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82-502: Eisner & Iger was a comic book packager that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s, a period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books . Founded by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger , many of comic books' most significant creators, including Jack Kirby , entered the field through its doors. Eisner & Iger existed from 1936 to 1939. The company, formally titled

164-438: A book ". Collections of comic books that do not form a continuous story, anthologies or collections of loosely related pieces, and even non-fiction are stocked by libraries and bookstores as graphic novels (similar to the manner in which dramatic stories are included in "comic" books). The term is also sometimes used to distinguish between works created as standalone stories, in contrast to collections or compilations of

246-402: A celebrity , who was paid to be listed as the credited writer as a way of increasing sales. Historian Hames notes, however, that at Funnies Inc., most artists "got credit for whatever job they did. (Jacquet also allowed writer credits from time to time)." The first packagers to emerge were in the late 1930s, supplying comics features and complete comic books to publishers testing the waters of

328-435: 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". 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

410-530: A story arc from a comic book series published in book form. In continental Europe, both original book-length stories such as The Ballad of the Salty Sea (1967) by Hugo Pratt or La rivolta dei racchi (1967) by Guido Buzzelli , and collections of comics have been commonly published in hardcover volumes, often called albums , since the end of the 19th century (including such later Franco-Belgian comics series as The Adventures of Tintin in

492-404: A "comic novel" on its credits page. "Graphic album" was also the term used the following year by Gene Day for his hardcover short-story collection Future Day ( Flying Buttress Press ). Another early graphic novel, though it carried no self-description, was The Silver Surfer ( Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books , August 1978), by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and Jack Kirby . Significantly, this

574-745: A 360-page wordless book (which was never published). In the United States, there is a long tradition of reissuing previously published comic strips in book form. In 1897, the Hearst Syndicate published such a collection of The Yellow Kid by Richard Outcault and it quickly became a best seller. The 1920s saw a revival of the medieval woodcut tradition, with Belgian Frans Masereel cited as "the undisputed king" of this revival. His works include Passionate Journey (1919). American Lynd Ward also worked in this tradition, publishing Gods' Man , in 1929 and going on to publish more during

656-522: A 50-page spoof of the noir - detective genre, written and drawn by the single-name French artist Loro. Nantier followed this with Enki Bilal 's The Call of the Stars . The company marketed these works as "graphic albums". The first six issues of writer-artist Jack Katz 's 1974 Comics and Comix Co. series The First Kingdom were collected as a trade paperback ( Pocket Books , March 1978), which described itself as "the first graphic novel". Issues of

738-544: A British client, the magazine Wags , for which Eisner and Iger, under the pseudonym "W. Morgan Thomas," created the leggy, leopard-wearing jungle goddess Sheena . That much-imitated "female Tarzan " would become famous stateside in 1938 when writer "William Thomas" and artist Mort Meskin took over her exploits in Eisner & Iger client Fiction House 's Jumbo Comics No. 1. Eisner & Iger created material as well for Fox Comics , Quality Comics , and others. By 1939,

820-411: A Magazine! was published by John Henle and edited by Samuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger , a former cartoonist. Wow , which folded after issue No. 4 (Nov. 1936), brought Iger together with a 19-year-old Will Eisner – the future creator of The Spirit and some of the earliest and most influential graphic novels – who wrote and drew the adventure feature "Scott Dalton", the pirate feature "The Flame", and

902-431: A Spanish art agency, provided artists for the horror comics magazine publishers Warren Publishing and Skywald Publications in the period 1971–1983, providing an entrée into the U.S. comics market for a great number of these Spanish artists. Starting in 1974, Byron Preiss (as Byron Preiss Visual Publications ) packaged graphic novels , comics , illustrated books , and children's books to various publishers using

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984-447: A UK best-seller list. Outside North America, Eisner's A Contract with God and Spiegelman's Maus led to the popularization of the expression "graphic novel" as well. Until then, most European countries used neutral, descriptive terminology that referred to the form of the medium, not the contents or the publishing form. In Francophone Europe for example, the expression bandes dessinées — which literally translates as "drawn strips" –

1066-560: A collection of Frank Miller's four-part comic-book series featuring an older Batman faced with the problems of a dystopian future; and Watchmen (1986-1987), a collection of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons ' 12-issue limited series in which Moore notes he "set out to explore, amongst other things, the dynamics of power in a post-Hiroshima world". These works and others were reviewed in newspapers and magazines, leading to increased coverage. Sales of graphic novels increased, with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns , for example, lasting 40 weeks on

1148-453: A comics packager: a publisher new to the comics industry that does not have an in-house staff or access to a network of freelancers; or a business outside the comics industry that decides to produce comics for advertising or informational purposes. In these latter cases, the comic is first conceived as a marketing concept, and the packager is then hired to write and produce the comic on a work for hire basis. Some packagers only provide art for

1230-685: A company with him and we'd produce the original art for these comic books. The most prominent packagers during this period were Harry "A" Chesler , Eisner & Iger , Funnies Inc. , and the Sangor Studio , all based in New York City , like the publishers they served. Packagers provided early work to such notable artists and writers as Will Eisner , Jack Kirby , Joe Simon , Jack Cole , Jack Binder , Otto Binder , Charles Biro , Mort Meskin , George Tuska , Nina Albright , Toni Blum , and many others. Packagers were responsible for

1312-477: A free-lance artist, that the only way I could afford his services was to make him a partner.) After 'Eisner & Iger, Ltd.' was dissolved, I returned to publishing as 'Phoenix Features'. Note : Eisner was not drafted in 1940, but rather in 1942. Eisner, however, did leave the firm in 1940 to produce The Spirit . However, it was structured, the firm grew to be one of the most successful and influential comics packagers — joining Funnies, Inc. (which supplied

1394-409: A hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening". Responding to writer Douglas Wolk 's quip that the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book is "the binding", Bone creator Jeff Smith said: "I kind of like that answer. Because 'graphic novel' ... 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

1476-545: A packager under the company name the S. M. Iger Studio , hiring Ruth Roche as an editor in 1940. Ruthe was elevated to partner in 1945, with some sources claiming the studio then became known as the Roche-Iger Studio . A number of notable creators stayed on at the company after Eisner left, including Alex Blum , Toni Blum , Nick Cardy , Louis Cazeneuve , Fletcher Hanks , Charles Nicholas , Bob Powell , and George Tuska . Other creators who packaged comics for

1558-424: 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. Author Daniel Raeburn wrote: "I snicker at the neologism first for its insecure pretension - the literary equivalent of calling

1640-515: A periodical titled Graphic Story Magazine in the fall of 1967. The Sinister House of Secret Love #2 (Jan. 1972), one of DC Comics ' line of extra-length, 48-page comics, specifically used the phrase "a graphic novel of Gothic terror" on its cover. The term "graphic novel" began to grow in popularity months after it appeared on the cover of the trade paperback edition (though not the hardcover edition) of Will Eisner 's A Contract with God (October 1978). This collection of short stories

1722-410: A product called Gre-Solvent), Eisner & Iger began, with the former as the sole writing and art staff and the latter handling sales and also lettering the comics. Through Eisner's use of pseudonyms, including "Willis Rensie" ("Eisner" spelled backward) and "Erwin" (his middle name), the company gave the impression of being larger than it was. A fictionalized account of Eisner's time with the company

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1804-437: A publisher, recalled in a 1976 profile, "besides about 75 of my own titles, we produced comics for some 50 different publishers. At one time, there were 40 artists working for me and I had 300 comic titles on the newsstands." As the comics industry took hold, alumni of the packagers "went on to form the nuclei of various comics art staffs" for a number of different early comics companies. They also started their own studios; in

1886-588: A traditional book format. European creators were also experimenting with the longer narrative in comics form. In the United Kingdom, Raymond Briggs was producing works such as Father Christmas (1972) and The Snowman (1978), which he himself described as being from the "bottomless abyss of strip cartooning", although they, along with such other Briggs works as the more mature When the Wind Blows (1982), have been re-marketed as graphic novels in

1968-441: A week, at age 12 (c. 1938) to apprentice at his studio after school. Similarly, artist Carmine Infantino remembers that, c. 1940, he was paid by Chesler "a dollar a day, just [to] study art, learn, and grow. That was damn nice of him, I thought. He did that for me for a whole summer" while Infantino was in high school. Joe Simon said that his Funnies Inc. rate for a completed comic-book page — written, drawn, and lettered —

2050-774: A year after A Contract with God though written and drawn in the early 1970s—was labeled a "graphic novel" on the cover of Marvel Comics' black-and-white comics magazine Marvel Preview #17 (Winter 1979), where Blackmark: The Mind Demons premiered: its 117-page contents remained intact, but its panel-layout reconfigured to fit 62 pages. Following this, Marvel from 1982 to 1988 published the Marvel Graphic Novel line of 10" × 7" trade paperbacks—although numbering them like comic books, from #1 ( Jim Starlin 's The Death of Captain Marvel ) to #35 ( Dennis O'Neil , Mike Kaluta , and Russ Heath 's Hitler's Astrologer , starring

2132-599: Is "the first American graphic novel". Similarly, critic Jason Sacks referred to the 13-issue "Panther's Rage"—comics' first-known titled, self-contained, multi-issue story arc—that ran from 1973 to 1975 in the Black Panther series in Marvel's Jungle Action as "Marvel's first graphic novel". Meanwhile, in continental Europe, the tradition of collecting serials of popular strips such as The Adventures of Tintin or Asterix led to long-form narratives published initially as serials. In January 1968, Vida del Che

2214-436: Is a long-form work of sequential art . The term graphic novel is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics scholars and industry professionals. It is, at least in the United States, typically distinct from the term comic book , which is generally used for comics periodicals and trade paperbacks . Fan historian Richard Kyle coined

2296-473: Is a novel in the sense that there is a beginning, a middle and an end". 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". Some alternative cartoonists have coined their own terms for extended comics narratives. The cover of Daniel Clowes ' Ice Haven (2001) refers to

2378-465: Is also credited with creating Blue Bolt (for Novelty Press ). While with Eisner & Iger, Eisner is credited with co-creating such characters as Doll Man and Blackhawk for Quality Comics , and Wonder Man and The Flame for Fox Publications . Eisner & Iger also created Sheena, Queen of the Jungle . By the late 1930s, the packaging business was flourishing. Chesler, who also acted as

2460-525: Is credited with co-creating characters including Doll Man and Blackhawk . Turning a profit of $ 1.50 a page, Eisner claimed, "I got very rich before I was 22", later detailing that in Depression-era 1939, for example, he and Iger "had split $ 25,000 between us", a considerable amount for the time. Eisner sold his share of company stock to Iger in late 1939 or early 1940 in order to leave and launch The Spirit . With Eisner gone, Iger continued as

2542-423: Is depicted in Eisner's largely autobiographical graphic novel , The Dreamer . In a 1985 account, Iger said: Back in 1937, I had been producing a lot of material under my own banner, 'Universal Phoenix Features'. In my shop were some wonderful artists, many of whom worked free-lance on an 'as needed' basis. Included were such names as Mort Meskin and Will Eisner.... Will was working for me doing 'Hawk [sic] of

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2624-412: 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  ..." Glen Weldon, author and cultural critic, writes: It's

2706-500: Is used, while the terms stripverhaal ("strip story") and tegneserie ("drawn series") are used by the Dutch/Flemish and Scandinavians respectively. European comics studies scholars have observed that Americans originally used graphic novel for everything that deviated from their standard, 32-page comic book format, meaning that all larger-sized, longer Franco-Belgian comic albums , regardless of their contents, fell under

2788-550: The Chesler shop , the Sangor Studio , and Eisner & Iger) were set up as physical studios. As explained by comics historian Hames Ware, however, Lloyd Jacquet 's Funnies Inc. "was distinct from the other major shops. It was set up more like a clearinghouse than a conventional shop. While at the other classic shops, there were actually buildings and offices housing... many artists who often collaborated on jobs, most of Jacquet's artists worked from home and did solo work." While

2870-543: The Eisner and Iger Studio , was also known as Syndicated Features Corporation . Eisner, in a 1997 interview, referred to the company as both "Eisner & Iger" and the " Art Syndication Company ". In addition to comic books , the company also sold color comic strips , such as Adventures of the Red Mask and Pop's Night Out , to newspapers. After Eisner left in late 1939/early 1940, Iger would continue to package comics as

2952-496: The S. M. Iger Studio , eventually bringing on a new partner, Ruth Roche . The S. M. Iger Studio operated through 1961. Eisner & Iger was formed to service the emerging market for American comic books , which had originated in the early 1930s as tabloid -sized magazines that reprinted newspaper comic strips , adding color to black-and-white daily comics. By 1935, sporadic new material was beginning to be created for them. One such seminal comic book, Henle Publications' Wow, What

3034-460: The digest-sized , adult-oriented "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust , a film noir -influenced slice of steeltown life starring a scheming, manipulative redhead named Rust. Touted as "an original full-length novel" on its cover, the 128-page digest by pseudonymous writer "Drake Waller" ( Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller ), penciler Matt Baker and inker Ray Osrin proved successful enough to lead to an unrelated second picture novel, The Case of

3116-524: The one-shot Big Apple Comix , and even Adams' own Continuity Comics . Continuity served as the launching pad for the careers of a number of professional comics artists. (When doing collective comics work, the artists were often credited as " Crusty Bunkers .") More established cartoonists like Win Mortimer found work at Continuity profitable enough that they left the comics industry to work exclusively on Continuity projects. Selecciones Ilustradas ,

3198-425: The secret agent feature "Harry Karry" for Wow . The origin of the Eisner and Iger Studio has been recounted by its in highly different ways, each given below, in alphabetical order. According to Eisner, the demise of Wow prompted him to suggest that he and the out-of-work Iger form a partnership to produce new comics, anticipating that the well of available reprints would soon run dry. He said that in late 1936,

3280-469: The 1930s to supply cheaply produced material to the burgeoning American comics industry. Some comics publishers used packaging services in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as well. Comics packagers and art studios also played role in the British comics industry. Although not as prevalent as it once was, comics packaging still forms a segment of the modern comics industry. There are two main reasons for utilizing

3362-551: The 1930s). As the exact definition of the graphic novel is debated, the origins of the form are open to interpretation. The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is the oldest recognized American example of comics used to this end. It originated as the 1828 publication Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois by Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer , and was first published in English translation in 1841 by London's Tilt & Bogue, which used an 1833 Paris pirate edition. The first American edition

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3444-426: The 1930s. Other prototypical examples from this period include American Milt Gross 's He Done Her Wrong (1930), a wordless comic published as a hardcover book, and Une semaine de bonté (1934), a novel in sequential images composed of collage by the surrealist painter Max Ernst . Similarly, Charlotte Salomon 's Life? or Theater? (composed 1941–43) combines images, narrative, and captions. The 1940s saw

3526-478: The Bristol Literary Society, on " the death of the novel ". Updike offered examples of new areas of exploration for novelists, declaring he saw "no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic strip novel masterpiece". Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin's Blackmark (1971), a science fiction / sword-and-sorcery paperback published by Bantam Books , did not use

3608-533: The Iger Studio include Matt Baker , Al Feldstein , Dick Giordano , Jack Kamen , Joe Kubert , Al Plastino , Don Rico , and Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel . Female artists Toni Blum, Nina Albright , Ruth Atkinson , Ann Brewster , Fran Hopper , Lily Renée , and Marcia Snyder also worked for the studio, presumably getting a foot in the door thanks to Roche. From 1946 to 1950, the studio packaged "Pre-Trend" material for EC Comics . From 1947 to 1954,

3690-470: The Iger Studio packaged comics for the Canadian publisher Superior, and from 1954 to 1958, it packaged material for Ajax-Farrell titles. (According to Who's Who of American Comic Books , Iger was co-owner of Superior from 1945 to c. 1956, and co-owner of Ajax-Farrell from 1946 to 1958.) The studio operated until 1961. Notable creators associated with Eisner & Iger and the S. M. Iger Studio (and

3772-503: The Seas' and 'ZX-5'. He also did sports drawings that I syndicated with my other materials throughout the U.S. ... Universal Phoenix Features had gone into a "holding pattern" because I had gone into a brief partnership with Will Eisner in mid-1938 only to buy him out in 1940 when Will was drafted [sic] into the Army to do military posters. (Will had become so accomplished – and so expensive! – as

3854-490: The Winking Buddha by pulp novelist Manning Lee Stokes and illustrator Charles Raab. In the same year, Gold Medal Books released Mansion of Evil by Joseph Millard. Presaging Will Eisner's multiple-story graphic novel A Contract with God (1978), cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman wrote and drew the four-story mass-market paperback Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book ( Ballantine Books #338K), published in 1959. By

3936-407: The backlog catalogs of Casterman and Les Humanoïdes Associés . 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: It's a marketing term... that I never had any sympathy with. The term 'comic' does just as well for me ... The problem

4018-403: The blue, that they would run out of a supply of these strips very soon, and then there'll be an opportunity to sell original material, drawn especially for these comic books. So we had lunch at this little beanery, and I told Jerry Iger about this idea and said I'd like to form a company with him and we'd produce the original art for these comic books. He was 13 years older than me, and I figured he

4100-400: The collected editions of Frank Miller 's The Dark Knight Returns in 1986 and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons ' Watchmen in 1987. The Book Industry Study Group began using graphic novel as a category in book stores in 2001. The term is not strictly defined, though Merriam-Webster 's dictionary definition is "a fictional story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as

4182-413: The comic had described themselves as "graphic prose", or simply as a novel. Similarly, Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species by writer Don McGregor and artist Paul Gulacy ( Eclipse Books , August 1978) — the first graphic novel sold in the newly created " direct market " of United States comic-book shops — was called a "graphic album" by the author in interviews, though the publisher dubbed it

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4264-430: The comics, with the writing done by in-house talent. Eisner & Iger , one of the first packagers, had 15 writers, artists and letterers on staff, according to co-founder Will Eisner : "They were working for me full-time, on salary. I tried to avoid dealing with freelancers on a per-page basis." At the same time, Eisner & Iger charged publishers $ 5 to $ 7 per finished page. Historically, comics packagers (such as

4346-407: The comics-packaging sector is little-known outside the publishing world, it provides employment to many freelance authors and illustrators. Most packagers pay a flat project or page rate. Packagers do not pay royalties , which means that even if a package-produced comic becomes a bestseller, the creators do not receive additional payment. Artist Joe Kubert recalled Harry "A" Chesler paying him $ 5

4428-834: The contents of Marvel Comics No. 1, including the Human Torch , the Sub-Mariner and the Angel ) and the quirkily named Harry "A" Chesler 's studio. Its first client, made through Iger's connections at Wow! was Editors Press Service . Joshua B. Powers, reportedly a former U.S. government agent whose beat was South America, had founded the company when he retired, and provided Latin American newspapers with comics strips, cooking features and other material in exchange for ad space that he would in turn sell to U.S. companies. After expanding to other countries, Editors Press Service had

4510-445: The creation of a number of notable comics titles and characters. Funnies Inc., for example, founded by Lloyd Jacquet , supplied the entire contents of Marvel Comics #1 (cover-dated Oct. 1939), the first publication of what would become the multimedia corporation Marvel Comics — not to mention featuring the debuts of such legacy characters as the Sub-Mariner , the Human Torch , and the Angel . Funnies Inc. employee Joe Simon

4592-460: The dough. And I'll do all the art, and all you have to do is go out and sell it.' We made a deal, shook hands. We agreed to form a corporation – Eisner and Iger, my name first because I was the big money man. (laughs) Renting a one-room office on East 41st Street in Manhattan for $ 5 a month (the first three months' rent fronted by Eisner, who'd just been paid for a one-time commercial art job for

4674-684: The early crop of packagers petered out by the mid-1950s as the remaining publishers produced their comics in-house. With the advent of the 1970s, a number of new packagers arose, most of whom provided comics art but not stories to their clients. These included Continuity Associates and Selecciones Ilustradas . Continuity Associates (later known as Continuity Studios ), was formed by cartoonists Neal Adams and Dick Giordano in 1971. At first, Continuity primarily supplied motion picture storyboards and advertising art, but it soon became an art packager for comic book publishers, including such companies as Charlton Comics , Marvel Comics , DC Comics ,

4756-406: The early days of comics, creators working for comics packagers worked anonymously as ghostwriters and "ghost artists", under the packaging company name, or under an alias . (It's worth noting, however, that most comics stories produced during this period didn't contain credits, making individual attribution difficult.) In some cases, a creator's work would be credited to someone else's name, such as

4838-455: The emerging medium. As early packager Will Eisner noted at this time, around 1936, [T]the only comic books being started were all reprinting daily newspaper comic strips ... and it suddenly hit me, out of the blue, that they would run out of a supply of these strips very soon, and then there'll be an opportunity to sell original material, drawn especially for these comic books. So... I told Jerry Iger about this idea and said I'd like to form

4920-465: The firm had 15 writers, artists and letterers on staff, according to Eisner: "They were working for me full-time, on salary. I tried to avoid dealing with freelancers on a per-page basis", (although future industry veteran Jack Kirby called his early work in the Eisner & Iger office freelance). Other future luminaries who worked there included Bob Kane , Lou Fine , Bernard Baily , Dick Briefer , Bob Powell , and Toni Blum . During this time, Eisner

5002-517: The first to use it. These included the Time magazine website in 2003, which said in its correction: "Eisner acknowledges that the term 'graphic novel' had been coined prior to his book. But, he says, 'I had not known at the time that someone had used that term before'. Nor does he take credit for creating the first graphic book". One of the earliest contemporaneous applications of the term post-Eisner came in 1979, when Blackmark 's sequel—published

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5084-502: The heading. Writer-artist Bryan Talbot claims that the first collection of his The Adventures of Luther Arkwright , published by Proutt in 1982, was the first British graphic novel. American comic critics have occasionally referred to European graphic novels as "Euro-comics", and attempts were made in the late 1980s to cross-fertilize the American market with these works. American publishers Catalan Communications and NBM Publishing released translated titles, predominantly from

5166-601: The late 1960s, American comic book creators were becoming more adventurous with the form. Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin self-published a 40-page, magazine -format comics novel, His Name Is... Savage (Adventure House Press) in 1968—the same year Marvel Comics published two issues of The Spectacular Spider-Man in a similar format. Columnist and comic-book writer Steven Grant also argues that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko 's Doctor Strange story in Strange Tales #130–146, although published serially from 1965 to 1966,

5248-461: The launching of Classics Illustrated , a comic-book series that primarily adapted notable, public domain novels into standalone comic books for young readers. Citizen 13660 , an illustrated, novel length retelling of Japanese internment during World War II , was published in 1946. In 1947, Fawcett Comics published Comics Novel #1: "Anarcho, Dictator of Death", a 52-page comic dedicated to one story. In 1950, St. John Publications produced

5330-662: The radio and pulp fiction character the Shadow , and released in hardcover). Marvel commissioned original graphic novels from such creators as John Byrne , J. M. DeMatteis , Steve Gerber , graphic-novel pioneer McGregor, Frank Miller , Bill Sienkiewicz , Walt Simonson , Charles Vess , and Bernie Wrightson . While most of these starred Marvel superheroes , others, such as Rick Veitch 's Heartburst featured original SF/fantasy characters; others still, such as John J. Muth 's Dracula , featured adaptations of literary stories or characters; and one, Sam Glanzman 's A Sailor's Story ,

5412-526: The talents of comics artists such as Howard Chaykin , Dennis Francis , Marc Hempel , Gray Morrow , Alex Niño , Ralph Reese , Tom Sutton , and Mark Wheatley . David Campiti , with Campiti and Associates ( c. 1985–1988) and then Glass House Graphics (1993–present), operated more like a traditional comics packager, supplying complete comics to such publishers as Eternity Comics , Continuity Comics , DC Comics , Eclipse Comics , NOW Comics , and his own Innovation Publishing . Campiti and Associates

5494-487: The term graphic novel in an essay in the November 1964 issue of the comics fanzine Capa-Alpha . The term gained popularity in the comics community after the publication of Will Eisner 's A Contract with God (1978) and the start of the Marvel Graphic Novel line (1982) and became familiar to the public in the late 1980s after the commercial successes of the first volume of Art Spiegelman 's Maus in 1986,

5576-647: The term "graphic novel" in Capa-Alpha #2 (November 1964), a newsletter published by the Comic Amateur Press Alliance, and again in an article in Bill Spicer 's magazine Fantasy Illustrated #5 (Spring 1966). Kyle, inspired by European and East Asian graphic albums (especially Japanese manga ), used the label to designate comics of an artistically "serious" sort. Following this, Spicer, with Kyle's acknowledgment, edited and published

5658-425: The term originally; the back-cover blurb of the 30th-anniversary edition ( ISBN   978-1-56097-456-7 ) calls it, retroactively, the first American graphic novel. The Academy of Comic Book Arts presented Kane with a special 1971 Shazam Award for what it called "his paperback comics novel". Whatever the nomenclature, Blackmark is a 119-page story of comic-book art, with captions and word balloons , published in

5740-474: The two formed Eisner & Iger, one of the first comics packagers. Iger was 32; Eisner claimed to be 25 so as not to scare Iger off. As Eisner recounted, We met on 43rd Street opposite the printing plant of the New York Daily News , just off Third Avenue.... [T]he only comic books being started were all reprinting daily newspaper comic strips, adventure strips, and it suddenly hit me, out of

5822-506: The wake of the term's popularity. Briggs noted, however, that he did not like that term too much. In 1976, the term "graphic novel" appeared in print to describe three separate works: The following year, Terry Nantier , who had spent his teenage years living in Paris, returned to the United States and formed Flying Buttress Publications , later to incorporate as NBM Publishing ( Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine ), and published Racket Rumba ,

5904-461: The years 1942–1945, a number of artists became packagers in their own right, including L. B. Cole , Jack Binder , Bernard Baily , Mac Raboy , and Vincent Fago . When superhero comics went out of fashion in the postwar era, Sheldon Moldoff became an early pioneer in horror comics , packaging two such ready-to-print titles — This Magazine Is Haunted and Worlds of Fear  — eventually bought by Fawcett Publications in 1951–1952. Most of

5986-518: The years they worked for the company): Comic book packager In this arrangement, the comics-packaging company acts as a liaison between a publishing company and the writers, artists, and editors that design and produce the comic book. Comics packagers thus blend the roles of agent, editor, and publisher (as distinct from syndicates , which perform a similar function in the comic strip industry). Comics packagers, often operated by notable artists such as Will Eisner and Jack Binder , formed in

6068-470: Was $ 7. For comparison, he recalled that at Eisner & Iger — where Eisner wrote the features and created characters, hiring novice artists — the page rate was approximately $ 3.50 to $ 5.50. George Tuska , who worked for a number of packagers in the late 1930s, notes that he made $ 10 a week with Eisner & Iger, and then, with the Chesler shop, $ 22 a week, increased to $ 42 a week within six months. In

6150-469: Was a mature, complex work focusing on the lives of ordinary people in the real world based on Eisner's own experiences. One scholar used graphic novels to introduce the concept of graphiation, the theory that the entire personality of an artist is visible through his or her visual representation of a certain character, setting, event, or object in a novel, and can work as a means to examine and analyze drawing style. Even though Eisner's A Contract with God

6232-403: Was a true-life, World War II naval tale. Cartoonist Art Spiegelman 's Pulitzer Prize -winning Maus (1986), helped establish both the term and the concept of graphic novels in the minds of the mainstream public. Two DC Comics book reprints of self-contained miniseries did likewise, though they were not originally published as graphic novels: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986),

6314-566: Was active in comics packaging during the "black-and-white boom" of the mid-1980s. Independent publishers whose work was produced almost exclusively by Campiti and Associates include: Glass House Graphics played a major role in the entrée of Brazilian artists such as Ed Benes , Joe Bennett , Mike Deodato , and Luke Ross into the American comics market. Starting in the 1950s, the British comics market often used art packagers — often artists from Spain, from such studios as A.L.L.I. and Bardon Arts. Graphic novel A graphic novel

6396-424: Was mature, and so he could handle the sales.... Iger said, 'Frankly, it's going to take money, and I don't have any money.... I had $ 15 that I'd just gotten for a commercial job. And I knew about a little building on 41st Street just off Madison Avenue ... that rented rooms, offices, for something like $ 5 or $ 10 a month. No lease. They usually rented them to bookies, little one-room things. So I told Jerry, 'I'll put up

6478-531: Was published by a traditional book publisher and distributed through bookstores, as was cartoonist Jules Feiffer 's Tantrum ( Alfred A. Knopf , 1979) described on its dust jacket as a "novel-in-pictures". Hyperbolic descriptions of longer comic books as "novels" appear on covers as early as the 1940s. Early issues of DC Comics ' All-Flash , for example, described their contents as "novel-length stories" and "full-length four chapter novels". In its earliest known citation, comic-book reviewer Richard Kyle used

6560-552: Was published in 1842 by Wilson & Company in New York City using the original printing plates from the 1841 edition. Another early predecessor is Journey to the Gold Diggins by Jeremiah Saddlebags by brothers J. A. D. and D. F. Read, inspired by The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck . In 1894, Caran d'Ache broached the idea of a "drawn novel" in a letter to the newspaper Le Figaro and started work on

6642-432: Was published in 1978 by a smaller company, Baronet Press, it took Eisner over a year to find a publishing house that would allow his work to reach the mass market. In its introduction, Eisner cited Lynd Ward's 1930s woodcuts as an inspiration. The critical and commercial success of A Contract with God helped to establish the term "graphic novel" in common usage, and many sources have incorrectly credited Eisner with being

6724-459: Was published in Argentina, a graphic novel written by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and drawn by Alberto Breccia . The book told the story of Che Guevara in comics form, but the military dictatorship confiscated the books and destroyed them. It was later re-released in corrected versions. By 1969, the author John Updike , who had entertained ideas of becoming a cartoonist in his youth, addressed

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