Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: The Graphic Novel, a Special Type of Comics
- Part One Historical Context
- 2 Adult Comics before the Graphic Novel: From Moral Panic to Pop Art Sensationalism, 1945–c.1967
- 3 Underground Comix and Mainstream Evolutions, 1968–c.1980
- 4 “Not Just for Kids”: Clever Comics and the New Graphic Novels
- Part Two Forms
- Part Three Themes
- Notes
- Index
4 - “Not Just for Kids”: Clever Comics and the New Graphic Novels
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: The Graphic Novel, a Special Type of Comics
- Part One Historical Context
- 2 Adult Comics before the Graphic Novel: From Moral Panic to Pop Art Sensationalism, 1945–c.1967
- 3 Underground Comix and Mainstream Evolutions, 1968–c.1980
- 4 “Not Just for Kids”: Clever Comics and the New Graphic Novels
- Part Two Forms
- Part Three Themes
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Between the late 1980s and the present day, the graphic novel has become an accepted medium for literary and visual creativity and storytelling. This successful development cannot be attributed to a single cause or effect, and to attempt to locate such a thing would be reductive. When in 1986–1987, Moore and Gibbons’s Watchmen, Spiegelman’s Maus, and Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns were picked up in the media and soon described as the “big three” graphic novels, it was after years of development of adult comics. This chapter (1) makes a series of arguments to try to unpick further some of the hidden wiring behind the breakthrough of the graphic novel in 1986–1987, and (2) discusses some of the dominant strands in more recent production: history and reportage, autobiography, women creators, and revival of genre-driven works. The chapter ends with some more general suggestions as to the lessons provided by history.
1986: the breakthrough of the “big three”
It is first important to emphasize that the successes of Spiegelman, Moore and Gibbons, and Miller had their roots in the threshold period of the later 1970s, which we analyzed in Chapter 3. It was in that period that comix were slowly changing into a new, less frivolous format, and the concept of the graphic novel first gained some common usage and initial public interest. We can add here that both Spiegelman and Moore had been working on developing adult comics for much of the 1980s before their names became famous as founding figures of the graphic novel.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Graphic NovelAn Introduction, pp. 74 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014