Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...
Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...
Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...
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B<strong>in</strong>gham 33<br />
what is or isn't a graphic novel, this dist<strong>in</strong>ction would name Howard and Corben as the<br />
premier creators of the literary canon's first true graphic novel. If the determ<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g factor<br />
of what constitutes be<strong>in</strong>g a graphic novel is simply l<strong>in</strong>ked to presentation, Miller's Dark<br />
Knight and Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen are only really graphic novels if their readers<br />
are unfamiliar with orig<strong>in</strong>s of the narratives. However, each of these understand<strong>in</strong>gs of<br />
mean<strong>in</strong>g are publicly recognized as accurate and accepted colloquially. In the future<br />
though, chang<strong>in</strong>g misconstrued ideas <strong>in</strong>to certa<strong>in</strong> knowledge can occur only when facts<br />
are confirmed and our future references to them cont<strong>in</strong>ue to be correct. Otherwise, all<br />
other arguments will be <strong>in</strong>herently flawed. Hillary Chute elaborates: “In graphic<br />
narrative, the substantial length implied by novel rema<strong>in</strong>s <strong>in</strong>tact, but the term shifts to<br />
accommodate modes other than fiction. A graphic narrative is a book-length work <strong>in</strong> the<br />
medium of comics” (453). Account<strong>in</strong>g for historically <strong>in</strong>spired or autobiographically<br />
constructed works, this def<strong>in</strong>ition more accurately describes works like Art Spiegelman's<br />
Maus or Emmanuel Guilbert's The Photographer, which is a graphic narrative that<br />
<strong>in</strong>corporates photographs as well as illustrations. Though the works I look at <strong>in</strong> detail<br />
with<strong>in</strong> the rema<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g two chapters are not graphic novels accord<strong>in</strong>g to these standards,<br />
the assembly and repr<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g of multiple issues with<strong>in</strong> collected volumes as well as their<br />
highly developed content make both The <strong>Walk<strong>in</strong>g</strong> Dead and Saga of the Swamp Th<strong>in</strong>g<br />
conceivably worthy of the designation.