Editing Graphic novel (section)

== Criticism of the term ==
Some in the comics community have objected to the term ''graphic novel'' on the grounds that it is unnecessary, or that its usage has been corrupted by commercial interests. ''Watchmen'' writer [[Alan Moore]] believes:
{{blockquote|It's a marketing term... that I never had any sympathy with. The term 'comic' does just as well for me&nbsp;... The problem is that 'graphic novel' just came to mean 'expensive comic book' and so what you'd get is people like DC Comics or Marvel Comics—because 'graphic novels' were getting some attention, they'd stick six issues of whatever worthless piece of crap they happened to be publishing lately under a glossy cover and call it ''The [[She-Hulk]] Graphic Novel''&nbsp;..."<ref>{{cite web|first=Barry |last=Kavanagh |title=The Alan Moore Interview: Northampton / Graphic novel |publisher=Blather.net |date=October 17, 2000 |url=http://www.blather.net/articles/amoore/northampton.html |access-date=2007-03-20 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140226072653/http://www.blather.net/articles/amoore/northampton.html |archive-date=February 26, 2014}}.</ref>}}

Glen Weldon, author and cultural critic, writes:
{{blockquote|It's a perfect time to retire terms like "graphic novel" and "sequential art", which piggyback on the language of other, wholly separate mediums. What's more, both terms have their roots in the need to dissemble and justify, thus both exude a sense of desperation, a gnawing hunger to be accepted.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2016/11/17/502422829/the-term-graphic-novel-has-had-a-good-run-we-dont-need-it-anymore|title=The Term 'Graphic Novel' Has Had A Good Run. We Don't Need It Anymore|newspaper=[[National Public Radio|NPR]]|date=November 17, 2016|first=Glen |last=Weldon |author-link=Glen Weldon|location= Washington, D.C.|archive-date= April 16, 2019|access-date=April 16, 2019|archive-url=https://archive.today/20190416190506/https://www.npr.org/2016/11/17/502422829/the-term-graphic-novel-has-had-a-good-run-we-dont-need-it-anymore |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Author Daniel Raeburn wrote: "I snicker at the [[neologism]] first for its insecure pretension - the literary equivalent of calling a [[garbage man]] a 'sanitation engineer' - and second because a 'graphic novel' is in fact the very thing it is ashamed to admit: a comic book, rather than a comic pamphlet or comic magazine".<ref>Raeburn, Daniel. ''Chris Ware'' (Monographics Series), [[Yale University]] Press, 2004, p. 110. {{ISBN|978-0-300-10291-8}}.</ref>

Writer [[Neil Gaiman]], responding to a claim that he does not write comic books but graphic novels, said the commenter "meant it as a compliment, I suppose. But all of a sudden I felt like someone who'd been informed that she wasn't actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening".<ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Bender | first1 = Hy | title = The Sandman Companion | publisher = [[Vertigo (DC Comics)|Vertigo]] | year = 1999 | isbn = 978-1-56389-644-6}}</ref>

Responding to writer [[Douglas Wolk]]'s quip that the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book is "the binding", ''[[Bone (comic)|Bone]]'' creator [[Jeff Smith (cartoonist)|Jeff Smith]] said: "I kind of like that answer. Because 'graphic novel'&nbsp;... I don't like that name. It's trying too hard. It is a comic book. But there is a difference. And the difference is, a graphic novel is a novel in the sense that there is a beginning, a middle and an end".<ref>Smith in {{cite web|last=Rogers|first=Vaneta|url=http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=148242|title=Behind the Page: Jeff Smith, Part Two|publisher=[[Newsarama.com]]|date=February 26, 2008|access-date=February 20, 2009|archive-url=https://archive.today/20100818013019/http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=148242|archive-date=August 18, 2010|url-status=dead}}.</ref> ''[[The Times]]'' writer [[Giles Coren]] said: "To call them graphic novels is to presume that the novel is in some way 'higher' than the karmicbwurk (comic book), and that only by being thought of as a sort of novel can it be understood as an art form".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/2012/12/not-graphic-and-not-novel/|title=Not graphic and not novel|work=[[The Spectator]]|date=December 1, 2012|first=Giles|last=Coren|location=UK|archive-date=April 16, 2019|archive-url=https://archive.today/20190416190104/https://www.spectator.co.uk/2012/12/not-graphic-and-not-novel/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

Some alternative cartoonists have coined their own terms for extended comics narratives. The cover of [[Daniel Clowes]]' ''Ice Haven'' (2001) refers to the book as "a comic-strip novel", with Clowes having noted that he "never saw anything wrong with the comic book".<ref>{{cite news|first=Laura |last=Bushell |title=Daniel Clowes Interview: The Ghost World Creator Does It Again |publisher=BBC – Collective |date=July 21, 2005 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A4500820 |access-date=June 21, 2006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514002603/http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A4500820 |archive-date=May 14, 2011}}.</ref> The cover of [[Craig Thompson]]'s ''[[Blankets (graphic novel)|Blankets]]'' calls it "an illustrated novel".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Zilveren Dolfijn - Craig Thompson (oneshots): Blankets |url=http://www.zilverendolfijn.nl/zz/sbp/1/EN/THOMPSOC,+++1/m/zd.html |access-date=2024-04-24 |website=www.zilverendolfijn.nl}}</ref>