Graphic Novels

[Anonymous No.5590497]

What is /lit/'s opinion on graphic novels? particularly with this one?

[Omnisexual Tyrannosaurus !!33slhp0V42i No.5590505]

Interesting, entertaining, not high literature or art.

[Anonymous No.5590508]

>>5590497
bump

[o !!r3+23beQiOG No.5590519]

>>5590505

>not high literature
yeah, I guess.

>or art.
don't be that guy.

[Anonymous No.5590522]

The best comics have as much merit as literature

[Omnisexual Tyrannosaurus !!33slhp0V42i No.5590525]

>>5590519
Not high art.

[Omnisexual Tyrannosaurus !!33slhp0V42i No.5590526]

>>5590522
Depends on whether or not you're using literature to mean literary writing, or just writing without pictures.

[Anonymous No.5590528]

>>5590497
It's comics, it is a low art. I think Watchmen is more important to comics than literature. When professors and teachers use this book in class they glance right over why the cartooning and the format of the pages is so damn important.

[Anonymous No.5590540]

>>5590526
I mean the snobby kind of literature

[Anonymous No.5590549]

>>5590528
What makes comics a low art?

[Omnisexual Tyrannosaurus !!33slhp0V42i No.5590553]

>>5590540
If you mean the best comic books are comparable in artistic achievement to Dante or Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky or Joyce, I do not take you seriously.

[Anonymous No.5590556]

>>5590553
Obviously im not talking about shakespeare m8 but watchmen is on the same level or above books like dorian gray

[Anonymous No.5590561]

>>5590549
>>5590528
>there are still people who think in terms of "high" and "low" art in our current postpostmodernist world

Holy shit, you aren't going to get browny points from your grandfather over believing in severely dated shit like "High" and "Low" art

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5590562]

literature it's that genre which makes you draw your own imaginary pictures, comics draw them for you, so they are not literature. the border between comics and illustrated literature it's when pictures become more important than text

[Anonymous No.5590578]

>>5590549
The art form was targeted at children and the illiterate. Also it was a throw away entertainment written by people that worked like mercenaries.

[Anonymous No.5590579]

>>5590553
>If the relatively new artistic tradition of comic books can't hold a candle to the very best cherry picked examples of excellence through all of literary history, then it is not art

Every day you give me a new reason to hold you in disdain. I mean, Watchmen isn't good enough for you, but futuristic slop is? Christ.

[Anonymous No.5590584]

>>5590561
Who really follows modern art?

[Anonymous No.5590589]

>>5590578
Sounds like your argument has nothing to do with the merit of comics like watchmen

[Anonymous No.5590604]

>>5590584
Contemporary follows modern art.

[Anonymous No.5590607]

>>5590589
I was talking about the history of how the majority of people living in North America think about comics. Now academia is taking a serious look at this art form.

[Omnisexual Tyrannosaurus !!33slhp0V42i No.5590613]

>>5590579
Film was around a lot shorter than comic books before masterpiece films were produced.

[Anonymous No.5590617]

>>5590497

You mean comics?
They are legit the same thing. Watchmen was released as serialized issues just like all that plebian shit like spiderman or what have you.

[Anonymous No.5590618]

>>5590613
What are some directors that you believe could be compared to shakespeare then?

[Anonymous No.5590621]

>>5590613
That's only because true masterpieces in film have yet to be made.

It's all crap. Even the "good" stuff.

[Anonymous No.5590623]

>>5590613

Krazy Kat was around in like 1920 as were comics like little nemo and shit. It's pretentious as fuck. Pretty artsy shit.

[Anonymous No.5590629]

>>5590617
Are you really saying that Watchmen is on par with monthly issues of Spider-Man and Bat-Man because it was serialized?

[Anonymous No.5590632]

>>5590629
There have been some incredible batman comics over the years

[Anonymous No.5590638]

>>5590623
Serialized Newspaper comics are a whole different animal.

[Anonymous No.5590651]

>>5590617
It was a limited-run series with a finite story. Spiderman/ Batman etc. are designed to run indefinitely. Different things entirely.

[Anonymous No.5590653]

>>5590638

No.... they aren't. They share common lineage, and serialized newspaper comics > detective comics > superhero bullshit.

>>5590629

Yeah essentially... I like watchmen it's pretty good, but honestly the art style doesn't do the comic justice and it drags at time. At least a spiderman serial delivers consistently bleh content.

I read hellblazer personally so I'm not going to rag on moore. But in the world of comics he's pretty overrated.

[Anonymous No.5590658]

People who say comics aren't art or can't be art literally don't know shit about them.

They are an entirely different medium than literature, in terms of reading them and developing them.

[Anonymous No.5590661]

>>5590651

Plebian detected. Haven't checked out "Before Watchmen" or "The Minutemen". Just like spiderman and batman Watchmen will put out issues until it stops making money.

[Anonymous No.5590663]

>>5590651
but spiderman and batman have clear story arcs with a beginning middle and end and watchmen isnt actually self contained anymore

[Anonymous No.5590666]

>>5590632
I was more making a point that his argument is ill informed. Because if he thinks that if something has been serialized, it becomes a lesser work. That person is super fucking wrong. Great novelists of the 19th and 20th century have been published in a serialized format in magazines. A small list of authors that had work published in a serial format: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Melville.

[Anonymous No.5590667]

>>5590653
>the art style doesn't do the comic justice
how pleb do you have to be m8, gibbons is great at composition and his figures are all perfect

[Anonymous No.5590668]

ITT: Niggas never heard of Will Eisner.

[Anonymous No.5590671]

>>5590661
Before Watchmen was released 25 years after the original series and had no involvement from Moore or Gibbons. Its existence has zero bearing on the quality of the original.

[Anonymous No.5590673]

>>5590497
Fundamentally different than literature. While some things are translatable like the issues it covers and the dialogue of the characters, there are parts of the art that simply don't translate into what I would consider literary equivalent. Like the repeating metaphors are done in such a way that is very different from it's literary brother. Also the comic art who brother I suppose would be the prose of a novel. Just too different.

Watchmen is really good though and I've always thought Moore was able to use the art in such a way that mimics the literary subtlety and beauty that allows us to qualify good literature. I think it isn't fair to judge either the medium against each other or the products of each against each other.

[Anonymous No.5590677]

>>5590661
That has to do more with creator rights and shitty contracts. If Alan had the money to go to court her would.
>>5590653
I say that they are a different animal because superhero and single issue comics where seen as cheap and even bad for your mind. While Syndicated Newspaper comics where seen as proper entertainment. Just look how long it took for comic-book writers and artists to have their names published inside or on the books.

[Omnisexual Tyrannosaurus !!33slhp0V42i No.5590679]

>>5590618
Kurosawa, Kubrick. Not in dialogue obviously, but then we're talking about film, not drama, so I am comparing overall quality especially factoring in the visual.

>>5590621
Masterpieces of film have existed since the silent era.

[Anonymous No.5590680]

>>5590671
much like how dan slott's spider-man has no bearing on ditko's

[Anonymous No.5590681]

>>5590667

I think that the art really fails with the coloring, not gibbon's fault but I always thought it looked sloppy, and dated.

Albeit lot's of comics from the 80's suffer from this but look at hellblazer and this art from ridgway, more dynamic, much more visual interest.

[Omnisexual Tyrannosaurus !!33slhp0V42i No.5590683]

>>5590679
>not drama
Stage is the term I meant.

[Anonymous No.5590686]

>>5590668
I love Eisner for his work and I hate the industry(Mostly DC and Marvel) corrupting the word graphic novel.

[Anonymous No.5590692]

>>5590681
but that kind of artwork would not suit watchmen, the strict panelling and unstylized figures is an important aesthetic choice (especially the panelling)