Glossary

Comic: defined by Scott McCloud as “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the reader.’  Just as the sentence might be considered the basic unit of a book, comics can be considered the basic unit of the graphic novel.  Pictures without deliberate sequence can still qualify as comics, and certain comic collections may not be considered graphic novels. For example, collections of newspaper-style strips such as Calvin and Hobbes are not generally considered graphic novels.

Comic Book: Typically, a  “traditional” 24-48 page booklet telling a story using sequential art.

Graphic novel:  Defined in Graphic Novels: A Bibliographic Guide to Book-Length Comics as “a sturdy, lengthy comic book that contains a single story or a set of interrelated stories told using sequential art.  Coined by Will Eisner in 1978 because comic book had negative connotations.” Although Rothschild notes that the term is often confused with “graphic novels” as in novels featuring “graphically” explicit violent or sexual content, the term’s ambiguity has been diminished as the term gained currency in literary circles. The Library of Congress amended its subject headings to have comics/graphic novels fully replace “comics” in 2008.

For the purposes of this project, “graphic novel” has been adapted into as general a descriptor as possible in order to catch the greatest variety of available materials considered relevant to the modern subject heading. As such, most forms of sequential-art based materials are included, excluding materials which have the “Comic books, strips, etc.” subject heading.

Manga: For many intents and purposes, the Japanese analogue to comic books. Broadly speaking, a unique marketbase in Asia affords them a much broader readership and a wider scope of internal genres and subjects.  In the context of an American collection, “manga” generally refers to material that was initially published in Japan.  In the United States, manga is generally translated, but remains printed in the “authentic Japanese right-to-left format” in 8×5 inch collections.

Trade Paperback: A collection of comic books from the same story or or united by a common theme. Generally, these can be seen as an analogue to library-bound serials, although they are usually edited to exclude advertisements and may even include additional content, such as a special foreword, notes from the author