Comic book

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(Redirected from Comic books)

A comic book is a magazine or book containing the sequential art in the form of a narrative. Comic books are often called comics for short. Although the term implies otherwise, the subject matter in comic books is not necessarily humorous, and in fact its dramatic seriousness varies widely. The term "comics" in this context does not refer to comic strips (such as Peanuts or Dilbert). In the early to mid-21st century, greater acceptance of the comics form among the general reading populace coincided with a greater usage of the term graphic novel, often meant to differentiate a book of comics with a spine from its stapled, pamphlet form, but the difference between the terms seems fuzzy at best as comics become more widespread in libraries, mainstream bookstores and other places.

The earliest comic books were simply collections of comic strips that had originally been printed in newspapers. The commercial success of these collections led to work being created specifically for the comic-book form, which fostered specific conventions such as splash pages. Long-form comic books, generally with hardcover or trade-paper binding came to be known as graphic novels, but as noted above, the term's definition is especially fluid. Like jazz and a handful of other cultural artifacts, comic books are a rare indigenous American art form, [1] [2] though prototypical examples of the form exist.

American comic books have become closely associated with the superhero sub-genre. In the U.K., the term comic book is used to refer to American comic books by their readers and collectors, while the general populace would mainly consider a comic book a hardcover book collecting comics stories. The analogous term in the United Kingdom is a comic, short for comic paper or comic magazine.

Contents

Regional categories

Other Forms

Genres

Note: As with film and literature, genres are rarely pure and often blend. Frankenstein, for example, is a science fiction/horror novel; The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. is a Western/comedy TV series. Not all superhero comics are necessarily science fiction; Marvel Comics' Daredevil, for example, despite an initial science-fiction premise, may be more usefully classified as a crime drama.

Some particularly notable comic books

Related articles

Comics - the sequential art form in general

Comic book awards

Miscellaneous

Lists

References

Inge, Thomas M., "Comics as culture" Journal of Popular Culture 12:631, 1979 (not online)

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.freepedia.org/Comic_book.html"


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