Political Correctness gone mad!

George Atlas wrote: Would you call Maus one graphic novel or two?  I'd call it one graphic novel in two volumes.

Two; just as Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return Of the Jedi are three movies (even though they can sometimes be purchased together) and Angels In America (Millennium Approaches and Perestroikais) is two plays.   

Although (parts of) Maus was originally published in Raw magazine, I can overlook that because it was conceived as a novel.  Without publisher interest, the magazine format was used to secure one.  However I cannot overlook that the second novel was published five years after the first one.

QUOTE: Watchmen was conceived as a unitary whole, composed of a dozen chapters, each of which was published in comic book form as it was created.  The whole was subsequently collected in one volume. (Of course, the subtle distinctions you and I are hashing out would be completely lost on most "civilians."  One of the nice things about this forum--good, smart conversation on this sort of minutia.)

While I see your point (and am also enjoying the intelligent conversation), Watchmen was commissioned as a comic book series.  Once the buzz began to generate, DC even asked about a continuation/sequel/prequel.  On the backs of works like it and Dark Knight Returns, a new market began to flourish but at its point of origin, it was nothing more than a twelve part comic book series.

Even if one attempts to make exceptions for stuff like Watchmen, that doesn't change the fact that (to me) saying A Dame To Kill For, The Big Fat Kill, Batman: Year One, Seeds Of Destruction, etc. are novels is like saying a week's worth of Days Of Our Lives is a television mini-series:)  They’re all storylines within a much larger tapestry.  And while the same can be said for films like the James Bond movies or the ones I listed above, films, like novels, are delivered complete.  

Like Watchman, Millar’s run on Spider-Man was conceived as a 12 parter but when its all said and done, all he gave us he gave us was twelve more episodes in the never ending life of Spider-Man.  And the same can be said of Hush, The Kree/Skrull War, and The Trial of Galactus; all great comic books (give or take) but not a graphic novel among them.

I believe Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns also fall into this same category.  For if the creators involved had less integrity (or, depending on your stance, were less stubborn) than Moore and Gibbons, DC could have made it into quite the cash cow; as one could say they did with DKR.  Is Dark Knight Strikes Again a sequel/follow-up or is it the second volume in the same novel?  In my opinion, it’s definitely a sequel.

To me, a novel is delivered in long form.  Anything else is a reprint collection.  All I’m saying is that the industry should be proud enough of itself to say “Based on the Sin City series of comic books” or “Watchmen is a great comic book series” and the only reason it doesn’t is because we feel the need to make them sound “better”.

Batman: Son Of The Demon is and always was a graphic novel.  Batman: Year One is either a trade paperback or a hardcover reprint collection but there’s no denying that it was first and foremost,  four separate comic books.

…At least that’s how I look at it.

I saw an actor from Sin City (can't remember which one) on a talk show, either Letterman or O'Brien, and he (or she) talked about how they took images and lifted them straight to the screen. At one point she (or he) mentioned "com- err, graphic novels"

Which is why I said, "I could be wrong":)  And, as I said, there are exceptions and there are rules.

My point of contention is trying to pass of collections of individual comic books as something else. 

I read an interview where Christain Bale where Bale took offense to the interviewer's comment of Batman Begins being a "comic book movie" and countered that it was actually based on the graphic novel, Batman: Year One. 

I have a copy of the script and I can tell you that's quite a stretch (since, for starters neither Ra's Al Ghul nor the Scarecrow make an appearance in Year One) but regardless, Batman: Year One IS issues 404-407 of the Batman COMIC BOOK!

John Byrne wrote: Hey, if calling 'em "graphic novels" somehow makes comicbooks acceptable to the steaming masses, I say let's encourage the misuse! I have been searching for years for a term that would be more accurately descriptive of the product than "comicbook". If, in the end, we must accept a term that really does not apply per se, well, so be it.

If that's the case, I guess we can be happy at least that they're at least not referring to them as pamphlets.