write an original piece of work in the form of a comic book script, the intention of which was always to be publishes as is, then that would, I think, count as literature - formally unconventional literature, but literature. I realise there is an element of intentionalism in there, but it's a matter of procedural intent, really.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

16:05 / 22.11.06

Opinions: if somebody were to pony up an astonishing amount of money to make the Eisners a lucrative proposition (say Moore started dumping all his Hollywood money in a trust rather than giving it to collaborators, or a massive hat-passing exercise were undertaken), would that lend it Bookerish status?

Is it the cash that gives literature prizes their notoriety, or the prize itself?

Broader question: is there any way to create a "legitimacy structure" for comics that would shake the media into legitimate and consistent coverage, like that currently given to books, television and film?

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

17:49 / 22.11.06

They could stop aspiring to be things they're not, for a start.

Also I'm pretty sure I remember reading about at last one Alan Moore script in which one of his lengthy discriptions rambled off and was then merely about how staggeringly brilliant he was for the benefit of the artist - and that's really not much different to "OK Jim, in this frame we see Bats race thru from LEFT... give it some heavy angles on the cape, we want him in real kick-ass mode", except with regard to the huge ego (and humour, it was quite funny) of the comic writer.

I shall return to this with a lengthier post later.

miss wonderstarr

18:11 / 22.11.06

If one were to write an original piece of work in the form of a comic book script, the intention of which was always to be publishes as is, then that would, I think, count as literature - formally unconventional literature, but literature.

That distinction holds OK for me. There's also the idea, I think, that literature involves telling a story, which most posts on Barbelith do not.

Also I think we should bear in mind this notion ~ which seems to be in play in the argument that comics aren't literature ~ that "literature" is a badge of merit and quality. Like "art".

As I think was suggested above, the fact that comics may not be literature, or novels, isn't a negative reflection on their worth. Great films aren't literature either. To be honest, "great comics" is more a recommendation to me than "comics as art", or reviews proclaiming that a big comic is "a true novel" or, perhaps even more bizarrely as a form of praise, "genuinely filmic".

Then again, the highest praise for computer games has been for some time that they play or look like a film ~ so maybe it's about scales of perceived cultural value. A film can aspire to be art (this used to seem ludicrous, then a worthwhile debate, now probably generally accepted) ~ a comic can aspire to seem like a novel; a video game can aspire to be like a movie.

18:50 / 24.11.06

"Is it the cash that gives literature prizes their notoriety, or the prize itself?"

That's a good question, and one I don't have an answer for. I'm also split on the question of comics as literature - I tend to think they are not, yet no less valid as narrative art (see film and television). But however we define literature, the elephant in the room seems to be which comics works stand up with the best of it. And outside of From Hell I can't really think of anything that approaches the density and complexity of a good novel. I'm sure you've all got a million other candidates (and I'm someone who doesn't think Maus or Sandman were worthy of the Pulitzer or Hugo, so I could just be an ass).

21:41 / 24.11.06

Obviously there's good art and there's bad art.

08:15 / 25.11.06

Aren't the waters somewhat muddied by the fact that the prize that ostensibly prompted the the Wired article was a National Book Award.

As National Book Foundation, the awarding organization behind the NBAs, points out Today, the Awards are given to recognize achievements in four genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature.

As such, isn't the whole 'are they lit' debate rendered entirely moot?

15:14 / 25.11.06

Next year they should give it to somebody's photo-collection, so long as it's in book form.

Or a DVD-player/Drink-mixer instruction booklet. Odds are it'd have more character development and interesting social commentary than the average thing gets nominated for such prizes.

Just push the boundaries as a giant, sort of expensive 'fuck off' to the uptight paranoids terrified comics will take all their precious word-only books away.

19:56 / 25.11.06

"the uptight paranoids terrified comics will take all their precious word-only books away"

Do these people actually exist outside of your imagination?

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