Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,202 
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Post by Confessor on Nov 20, 2016 9:11:54 GMT -5
To be honest with everyone here ... I never liked the term "Funny Books" at all to be it's degarotory towards Comics. I know many of you here use that term - but I don't. Sorry, everyone! On a related note, I know a Frenchman who has a theory that the reason why comic books are generally so maligned as low brow entertainment in America and the UK -- especially when an adult is reading them -- is because the name "comics", "funny books", or "funny pages" immediately trivialises their contents. Their very name makes them seem non-serious and a bit of a "laugh". In places like Europe and the Far East, where books that tell stories using sequential art and speech balloons are regarded as art -- and in the case of France and Belgium, reading matter for the intelligentsia -- comics are not referred to as "comics" or a similarly frivolous name. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2016 10:46:52 GMT -5
To be honest with everyone here ... I never liked the term "Funny Books" at all to be it's degarotory towards Comics. I know many of you here use that term - but I don't. Sorry, everyone! On a related note, I know a Frenchman who has a theory that the reason why comic books are generally so maligned as low brow entertainment in America and the UK -- especially when an adult is reading them -- is because the name "comics", "funny books", or "funny pages" immediately trivialises their contents. Their very name makes them seem non-serious and a bit of a "laugh". In places like Europe and the Far East, where books that tell stories using sequential art and speech balloons are regarded as art -- and in the case of France and Belgium, reading matter for the intelligentsia -- comics are not referred to as "comics" or a similarly frivolous name. I understand that and it's based on a cultural thing and I still have issues with it because everyone have their rights to call them anything they want and but in my mind it's a difficult for me to accept funny pages alone. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 20, 2016 11:19:49 GMT -5
Was it Eisner or McCloud who suggested "Sequential Art" as a label? I've found myself using it more and more. I've always struggled with what constitutes a "Graphic Novel" -- does any trade paperback count? Or, does any run of comics count? The "novel" aspect is problematic if the work was not published all at one time. Eisner was using it around the time of Contract With God, and in his Comics and Sequential Art. Walt was the major bandleader for distancing what he was doing from other comics, though not alone . The publishers loved the name, as it sounded more up-market and made it easier to sell to booksellers, which opened up new markets to them. To me, if it has pictures with word balloons, it's comics (yeah, Hal Foster messes up that definition) and has panels (but he fits that) to tell a story in sequence, then it is comics. if it is published in a book format, as an original fictional story, it's a graphic novel. If it's a reprint collection, it is a trade collection. In bookselling, a trade paperback is any paperback book larger than a mass market (the "poket size" ones).. Clear, to the point, and as far as I'm concerned, absolutely right. In the French speaking world, where floppies basically never existed or were an extremely marginal phenomenon, all comics were once called "bandes dessinées" (illustrated strips). That applied to comics published in weekly magazines, newspaper supplements and books. The equivalent to the term "graphic novel", roman graphique, started to be used a few years ago for comics aimed at a clearly more adult and literate audience; nowadays it is used by snobs who don't want to admit there might be such a thing as good comics. It's as if when talking of good TV shows on HBO we coined the term "Streaming literature". |
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Post by Dizzy D on Nov 21, 2016 11:03:51 GMT -5
To be honest with everyone here ... I never liked the term "Funny Books" at all to be it's degarotory towards Comics. I know many of you here use that term - but I don't. Sorry, everyone! On a related note, I know a Frenchman who has a theory that the reason why comic books are generally so maligned as low brow entertainment in America and the UK -- especially when an adult is reading them -- is because the name "comics", "funny books", or "funny pages" immediately trivialises their contents. Their very name makes them seem non-serious and a bit of a "laugh". In places like Europe and the Far East, where books that tell stories using sequential art and speech balloons are regarded as art -- and in the case of France and Belgium, reading matter for the intelligentsia -- comics are not referred to as "comics" or a similarly frivolous name. Just a bit of info for everybody: In the Netherlands and half of Belgium, we refer to them as Stripboeken (Strip as in comic strip, boek = book) In French, they call them Bande dessinée (Literally "Drawn bands" or "Drawn Strips") Neither is really that fitting anymore either as a lot of comic books no longer use the layout with several strips of drawings on each page. So it's not just an English issue where the term no longer really applies to all comics. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 21, 2016 13:19:00 GMT -5
To be honest with everyone here ... I never liked the term "Funny Books" at all to be it's degarotory towards Comics. I know many of you here use that term - but I don't. Sorry, everyone! On a related note, I know a Frenchman who has a theory that the reason why comic books are generally so maligned as low brow entertainment in America and the UK -- especially when an adult is reading them -- is because the name "comics", "funny books", or "funny pages" immediately trivialises their contents. Their very name makes them seem non-serious and a bit of a "laugh". In places like Europe and the Far East, where books that tell stories using sequential art and speech balloons are regarded as art -- and in the case of France and Belgium, reading matter for the intelligentsia -- comics are not referred to as "comics" or a similarly frivolous name. I tend to agree with your French friend. They're regarded as lowbrow entertainment because they sound like it. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Nov 22, 2016 14:52:35 GMT -5
A question for our Francophone members: how is "bandes dessinées" pronounced? Which syllables are stressed, which letters are silent?
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 22, 2016 15:10:51 GMT -5
"bandes" is pronounced like bahnd, with a barely pronounced n. ("an" is actually a diphthong that doesn't exist in English; it's like a longish nasal "ah").
"dessinées" is easy : day-sea- nay.
Another reason bandes dessinées get more respect in Europe than comics in the US is that they were always sold in regular bookstores. Yes, they are considered as being often less high brow than litratchaw, but being sold side by side with Hemingway and Tolstoi always gave them a little credibility as genuine books.
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