Comics and Literature #8: Graphic Novels and the Comics Canon

A canon needs its books

Extending the dichotomy between the generic and the literary, TCJ frequently suggested that comics should strive towards prose literature not just in style or content but also in means of distribution. The merging of the comics sphere with that of prose literature had long been a kind of dream amongst part of the comics fandom, and the Journal certainly did not create this desire whole cloth. Works in the late 1970s such as The Last Kingdom and A Contract with God were advertised as “graphic novels”, a term which here suggested not so much format (The Last Kingdom was a serialized fantasy story and A Contract with God a collection of short stories) as aspiration.¹ In this period Byron Preiss also attempted to break into bookstores with graphic albums that illustrated the works of popular science-fiction authors. Even before Groth began attempting to introduce literary values through The Comics Journal, comics artists and publishers hungered for the prestige offered by the literary sphere.

The Comics Journal provided a welcome forum for these artists to campaign for entry into the literary world. In a 1985 interview with the Journal, Alex Toth mused that the bookstore would ultimately be the best place for a sophisticated comics publication (Davis Et. Al, "Still the Artist's Artist" 73). Steve Gerber suggested in an earlier interview that standalone paperback books would be a better form for comics and allow artists greater editorial freedom (Groth, "Steve Gerber" 43). In 1987, despondent at the low cultural ambitions of comic book store owners, columnist Dale Luciano wrote that the bookstore and the mainstream publishing industry were the best chance for comic books to develop fully into a respectable artform. For Luciano, this was only confirmed by the release of Maus by a mainstream publisher into mainstream bookstores (45). As Charles Hatfield argues in his book Alternative Comics, the speciality comic book store made alternative comics more available to consumers and allowed some to be financially viable (Ch. 1). However, those who created and advocated for such comics felt constrained by this environment, and TCJ both allowed them to express this frustration and echo it with columns like Luciano’s.

As a part of this aspiration, Groth, Thompson and their associates encouraged comics publications that could be sold in bookstores and were similar products to “real” books. In issue #73 of The Comics Journal, Kim Thompson bluntly stated that "American comics needs the graphic album”, drawing inspiration from the format of French comics ("Death Warmed Over" 50). In the next issue, Dwight Decker would call for systematic re-printing of older comics in book-length form ("Editorial the First" 9). As publisher of Fantagraphics, Gary Groth would fulfill this wish with an extensive and still-ongoing line of comics reprints. These reprints attempt to create a comics canon that is akin to the literary canon, with all works readily available and able to be positioned next to each other. The numerous retrospective articles published in the Journal arguing for the virtues of various older artists are at least in part arguments over which comics would belong in this then-nonexistent canon. In collecting these largely serialized works, however, Fantagraphics transformed them from the ephemeral, low-culture objects they once were into permanent artistic objects, effectively creating the bookstore-ready comic that they themselves desired.