It’s always good for a laugh to see somone out-geek their friends and/or colleagues publicly, especially when you know that the other parties most likely just roll their eyes and continue on with their daily lives. Jeff Vice, a movie critic in Ohio, did just that in his column this week, taking other movie critics to Nerd University on the differences between graphic novels and trade paperback collections. Jeff doesn’t quite have the vitriol needed to make this a message board quality meltdown, but he does manage to get the comic book collector smarter-than-thou tone across.
Having read a few recent stories regarding “V for Vendetta,” it’s become clear that some of my movie-reviewing colleagues don’t know the difference between a graphic novel and a trade-paperback collection.
So here’s a quick tutorial:
— Comic book series, miniseries and limited series are released as issues, many of which are compiled into collections. There are hardback and softcover edition of collections, with the latter also being known as trade paperbacks.
— Graphic novels, or original graphic novels, are created specially for that format and are published in hardcover or softcover form.
It is easy to get confused. For example, “V” was originally published in serialized form in Britain’s “Warrior” magazine. Then DC Comics republished those existing strips, as well as some new material, as a 10-issue miniseries. That was later compiled into hardback and softcover collections.
So technically, “V” never was a graphic novel.
The rest of the article is nothing new, just a rundown of some comic book movie news, but you can read it here.
