What are Veeky Forums's honest thoughts on Graphic 'Novels'...

>I agree with Moore that superhero shit, don't know if it was actually him that said that, has ruined the perception of comics.
He and a lot of other people said that and I say that as well.

Mostly indifferent, but I can't stand the ones they try to push in college lit classes these days where it's usually some poorly illustrated first person account of someone's family getting killed in a war. Those feel like a half assed attempt to connect with something familiar to the younger generation without actually understanding the appeal of the format.

Read a graphic novel recommended in a thread here last week. Asterios Polyp. It was great 10/10 made use of its medium in creative ways that aided the narrative.

Asterios Polyp
Persepolis
Jimmy Corrigan

>What are Veeky Forums's honest thoughts on Graphic 'Novels'?
They're for children
> Does it feel a bit too dumbed down for you on in terms of writing?
"dumbed down" is an understatement

>What are some graphic novels you personally like?
none

>What is it that you dislike about graphic novels?

its like being spoonfed stewed apples and pears

The art style is the only important part to me. I like the most generic superhero bullshit better than e.g. Persepolis simply because it visually appeals to me more. I don't know why all the "good" stories always need to be drawn in such a simplified, abstract style, it ruins everything. I'd rather have pretty art with no substance than a good story with ugly-ass Peanuts-level art.

Herge's "Adventures of Tintin" kept me alive as a kid. They really are brilliant, good plots, great comedy, memorable characters.
Alan Moore is the master of graphic novels, though Gaiman is good too. Joe Sacco's "Palestine" was some powerful shit. "Persepolis" and "Maus" were okay, but very emotionally-manipulative, one-sided.
However, as with many animated films and all video games, graphic novels are too associated with moronic juveniles chewing bubblegum to be considered serious art.

I haven't read many graphic novels, but honest to God Bechdel's Fun Home is quite good. It may be spammed by gender studies majors on tumblr, but once you get past its toxic fanbase, the book itself is a good read.

i like the visual storytelling, i don't care about the writing. i have literally hundreds of gigabytes of pirated comic books, chosen entirely based on which artists i like, which i regularly look at without actually reading the word balloons. some are in languages i can't even read (mostly french). the really good ones don't actually need the words to be understandable, just like a great movie is still great when watched on mute.

comic books are a cool visual medium that's suffering from a bunch of wanky failed novelists that want to cover the whole page in their shitty exposition.

>pirated
Thank you for being part of the problem.

lol. comic books are dying because their audience was almost exclusively kids and now kids just watch games on youtube and wouldn't touch a comic book with somebody else's dick. even if every pirate bought everything they stole in triplicate, comic books would still be a pathetic ruin of a once successful medium.

Of course. Whatever you want to believe in.

i believe anything i can grasp is mine. go on living your slave life, paying for """art"""

Judging an entire genre, style?, through a bunch of works you chose seems pretty biased. I really liked Mauss, Persepolis, Inio's work, Junji Ito, Nishioka Brosis... I even like Prison School. I don't know, I can't shit on graphic novels, maybe the popular superhero shit makes people believe graphic novels are only about superheroes as Harry Potter can make some people believe literature is only fantasy genre?

Another question, take away the mask,costume and cape, is it still capeshit?

They're not really to my taste, I can enjoy them but it's not something I seek out. I don't have a problem with them really, but I don't really care about them either.

You have to be 18+ before posting on Veeky Forums.

Yet another example of the redditry exhibited by cancerous stirnerfags.

Kaoru Moris manga is amazing.

I hate the term graphic novel. Just call it a comic, don't be ashamed, own that shit.

I think comics are the best medium for biographies. Stuff like Maus or Persepolis are great, the format lets you do some really interesting stuff while remaining in the realms of non-fiction.

>I hate the term graphic novel. Just call it a comic, don't be ashamed, own that shit.

it's just a publishing term for comics that are released in book form and not serialized, also sometimes used to distinguish between collected editions of serialized comics (trade paperback) and something that was published as a book without being serialized first (graphic novel). it doesn't mean "comic book but for adults" or whatever you think it means.

Nausicaa manga is top tier
Everything by Moore is at least good, Swamp Thing being great (though Top 10 is my favorite).
Sandman is good, though Marvel 1602 is my favorite Gaiman. I'm very fond of a lot of Morrison, Doom Patrol being his best.
Prophet is dope. Also a fan of Manifest Destiny.

>manga is better than what passes for literature these days
Thinking that manga has any sort of value other than being cheap wish fullfilment entertainment is one of the things that genuinely makes me mad

Emma is alright. And of course it's not the Jane Austen book I would still probably prefer it in manga form

It is definitely used that way by marketers and manchildren who exclusively consume comics. It's a stupid term, considering most "graphic novels" are not even strictly that, Watchmen is a collected serialised comic

The only graphic novel I like is The Walking Dead. I have only tried a few other graphic novels, never again.

Charles Burns Black Hole is brilliant, manages to capture horror without degrading into generic tropes. I quite liked the cinematic short too, it could be a good film

Vast majority of manga is shit, but I'm sure the same could apply to literature.

that's just because some people want to distinguish between tpbs and graphic novels and some just consider anything thick to be a graphic novel no matter if it was originally serialized or not. everyone today is going to read watchmen as if it was a book with twelve chapters and not a series, so it's not a big deal. the point is that everyone knows that a graphic novel is just a format of a comic book. they're not in denial about reading comic books.

i honestly see complaints about the term being pretentious way more often than i see the term actually used pretentiously. people say graphic novel because that's what the bookstore labels that shelf, not because they're in some state of comic book denial that you need to snap them out of. it's a completely innocuous term.

See

>"Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. are crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms." —Theodore Sturgeon

adding to this yoshihiro tatsumi and (stateside) harvey pekar in a similar vein.

This

I uses to be anti-graphic novel until I had to read Moore's "From Hell" for a lit class. Totally changed my outlook on the medium. It's still the only one I've read, but I feel as though there has to be others that I would enjoy as much or more than From Hell.

there's so much bad superhero stuff nowadays that manga surpasses it easily. it's sad

this is science fiction fandom in a nutshell. a desperate need for science fiction to be as respected as "real literature" coupled with inability to actually defend its quality leads into this absurd evasion where you argue by comparing imaginary quality percentages. my favorite bit is how he considers the "quality of an artform" and the "quality of a consumer good" to be interchangeable concepts, so science fiction "conforms to the same trends of quality" as literature and fuzzy toilet seats. brilliant.

so now you have entire generations of sf fans repeating this moronic quote like a mantra. at least a comic book fan can read "understanding comics" and argue semi-intelligently that the shit he likes employs interesting visual storytelling techniques or whatever. it might be weak but it's at least a positive argument as opposed to the science fiction mantra of "other things are also bad".

Always hated the term graphic novel because it's fucking stupid. Are comics literature? You can't compare a medium which works by combining words and image with a one that consists entirely of the written word. A good comic doesn't need "good" writing in the same way as a novel does, because the text fills an entirely different function.

Touche

Love and Rockets

Superheroes are the American Pantheon of Gods, if you disagree you know nothing of mythology or literature. The saying should be "Start with the New 52"

Is there a list of Veeky Forums approved comics/graphic novels? I dabble in the medium but nothing serious, so I want to know if there is anything more cerebral that you guys have read

The pantheon of gods were actually worshipped by the major patricians and plebeians alike. Superhero are just masculine power fantasies for beta males and kids.

Superheroes are just cultural cancer. If they truly were the american pantheon/mythos, that would only be an insult to America.

Born Again is best comic book ever.

It played around with the character's history, looked at what made him tick, completely destroyed it and built something new.

It made so many choices that you just can't get away with today and all of them stuck with the character and none of were even as much as mentioned before. Daredevil is known as that character who is Catholic. He wasn't a Catholic for 227 issues of Volume 1 of the series until Born Again, that's how powerful it is.

Fake and gay.

>unironic capeshit
>best comic ever

Superheros are the romance novels of the comic medium. It´s pretty easy to go better. So shovel your weabooness someplace.

I always despised super heroes, i used to be a comic book nerd back when you were an actual outcast for being a comic book nerd and before every 10 cape shit movies a year made the public think that wearing black rimmed glasses and collecting funko pop made you a nerd. Or before marvel went full sjw and ruined everything.
I always hated cape shit for the most part.
When i was a kid i would read r.crumb, johnny the homicidal maniac, usagi yojimbo, bone, joe matt, anything that wasnt cape shit, i also read lots of manga.
The cape shit genre is so limiting and sterile.

The only time it was ever good was in the 90's when you had British occultists like alan moore and grant morrison writing for them.

Is there anything really much to say about graphic novels, wow a collected work of comic books...

>New 53
>Not Jack Kirby
>Being this pleb

Just bought watchmen this week and it's saturated with symbolism, such a good book. L'Hydrie was nice too.

I haven't yet read one that convinced me of the medium's worth. Watchmen was pretty good. Sandman hasn't held my attention. I don't feel compelled to give too many GNs chances because they're pricey and most of them look pretty terrible. Superhero stories are mostly Jewish propaganda about whatever underclass is currently being told that it can someday seize power and save the world, anyway. The ones that aren't Jewish propaganda are just general liberal-democratic propaganda about the importance of maintaining the status quo.

>They´re for children
Sure...

What made Watchmen so worthwhile?

It touched serious themes with maturity

Yeah that one's really comfy, haven't read anything like it

So what is it about other capeshit that makes their attempt less good?

They make the situations less realistic

15 yr olds are still children

That's wrong. Watchmen isn't realistic.
It is dark. It does have relatively mature themes, like rape and the psychological toll it takes on women and the things it can do to a sense of identity. It also has blue nuclear gods of science and exploding fake octopi from another dimension.

>People with facial hair, pubs, and a high masturbation desire every hour are still children
Sure...

alan moore garbage occultist and pretentious annoying writer. V one of the worst characters in literature

>Watchmen isn´t realistic
Not a single superhero comic is, there are some who are very verosimile, which is different, still, the reactions and actions of the characters are realistic, not like a lot of superhero comics like... "Spider-Man" for example, just think about it, do you really think a guy like Peter can get a woman so hot like MJ in real life? (with the money issues included)

> the reactions and actions of the characters are realistic, not like a lot of superhero comics like... "Spider-Man" for example, just think about it, do you really think a guy like Peter can get a woman so hot like MJ in real life? (with the money issues included)
Same question about Dan Draper and the rape product.

>bone
I read that shit when I was a kid, it was definitely better than capeshit.

legally and mentally yes

They don´t treat them with the words "baby" and "sweetheart" anymore, do they? (Except the GFs)

Remember the knot-tops from the comic? They rocked the same pieces as youth today, they are literally white thugs with manbuns. We are now living in the Watchmen distopia. And how the characters appear so human, like the Comedian?

also the symbolism everywhere. The book is packed with great artistry.

i dont get why people have a hard on for symbolism

There are some great comics, but the medium is diluted by a lot of trash.

Nothing that matches genuine literary classics yet, but that's to be expected, it's a very young medium.

Stuff worth reading:
Mauz
Persepolis
Preacher (fuck you I like it)
Lost Girls
Blankets

Has anyone read the new Flintstones? I'm trying not to buy too many new books, but I'm tempted.

Are light novels literature?

I think that we can all at least agree that shoujo is 100% Veeky Forums

pure Dostoevsky characterisation

...

Is there no love for the Franco-Belgian artists ? A lot of series are either "mature" shit or made for kids but things like Moebius' works are so good and influential beyond their art.
I also think the first Ghost in the Shell manga was great but Man-Machine interface lost it completely.

One of the greatest comics of all time.

because it's hard to do

why do i need pictures to tell me what to imagine?

yes, they do feel dumbed down and generally immature

You're just plain wrong.

>Remember the knot-tops from the comic? They rocked the same pieces as youth today, they are literally white thugs with manbuns
That's strange because the book is set in the 1980s that were contemporary to its production team. I don't know where you get the idea that everyone goes around wearing leather jackets and manbuns while patrolling the streets for innocent people to beat up but it's not the way the world works. Most people don't dress or behave like those characters.

I feel like either I'm missing the genius of man machine interface or it was a schizophrenic mess. Stabat Mater was very Nick Land/CCRUesque though

Just as valid of a storytelling medium as any other, but of course in Veeky Forums navelgazer-land it's a medium for little babies and inferior to the pure 'kino' tripe like to read.

Literary fiction fans should just be gassed so the rest of us can enjoy what we like in peace.

Same. I tried very hard to like it but I'm obliged to recognize it's fanfic tier.
It lost everything that made the original manga so enjoyable. Motoko became an omnipotent character, capable of doing anything with unlimited resources except showing likable traits. The light touches of humor disappeared in favor of endless pantyshots. The world didn't feel coherent, dirty, layered and lived in. The author notes were so rare and a far cry from past philosophical musings and insights into the world-building. The story was just a plain mess.
I just can't fathom what happened in Shirow's head. I guess we just gotta be thankful the original Ghost in the Shell exists even if it means nothing can ever approach its greatness.

Read Sacco's Safe Area Gorazade. I liked it a lot more than Palestine. To me those two boos gave me the biggest insight on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, that is without studying it extensively.

Saga of the Swamp Thing is mostly excellent. Gaiman drew a lot of stylistic inspiration from it for Sandman.

Oh, I thought the new Flintstones was great. I'd recommend for Veeky Forums people to read, one of the better DC Comics published the past few years IMO. The social satire may seem entry-level but it has enough charm, humour, and great art

99% of cape comics belong in the trash. There are some genuinely great works from the medium, but it gets washed out by Batman punching Joker Issue #93301

Pretty much how I feel, every cape comic is just a elaborate brawl. There's even a Superman comic where he says he let's his enemy hit him first so he knows how much to hold back, like he just can't hit him a bit harder and be done with it.

Anyway, I recommend Hellboy and BPRD.

That's what people said about the novel too.