I feel that it is safe to say that all of us comic readers have friends, colleagues, or family members who view comic books as strictly kids fare regardless of the reality of the current state of the medium. Amongst this population though we have those people who shun "comics" but from time to time become intrigued enough to read a "graphic novel." Sometimes these people end up reading an actual honest-to-God ORIGINAL graphic novel, but often what they read is simply a collected version of dare I say it ... COMIC BOOKS. Now, I am sure some people will say that I am merely splitting hairs and playing semantic games, but I persist regardless. Think for a second about the process of writing a piece of fiction. If you know ahead of time that your work is going to be released in twelve small pieces over the span of a year than you are going to write it accordingly. Needless to say if you know your work will be released all at once you will write it differently than you would have in the previous scenario thus creating two similar but very distinct works.
What the hell does this have to do with the Watchmen movie?
If you see any advertising for the movie odds are you will see the phrase "Most Celebrated Graphic Novel of All Time" somewhere on the poster or in the commercial. As a comic fan I urge you to remind people that Watchmen, regardless of the fact that most people now read it in a collected format, is was and forever will be a COMIC BOOK because that is how it was written and released. Regardless of how much money movies like Watchmen make comics will still be seen as kids stuff if people continue to believe that they are based off of "graphic novels" and not comic books. So, stand up for your hobby and remind people that comic is not a four-letter word in any sense of the phrase.
Does that make any sense? Hopefully.
Time to get back to preparing lessons.
Big week for releases this week so expect a podcast covering this and last weeks books.
Bye,
Jesse.
