29.12.2013 Views

Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

B<strong>in</strong>gham 32<br />

Corben's, reads as follows: "BLOODSTAR is a new, revolutionary concept —a graphic<br />

novel which comb<strong>in</strong>es all the imag<strong>in</strong>ation and visual power of comic strip art with the<br />

richness of the traditional novel” (Howard). Besides Bloodstar, two other texts labeled<br />

themselves as graphic novels before Eisner's project. These were Chandler: Red Tide by<br />

Joe Steranko and Beyond Time and Aga<strong>in</strong> by George Metzger (Williams & Lyons xiv).<br />

Understandably, there is some confusion as to what exactly differentiates a<br />

graphic novel from a comic book. Allyson and Barry Lyga assert that the term is, “used<br />

to describe the specific format of a comic book that has greater production values and<br />

longer narrative” (162-3). Its use became widespread with the popularity of such works<br />

as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's<br />

Watchmen. Both of these works were published <strong>in</strong> 1986 and challenged the accepted<br />

superhero formula which had been perpetuated <strong>in</strong> graphic narratives s<strong>in</strong>ce the Golden<br />

Age of Comics. Accord<strong>in</strong>g to the Oxford English Dictionary, a graphic novel is “a fulllength<br />

(esp. science fiction or fantasy) story published as a book <strong>in</strong> comic-strip format.”<br />

Often graphic novels are confused with trade paperbacks or compendiums that collect<br />

and repr<strong>in</strong>t a story arc <strong>in</strong> a s<strong>in</strong>gle edition after its previous episodic publication (Lyga &<br />

Lyga 165). These compendiums differ from graphic novels, which, accord<strong>in</strong>g to the most<br />

precise def<strong>in</strong>ition, can only conta<strong>in</strong> a completely self-conta<strong>in</strong>ed story arc. This def<strong>in</strong>ition<br />

comes with an exception, though. As a result of colloquial <strong>in</strong>dication, it's possible that<br />

graphic novels may name the often square-bound object illustrat<strong>in</strong>g a s<strong>in</strong>gle story or<br />

series of related ones (ibid. 163). Metzjer's Beyond Time and Aga<strong>in</strong> was actually a<br />

compendium, whereas Bloodstar was a long story released as a limited edition hardbound<br />

luxury item. If we believe material construction plays significant role <strong>in</strong> determ<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!