The Library of Congress > Linked Data Service > LC Subject Headings (LCSH)

Graphic novels


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  • Variants

    • Comic book novels
    • Fiction graphic novels
    • Fictive graphic novels
    • Graphic albums
    • Graphic fiction
    • Graphic nonfiction
    • Graphic novellas
    • Nonfiction graphic novels
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  • Closely Matching Concepts from Other Schemes

  • Sources

    • found: Work cat.: 94023984: Rothschild, D.A. Graphic novels, 1995.
    • found: LC database, Nov. 3, 1994(40+ entries for individual graphic novels under series title)
    • found: City of light, city of dark, c1993:t.p. (comic-book novel)
    • found: Rothschild, D.A. Graphic novels, 1995:p. xiii (a graphic novel is a sturdy, lengthy comic book that contains a single story or a set of interrelated stories told using "sequential art"; other terms: trade comics (which already has a meaning in the industry); commix, invented by Art Spiegelman to describe "a co-mixing of words and pictures" (too similar to comics and comix to catch on); graphic album (the European term--same problem as graphic novel, with audio overtones); illu-novel (too clunky to catch on); and gekiga (the Japanese term for the genre))
    • found: Gorman, M. Getting graphic!, c2003:p. xii (graphic novel is used in the library profession to describe an original book-length story, either fiction or nonfiction, published in comic book style or a collection of stories that have been published previously as individual comic books; conventional graphic novel begins and ends a story within the first and last page of the book; the use of the seemingly erroneous label of "novel" for all books created in a comic-style format must be understood and accepted as the status quo) p. 60 (graphic nonfiction) p. 66 (graphic work of nonfiction)
    • found: Wikipedia, July 26, 2005(Graphic novel (sometimes abbreviated GN) is a term for a kind of book, usually telling an extended story with sequential art (i.e. comics); most broadly used to refer to any long-form comic book or manga, i.e. the comics analogue to a prose novel or novella; can apply to works which were previously published serially in periodical comic books, or to works produced specifically for book-format publication; some use the term "graphic novella" for works that fit the general sense of the term (a single, well-developed story), but are less than 100 pages; in the book trade the term is sometimes extended to include material that would not be considered a "novel" if produced in another medium. Collections of comic book issues that do not form a single continuous story, anthologies of short loosely-related pieces, and even non-fiction are stocked by libraries and bookstores as "graphic novels")
    • found: Lyga, A.A.W. Graphic novels in your media center, 2004:p. 15 (comic books can--and do--encompass the entire range of fiction and nonfiction) p. 17 (all graphic novels are comic books, but not all comic books are graphic novels)
    • found: Goldsmith, F. Graphic novels now, 2005:p. 16 (To date, publishers and librarians have not devised a term to replace the misnomer graphic novel when referring to nonfiction. For now, then, graphic novel may be applied to works that are either factual or fictive. Further, a fictive graphic novel may be a single short story or a collection of short stories rather than a novel in the literary sense of a lengthy work that entails subplots and other complexities.) p. 17 (Graphic novels are not a type of picture book; that is, they are not stories accompanied by illustrations that largely repeat the content of the written text. ... The graphic novel indeed includes pictures, but the images must be integrated with the text so that together they provide a narrative that is richer than either element can provide alone.)
    • found: Wikipedia, Dec. 5, 2012(Category: Non-fiction graphic novels) Non-fiction comics (Non-fiction comics, also known as graphic non-fiction, is non-fiction in the comics medium, embracing a variety of formats from comic strips to trade paperbacks.)
    • found: Versaci, R. This book contains graphic language : comics as literature, 2007(summary: "By demonstrating the ways in which comic books (and graphic novels) both reflect upon, and expand the boundaries of literature, Rocco Versaci demonstrates that comics have earned the right to be taken just as seriously as any other literary form") (OCoLC)156831041
    • found: McWilliams, O. 1990's : comics as literature, in History, theme & technique, 2013:p. 23 ("The defining moment of legitimization for the comics medium occurred when Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 1992 for Maus, which chronicles Spiegelman's father's experience as a Holocaust survivor"; "Widely recognized by the mainstream literary establishment as a work of legitimate literature, Maus encouraged readers to consider the literary nature of the graphic novel medium as a whole")
    • notfound: Ward. Longman companion to twentieth century literature, 1991;Random House;Web. 3
  • Editorial Notes

    • subdivision [Comic books, strips, etc.] under names of individual persons; under individual sacred works, e.g. [Bible--Comic books, strips, etc.;] and under topical headings; and headings for genres of comic books, e.g. [Fantasy comic books, strips, etc.]
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  • Change Notes

    • 2005-07-26: new
    • 2023-10-18: revised
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