In the collective noodle of history, or at least, that obscure corner of the car-boot of history where comics are remembered at all, it will be the age, or the phase, of the "graphic novel".

Really, all the man in the street will remember of comics will be the icons like Batman and Superman, Charlie Brown, Popeye.

But the bookish fraternity will have it divided in phases, three, in fact: 1. The newspaper comic-strip, which thrived in the first half of the 20th century.

But of course, it was still around during: 2. The heyday of the comic book, the 40s and 50s, with occasional revivals after that.

And both survived to see the final great burst expiration of the art in its final phase, that of 3. The graphic novel.

"Graphic Novel". Will Eisner invented the term. He'd already had a career, as a young man, at the onset of the previous phase. You'll always get oddbodies that won't stay in their categories.

A Contract with God, in 1978, was the book. The idea of big damn serious event of a comic dealing with stuff worth thinking about was already fermenting in various heads.

(...)

So he invented it and then it got hijacked by the moneyspiderss and the bullshitters issuing their foolish mascarades as "graphic novels" so that we'd just as soon go back to calling the real McCoy just "comics".

Eddie Campbell, com a melhor definição de "graphic novel" que já vi em How to be an Artist.