posted January 01, 2004 05:22 AM            

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Now how did I miss that link? Geez!

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posted January 16, 2004 08:45 AM            

Article Published: Thursday, January 15, 2004

Comic genre represents serious work, artist Eisner says

By Elana Ashanti Jefferson, Denver Post Staff Writer

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"They [Spiegelman et al.] were taking on the establishment, questioning drugs and sex and so forth," said Eisner, who coined the term 'graphic novel' in the mid-70s [. . . .] [bold added]

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posted January 16, 2004 02:23 PM            

Silencing the "graphic novel" origin story will be our next hurdle.

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posted January 18, 2004 12:09 PM            

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I've seen Jack Katz's [b]The First Kingdom[/b} referred to as "the first graphic novel," possibly in the pajes of TCJ, even though I don't think it was ever collected in TPB format.

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posted February 10, 2004 05:06 PM            

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Here's what I read in an advertisement published in Crimmer's, The Journal of the Narrative Arts (Spring '76): "The World's First Comic Art Novel! Bloodstar, king of the Northern Abyss, blah blah blah". My "boldness", of course.

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posted February 10, 2004 06:16 PM            

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So Morningstar Press used "graphic novel" on the inside front cover and in the introduction of Bloodstar and "comic art novel" in one of the ads. Interesting . . . sort of . . . I guess . . .

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posted February 11, 2004 02:01 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert H Kennedy:
I've seen Jack Katz's [b]The First Kingdom[/b} referred to as "the first graphic novel," possibly in the pajes of TCJ, even though I don't think it was ever collected in TPB format.

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Indeed it was.

Katz, Jack
The First Kingdom
New York, NY, U.S.A.: Simon & Schuster, 1978. Soft Cover.

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posted February 11, 2004 03:06 PM            

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I remember reading a letter from R. C. Harvey to the Comics Buyer's Guide in which he said that, back in the seventies (or something like that) a graphic novel was pretty much like Posy Simmonds' Gemma Bovery. I. e.: huge chunks of text and lots of pictures.

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posted February 11, 2004 03:07 PM            

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I mean, that's what people considered to be a graphic novel.

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posted February 25, 2004 05:51 PM            

Rodolphe Töpffer invented the "long form" modern comic strip - one simply has to read any of his seven "graphic novels".

His first USA appearance is discussed with visual aid in the last few Overstreet Comic Book Price Guides in what is called "The Victorian Era" section.

Further, a few of us realists compiled an in-depth look-see titled "Töpffer in America" which appeared in the prozine COMIC ART #3 published way back in 2003, copies should stil lbe floating arond here and there to buy - hey, it also has a visit with Chris Ware in his studio -

Now, RC Harvey's post i read here is right on the money except Bill Spicer's fanzine was originally titled Fantasy Illustrated for the first seven issues - name change to Graphic Story Magazine with #8, which sported an intense George Metzger cover and an interior story which blew many of our minds way back when.

Richard Kyle was the first person in the USA to use the "graphic" terms being asked about here. He did so from what i have seen in Fantasy Illustrated #4. I got my first copy back in 1966. He most likely began using the terms before in Capa-Aplpha.

Rochard Kyle tried to get Beyond Time And Again by George Metzger into print for many years - lack of funds as well as a large enough semi-gurrenteed market disswayed the project from happening when they first wanted it to.

I was selling it as a brand new comic book when it first appeared, having been involved with comic book stores since August 1972 when a few of us kids opened what became the first Comics & Comix outlet on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley. I lived thru much of what is being discussed here as it unfolded, having set up at my first comicon in 1967.

This has been an interesting thread -

best

robert beerbohm

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posted February 25, 2004 05:55 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert H Kennedy:
I've seen Jack Katz's [b]The First Kingdom[/b} referred to as "the first graphic novel," possibly in the pajes of TCJ, even though I don't think it was ever collected in TPB format.

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Hi

I was the original first co-publisher of Jack Katz's The First Kingdom - my personal responsibility was overseeing getting the negs shot and stripped, etc. TFK was never considered a "first" graphic novel" more so i pushe dthis project because Katz was the first "old timer" comicbook artist to make the plynge into the independent alternative world of underground comix distribution. TFK was ahead of its time, as was Star*Reach

Robert Beerbohm

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posted February 25, 2004 06:47 PM            

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Hi Robert! Just want bring one bit of info to your attention. You wrote:

quote:

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Richard Kyle was the first person in the USA to use the "graphic" terms being asked about here. He did so from what i have seen in Fantasy Illustrated #4. I got my first copy back in 1966. He most likely began using the terms before in Capa-Aplpha.

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Now, although R.C. Harvey agrees with you that Kyle was the first person in the USA to use the term graphic novel, he has traced Kyle's usage back a bit further than 1966. "The term 'graphic novel,' as it applies to the 'long form comic book,'" writes Harvey, "was originally coined in November 1964 by Richard Kyle in a newsletter circulated to all members of the Amateur Press Association." The quotation is from R.C. Harvey's letter to Andrew Arnold, which I quoted earlier in this thread, and I have little doubt that R.C. has, in fact, read the relevant section of the newsletter in question.

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posted February 25, 2004 07:01 PM            

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From the Google cache:

CAPA-ALPHA #1

(1964 - Jerry Bails) [Fanzine] Comic Amateur Presss Alliance - The first issue of this scarce 'members only' fanzine. Capa-Alpha was a compilation of articles and features submitted by members to Jerry Bails, who in turn collated and distributed each issue to the contributors and publishers of other fanzines.

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posted February 25, 2004 07:05 PM            

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posted February 25, 2004 07:08 PM            

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Ah, here's the one I want. November 1964:

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posted February 25, 2004 08:25 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Benjamin D. Brucke:
Hi Robert! Just want bring one bit of info to your attention. You wrote:
[QUOTE][b]Richard Kyle was the first person in the USA to use the "graphic" terms being asked about here. He did so from what i have seen in Fantasy Illustrated #4. I got my first copy back in 1966. He most likely began using the terms before in Capa-Aplpha.

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Yo Ben,
Now, i said i got my first copy of FI #4 in 1966, but it came out dated Summer 1965. One gave up four code comics to get a Fantasy Illustrated and in 1966 i was in 8th grade. My after-school job was no more than 65 cents an hour then.There is a partial misreading of what i actually wrote though i can see one could be unclear on the concept. Thing was 50 cents !!! -

I got my first RBCC with #45 which came out in late 1966 or so. Fantasy Illustrated was always one of many adverts in GB Love's Labor of Love. Bill's superior layout insired all of the zine publishers of the day to try to look better. The arrival of a new FI, then GSM, was always a joyous day for one interested in comics.

RBCC was still a hand-collated stack of mimeo and photo-offset pages until #50, if i remember correctly, without going to check my run complete from #18 up. That is the first issue wrap around all off set printing.

Anyway, FI #4 Summer 1965 contains among some comic strips "Graphic Story Review" by Richard Kyle. I have followed Richard's writings about comics since circa 1966 and was selling his Graphic Story World when it was new as well as when it went thru its mid-stream name change to Wonderworld. It was from Richard Kyle that us USA comics fans of the mid 1960s learned about and why he was pushing "new" terminology. It took a while for it to catch on, mainly because there was not much to choose from for a long time.

But If he maybe got the terms from Burne Hogarth who brought it over from France aand the SOCERLID organization, then that makes some sense on some level.

changing sea lanes for a bit:

American comics scholars need to study as much Rodolphe Töpffer as possible..

I have a few copies left of the Italian The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, first comic book in America printed in Sept 1842 in New York City by Wilson & Company, publishers also of Brother Jonathan.

I sell them for $15 post paid. Bud Plant also has a few left for sale. We imported 300 of them from a small print run. I cannot recommend this enough to anybody interested in the true earliest known American comic "graphic" story novel.

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck USA version was a reprint of the British edition from 1841, it a translation of a French editon from the 1830s, with Töpffer's first paper transfer lithography version of what in French is called Histoire de Mr. Vieux-Bois published in 1827.

The 1842 USA edition is 40 pages in length, is one long story, contains 6-12 panels per page and is still very funny. It looks and is exactly like a "modern" format comic book as USA-centric readers generally refer to the term.

Robert Beerbohm

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posted February 25, 2004 08:35 PM            

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In other words, the term graphic novel, as it applies to the "long form comic book," was originally coined in November 1964 by Richard Kyle in CAPA-ALPHA #2, a newsletter circulated to all members of the Comic Amateur Press Alliance.

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posted February 25, 2004 08:40 PM            

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Oops! I see you posted while I was lingering at the "Post Reply" form, Robert. Sorry about that. In another discussion forum, in a galaxy a couple of clicks away, we used to call that "slippage."

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posted February 25, 2004 08:48 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Benjamin D. Brucke:
In other words, the term graphic novel, as it applies to the "long form comic book," was originally coined in November 1964 by Richard Kyle in CAPA-ALPHA #2, a newsletter circulated to all members of the Comic Amateur Press Alliance.

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Yes - that is the first USA version i know of -- and the term may have originated in France earlier than that - but K-A went out to no more than 100 people, actually maybe as few as just 50 comics fans then. But they were the then movers & shakers of the "organized" hobby and info would distill outwards into the other zines over time.

For many of us, Richard Kyle's Graphic Story Review in Fantasy Illustrated #4 was the first intro into these thought processes.

And to come full circle, anyone who writes Will Eisner invented the concept or coined the term is stupidly displaying extreme lack of a form of a comics education.

Just like the Eisner-"invented Blackhawk" myth. The man is a living legend, but credit goes where credit is due - and he has done enough to earn him a place in the Top Ten.

This year in Sept 2004 the American "grahic novel" comic book 162 years old. Period

and Rodolphe Töpffer invented the modern comics as we know them today sans word balloons, which he knew of, but chose not to utilize in his sequential graphic stories.

Robert Beerbohm

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posted February 25, 2004 10:24 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Benjamin D. Brucke:
Oops! I see you posted while I was lingering at the "Post Reply" form, Robert. Sorry about that. In another discussion forum, in a galaxy a couple of clicks away, we used to call that "slippage."

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And i maybe mis-wrote in a bit of haste.

In "Graphic Story Review" in Fantasy Illustrated #4 Summer 1965, Kyle uses the terms "graphic story" as well as "novel", but does not actually use the specific term "graphic novel."

He specifically writes about longer versions of comics story-telling as "graphic story" concepts.

Kyle comes close, but in the final analysis which has come from me reading my copy of Fantasy Illustrated #4, this does not answer yoru specific question.

I have never read Kyle's contrib to C-A #2 from 1964 - so, i also venture the concept he does not specifically use "graphic novel" there as well.

But then again, we used to call non-comics code comic books "underground comix" as coined by Jack Jackson, but then that evolved into independent and/or alternative.

"indpendent" comics coming from non-corporation factory produced

"alternative" coming from the methodology of distribution just as the term "underground" referred to the method of a counter-culture undergound distribution system which Phil Seuling later tapped into to pump NYC-code comic books thru beginning in late 1973.

So, when Richard Kyle uses the term "graphic story", it is in the spirit of what came to be called "graphic novel"

now you have my investigative interest awakened as to where it truly first appears - but, again, to bring it all back on original topic, Will Eisner did not coin the term, nor was his Contract With God anywhere near the first time the term "grahic novel" was used.

robert beerbohm

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posted February 25, 2004 10:53 PM            

And in the spirit of total accuracy, i re-read posts on the comics scholar's list and it was Domingos Isabelinho who posted a heads up about the discussion. Whoooops.

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posted February 26, 2004 06:41 AM            

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quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm:
I have never read Kyle's contrib to C-A #2 from 1964 - so, i also venture the concept he does not specifically use "graphic novel" there as well.

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Again, according to R.C. Harvey, Kyle does specifically use the term graphic novel in C-A #2. Of course, I'd prefer to have the ocular proof, but absent that, the testimony of R.C. Harvey is good enough for me, for now.

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posted February 26, 2004 07:04 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm:
[QUOTE]And in the spirit of total accuracy, i re-read posts on the comics scholar's list and it was Domingos Isabelinho who posted a heads up about the discussion. Whoooops.

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Don't sweat it Robert. I'm more than glad that you came here to add your valuable 2 cents.

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posted February 26, 2004 07:06 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Benjamin D. Brucke:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm:
[b]I have never read Kyle's contrib to C-A #2 from 1964 - so, i also venture the concept he does not specifically use "graphic novel" there as well.

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Amd also good enough for me as well. I just noticed this thread started four months ago.

Bob Harvey is a consumate researcher. What i meant is in FI #4 Kyle used the term "graphic story" as if he were saying "graphic novel".

By FI #5 Sprint 1966, the term "graphic novel" is being used inside the zine.

Looking at my FI collection, it was #6 i got as a brand new issue.

One query: the Capa Alpha covers you posted - i take it you pulled those covers off the net from some where and you donot actually have them?

robert beerbohm

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posted February 26, 2004 07:18 AM            

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quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm:
One query: the Capa Alpha covers you posted - i take it you pulled those covers off the net from some where and you do not actually have them?

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You are correct, sir! The JPEGs were lifted from http://www.vaultauctions.com . I don't see any date on the auction pages, but CAPA-ALPHA #1 sold for £105.00 ($169.05), and CAPA-ALPHA #2, for £20.00 ($37.00). The high bidder for CAPA-ALPHA #2 was "Argosy." Anybody know who "Argosy" is?

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posted February 26, 2004 07:21 AM            

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"?.00"? Guess UBB doesn't like the pound sign. Anyway, the mags went for 105 pounds and 20 pounds respectively.

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posted February 26, 2004 08:05 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Benjamin D. Brucke:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm: I don't see any date on the auction pages, but CAPA-ALPHA #1 sold for £105.00 ($169.05), and CAPA-ALPHA #2, for £20.00 ($37.00). The high bidder for CAPA-ALPHA #2 was "Argosy." Anybody know who "Argosy" is?

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Jerry Bails, Roy Thomas and Maggie Thompson may have copies of CAPA-alpha #2. I believe there was only 40 copies of that issue published. It's interesting to note that today, nearly 40 years later, CAPA-alpha's monthly "print run" is still only 50 copies, so any issue is scarce.

Russ Maheras

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posted February 26, 2004 08:13 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm:
And to come full circle, anyone who writes Will Eisner invented the concept or coined the term is stupidly displaying extreme lack of a form of a comics education.

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In fact, I'd be interested to know which comics reference books or histories, if any, get it right!

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posted February 26, 2004 10:48 AM         

I think the "graphic novel" is a Phoenix art-form. It is burst into life briefly and then disappears, only to be reborn a few decades later. What scholars should explore is why there is this constant birth and death cycle (althoug perhaps the most recent incarnation will have more staying power). Why is there both the impulse to create long narratives in book form and the tendency for them to disappear, not just as a popular form, but also from aesthetic memory. Why is there this constant need to re-invent the wheel?Perhaps because mass culture is tied to technologies of reproduction, it has a shorter memory span than traditional art forms like the epic or ballad?

The point is, there is no fixed thing called "the graphic novel" -- it is a hybrid form in constant flux -- contemporary artists are still re-making the graphic novel even as scholars are trying to fasten down a hard definition.

As far as I can tell, here are some crucial dates in the life-cycle of the graphic novel:

1830s -- Toffler, of course. -- his work fits thee ideal of the long graphic novel more than most recent "graphic novels" -- which are simply high-gloss comic books.

1880s-early 20th century -- A.B. Frost's Stuff and Nonsense, etc

1920s -- the woodcut novel, which Frans Masereel describes as "Romans en images" or "novels in picture." Milt Gross's He Done Her Wrong, a parody of the wood-cut novel, is described as a "The Great American Novel and Not a Word in It -- No Music, Too." Some of these books are aesthetically superior to all but the finest recent graphic novels.

1940 -- when the company Henry Holt publishes coollections of Barnaby and Krazy Kat, the specifically say that these hard-cover books are a new genre, comic strips aimed a adults, like novels.

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posted February 26, 2004 11:41 AM            

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From the beginning, in this topic, I have tried not to get caught up in a discussion of the history of the transhistorical form some of us have learned to call "graphic novel" but instead have attempted to focus attention on the concrete history of usage of the English term graphic novel. From a consideration of certain claims made by Andrew Arnold, Will Eisner, and others, two specific questions emerged: 1) when did the term "graphic novel" first appear in print? and 2) which was the first graphic novel to be identified in print as a "graphic novel"? For the moment, we seem to have a definitive answer to the first question; as to the second question, well, as far as I am aware, there are still only three candidates, all from 1976: Bloodstar by Richard Corben and Robert E. Howard and 2) Chandler: Red Tide by James Steranko and Beyond Time and Again by George Metzger. (Note that it matters not one bit to a history of the term graphic novel that some critics, like R.C. Harvey, don't consider Steranko's book a real "graphic novel.") But at this point, rather than seeking to determine the exact publication dates of the three contenders and declare a winner, maybe it's more important to recognize that, in 1976, comics publishers as a group suddenly, for whatever reason, latched onto the term "graphic novel" as a "serious," "grown-up" alternative to the "kiddie" term "comic book."

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posted February 26, 2004 11:50 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeet Heer:
The point is, there is no fixed thing called "the graphic novel" -- it is a hybrid form in constant flux -- contemporary artists are still re-making the graphic novel even as scholars are trying to fasten down a hard definition.

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If we are talking about the exact [B]term[B] “graphic novel” then we just need to just narrow down the approximate year it was coined.

And if we are talking about the “graphic novel” format, i.e., a square-bound trade paperback format, then I think this whole discussion is pointless. Whether the comic book story is in a traditional pamphlet, paperback or hardcover format, it is still a comic book story. There are no specific, accepted page requirements for a comic book story to qualify as a “graphic novel,” is there? Terms like, “full-length story” have no meaning either.

With that being the case, one could easily argue that the 60-page battle between The Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner published by Timely in 1941 qualifies as one of the first comic book-style “graphic novels.” Just because it was published in a comic book pamphlet format does not make it any less qualified then, say, Eisner’s “A Contract with God.”

And if we throw out the “paper” requirements and look for the earliest example of sequential art telling a long, involved story, we could go right to Trajan’s Column in Rome, which was completed about 155 A.D., as I recall.

Food for thought.

Russ Maheras

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posted February 26, 2004 06:03 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Benjamin D. Brucke:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm:
[b]One query: the Capa Alpha covers you posted - i take it you pulled those covers off the net from some where and you do not actually have them?

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Well, Richard Kyle published quite a few issues of Argosy, some with Jack Kirby story as well as Steranko stuff plus an amazing two parter (of three projected) by Sam Moskowitz of a Hugo Gernsback biography which was very helpful in sorting out stuff for my "Big Bgang Theory of Comic Book History" in Comic Book Marketplace #50 Summer of 1997 concerning Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Julie Schwartz and Mort Weisnger as teen age fan boys circa 1929-1934 and SF related origins of Superman. Sam was a lot of help - i miss him - and also Julie.

back on topic, mayhaps it be Richard Kyle who is Argosy -

robert beerbohm

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posted February 26, 2004 06:23 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm:
back on topic, mayhaps it be Richard Kyle who is Argosy -

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On a happier note, I might soon have my very own (bargain-priced but original) copy of CAPA-ALPHA #2. If the deal goes through, I promise I will scan the relevant pages and post them here for all to see.

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posted February 26, 2004 07:01 PM            

1830s -- Toffler, of course. -- his work fits thee ideal of the long graphic novel more than most recent "graphic novels" -- which are simply high-gloss comic books.

1880s-early 20th century -- A.B. Frost's Stuff and Nonsense, etc

1920s -- the woodcut novel, which Frans Masereel describes as "Romans en images" or "novels in picture." Milt Gross's He Done Her Wrong, a parody of the wood-cut novel, is described as a "The Great American Novel and Not a Word in It -- No Music, Too." Some of these books are aesthetically superior to all but the finest recent graphic novels.

1940 -- when the company Henry Holt publishes coollections of Barnaby and Krazy Kat, the specifically say that these hard-cover books are a new genre, comic strips aimed a adults, like novels.

[/B][/QUOTE]

This is more like it as far as consciousness raising goes that the wheel keeps on getting reinvented in the comics world -

There is also way more to such a list -all one has to do is look at the Victorian Era price index i compile every year for the Overstreet Comics Price Guide. There are ten pages of 1800s USA comics material indexed there.

Here is some of the opening comments from the index:

For ease ascertaining the contents of each item of this listing and the Plat index list, we offer the following list of categories found immediately following most of the titles:
E - REPRINT OF EUROPEAN COMICS MATERIAL
G - GRAPHIC NOVEL (LONGER FORMAT COMIC TELLING A SINGLE STORY)
H - "HOW TO DRAW CARTOONS" BOOKS
I - ILLUSTRATED BOOKS NOTABLE FOR THE ARTIST, BUT NOT A COMIC.
M - REPRINT OF MAGAZINE / PERIODICAL COMICS MATERIAL
N - REPRINT OF NEWSPAPER COMICS MATERIAL
O - ORIGINAL COMIC MATERIAL NOT REPRINTED FROM ANOTHER SOURCE
P - PROMOTIONAL COMIC, EITHER GIVEN AWAY FOR FREE, OR A PREMIUM GIVEN IN
CONJUNCTION WITH THE PURCHASE OF A PRODUCT.
S - SINGLE PANEL / NON-SEQUENTIAL CARTOONS (ENTIRELY OR
PREDOMINANTLY)
Measurements are in inches. The first dimension given is Height and the second is Width. Some original British editions are included in the section, so as to better explain and differentiate their American counter-parts. This section created, revised, and expanded by Robert Beerbohm & Richard Olson with acknowledgment to Bill Blackbeard, Chris Brown, Alfredo Castelli, Darrell Coons, Leonardo De Sá, Scott Deschaine, Ron Friggle, Joe Evans, Tom Gordon, Michel Kempeneers, Andy Konkykru, Don Kurtz, Robert Quesinberry, Steve Rowe, Randy Scott, John Snyder, Art Spiegelman, Steve Thompson, Richard Samuel West, Doug Wheeler, Richard Wright. Giant kudos to Gabriel Laderman.

There are quite a few G notations

best
robert beerbohm

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posted February 26, 2004 07:03 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Benjamin D. Brucke:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Robert Beerbohm:
[b]back on topic, mayhaps it be Richard Kyle who is Argosy -

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On a happier note, I might soon have my very own (bargain-priced but original) copy of CAPA-ALPHA #2. If the deal goes through, I promise I will scan the relevant pages and post them here for all to see.[/B][/QUOTE]

That would be way cool - i wouldlove to read thru the entire issue.

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All times are PT (US)