QUESTION: Comic books & graphic novels: Medium or genre?

[Cary Gillenwater]

Recently, I asked for help with my dissertation research.  I received a couple of responses, which were much appreciated, but I also received something else.  I had used the term “genre” in connection with comic books and graphic novels in my original posting and
was subsequently politely reminded by a couple of people that comic books and
graphic novels are a “medium” not a genre and to please use the term medium in
future postings, work, etc.  Well, it was an easy edit to fix my call for
help so I did; however, as I thought more about this distinction, I began to
wonder what purpose it was serving. 

As a community of scholars and teachers interested in promoting the use of comic books and graphic novels in the classroom, the purpose of using the term medium I believe is to emphasize that comic books and
graphic novels are a mode of expression/communication.  Furthermore, this designation is appropriate
because one of the definitions for medium is a middle state or condition, which
comic books and graphic novels would fulfill being that they are both text and
image and not either one exclusively. However, I also believe this designation
as a medium, despite being appropriate, can also be inadvertently undermining
the goal of promoting their use in the classroom and that using the term genre
instead of medium may provide an inroad into the classroom, because the word
genre suggests that the medium of comic books and graphic novels is a category within literature. 
   

In schooling, print literacy is valued as the superior form of expression because it plays such a pivotal role in our ability to function in our society.  However, there
is an extensive amount of literature that argues that print literacy and
traditional literature are actually ideological and therefore function
hegemonically to preserve a particular cultural heritage (e.g. James Gee; Jenny
Cook-Gumperz; Madeleine Grumet).  Interestingly, in order for print to
perform this function, this function must be obscured and ultimately
naturalized into our culture.  For
example, one need only think about canonized texts and how they are assumed to
be the pinnacle of literature and this argument becomes evident.  While this argument is not what this
particular post is about, it does help to preface my main point — by calling
comic books and graphic novels a medium as opposed to a genre, the emphasis is
placed on the form and therefore creates a distinction between it and the
medium of print.  This distinction
exposes the medium of comic books and graphic novels as distinct from print
literacy and ultimately literature. Furthermore, this distinction is
problematic when trying to promote comic books and graphic novels as valid
forms of literature in the classroom, because it also exposes print as only one
of a myriad of modes of expression.  This
exposure is considered dangerous to our cultural heritage and therefore
unacceptable.    

Print, and by connection books, is not explicitly referred to as a medium in schools, because print has transcended this designation through historical and sociocultural maneuverings driven primarily in our
civilization by schooling.  Consequently the term medium is ultimately,
in schooling, reserved for other modes of communication typically considered
inferior to print such as the arts.  A
consistent example of this mindset in schooling is how the arts are routinely marginalized
or dropped from the curriculum to add more time to reading, since reading is
tested. Therefore, emphasizing comic books and graphic novels as a medium in
conjunction with their clear use of images in the text, positions them as inferior
to print and therefore literature. 

In schooling,
literature and writing are typically referred to, particularly when grouped together,
by their broad genre designations, i.e. fiction, non-fiction, drama, and poetry,
which are essentially different modes of expression.  Following from this use of the term genre, I
argue that comic books and graphic novels are also a genre of literature,
because they are another mode of literary, not just artistic, expression.  The designation of genre is therefore
more appropriate, particularly within the context of the literacy/literature
classroom.    

[James Bucky Carter]

"Genre" is not exactly incorrect, but it is certainly not more appropriate or accurate than "medium" or "form." If you ask those who create comics, I think you'll find that most of them do not feel that they work in genre, but rather an art form. You've done some good reading to support the idea for genre; now do some to support the opposition: Read McCloud (to start), Einser, (to start), and Theirry Groensteeen's _The System of Comics_. You might also look at _The Language of Comics_, _The Comics Study Reader_, and _Arguing Comics_. You'll see that among scholars -- those who have already worked extensively on some of the very issues you've considered -- who study the comics form, those who consider it a genre rather than a form or medium seem to be in the minority. You might also see my article in _The ALAN Review_ about graphic novels and the death of genre. In that, I illustrate that a form or medium can support multiple genres. So, comics is a form or medium that can support works that are Romances, Science Fiction, Westerns, War Stories, Slice-of-Life, Super-Hero, etc. -- genres of the medium/form. An article from an older _TAR_ has a similar argument but handles it in a different way (I think one of the authors is Fielding).

When you're dealing with a form that integrates traditional visual text (print) and (actually even more traditional,. but for the sake of argument, lets call in less-traditional) text (images),the rules get muddied. Comics are literature; comics are art; comics is a medium; it can be seen as a genre, but only in the broadest sense of the word. You're not working with finite either/ors. You're working with degrees of accuracy, and "genre" is not as accurate as "form" or 'medium."

"Genre" is only appropriate in so much as any type of human expression can be categorized as a genre. I'd like to think that after thousands of years of careful consideration, we can do better than that when it comes to categorization. I can tell you that if I received an article to peer review that referred to comics as a genre, I would be hard-pressed to assume the writer had done his/her homework regarding comics scholarship. Now, it may be true that I'll never successfully navigate the peer review process myself ever again, and it may also be true than no one will ever ask me to review an article on comics and education again. Certainly there seem to be enough people out there who think they can do it such that little old me is but a plink in the water bucket. But, I'd favor an article using the terms "form" and "medium" 100% of the time.

I don't expect a Tar Heel to want to listen to a Wahoo about these sort of things, but there you go. ;)

[Stergios Botzakis]

To add on to what Bucky said, I think genre works but only in the broadest sense of the word, such as what Bakhtin called speech genres. However, the term is also easy to confuse in educational contexts where genre gets used mostly to talk about the type of story being told, read, or viewed.

I prefer medium or form to genre just because genre implies a specific type of story or message, and I see graphic novels being more wide ranging. In using genre, it is easy to fall into that argument that all graphic novels tell the same kind of story, be it a superhero adventure or some soul-searching autobiography. There is way more to graphic novels than those kinds of stories. They can contain all types of genres used in language and literature classes: fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, science fiction, etc.

I try to think of it like a movie or television. We might say we're going to watch one or the other, but that doesn't tell us what type of story we are watching. The same is true if you say you are going to read a graphic novel. Personally, I'd like to keep educators options open to as many GN works as possible and referring to them as a medium or form that contains certain genre stories allows for more play. And then maybe we can get past looking at them as a one (or two) trick pony and see them being a medium that contains multiple kinds of work that can be used in different contexts and for different purposes.

Also, I agree with Bucky's point that calling them a genre in a manuscript definitely sets off an alarm for me, too, because I often see genre mentioned in a facile way that conveys the idea that GNs are a monolithic type of text.

Any how, that's my 2 cents, another plink in the bucket ;)

[Cary Gillenwater]

Hi. Thanks for the replies thus far. I think that I need to be clear that I have read nearly all the texts mentioned and that I also, as stated in the post, believe that medium is an appropriate designation. The argument I am putting forth is not about how the creators or even the scholars conceive of the medium, but how the medium is conceived of within the realm of education - specifically the literacy/literature classroom. So what this comes down to within the literacy/literature classroom is that the use of the designation medium may be conceived of differently than it is in the scholarly and/or creator arena. In reviewing the NC Language Arts Standard Course of Study for example, the word media is used in conjunction with technology, though it is implied other media are acceptable. However, within the literary/literature specific section the term genre is used - examples from the NCSCOS "different genre (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama)"; "Middle school students should read different authors and genres to learn the scope of what is available and to help define students' taste"; "All four major genres (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama)-both contemporary and traditional works-should be taught at each grade level." As many teachers and soon to be teachers often voice - there is a disconnect between research and scholarship and the reality of schooling. My argument I believe illustrates this point. Academics and creators use the term medium, teachers and other "in the field educators" use genre (at least in relation to literature). Therefore there is a disconnect based on how it is named. Ultimately, I was arguing that the medium is literary/literature, and using the term genre, at least in education, may help the medium to be viewed as such. In all honestly, I think either designation is ultimately missing the mark to some degree in the literacy/literature curriculum, and that calling them "texts" is an excellent way to circumvent problems that arise from calling them a medium or a genre.

[Stergios Botzakis]

I really like using text as well. It's a good, open term that can apply to other content areas, such as history, sciences, math, as well. Not all graphic novels are written with literary intentions, and I think many lend themselves better to classes other than ELA ones.
Technically, graphic novels are media, too, as are books, magazines, newspapers, and other print-based texts, but in education, like you said, media often gets conflated with technology.

I'd also argue that we need some amount of uniformity, among scholars and practitioners, because we are all in the education field, and open lines of communication are a must. IN that interest, "texts" seems like a good way to go to me...

[Cary Gillenwater]

Agreed.

[Eva Gold]

Ok. Given the discussion so far, this may be seen as coming from left field.

In Australia we make these kinds of distinctions a little differently. 'Medium' refers to technology of production. So the graphic novel is in the print medium. 'Genre' refers to the type of story being told or possibly the form of literary expression such as poetry or drama. The term we use to distinguish texts by method of communication of information and ideas is the term 'mode' - and as graphic novels use the written and visual modes, we tend to call them multimodal.

Hope that clarifies rather than confuses.

[Cary Gillenwater]

Hi, thanks for the comment. I have also heard the term multimodal, particulalry by Gunther Kress. I think the designation is appropriate as well and works well scholarly, but I would suspect it would seem "jargonny" to teachers in schools. "Text" is a more neutral term that is and has been used in schools for forever ;). I am an advocate for comic books and graphic novels being referred to as hybrid text. Brian Street uses this term in the 2006 article "New literacies, new times: How do we describe and teach the forms of literacy knowledge, skills, and values people need for new times?" to describe the confluence of literacy abilities in adolescents, but I think the term also aptly describes comic books and graphic novels.

[Eva Gold]

Yeah...jargon is an issue but should not be. We get the same complaints down here. It's a way of denying professionalism.

Teachers need precise language to communicate with their students and each other - particularly at times like these when new forms of communication are emerging and we are trying to legitimise these for the classroom. It's a shame teachers make the wowsers' work easy for them by not proclaiming and insisting on their own expertise.

cheers,

[Cary Gillenwater]

Excellent point. As I am sure you are well aware, America is in quite the education quagmire, and I think part of it is, as you stated, that teachers do not proclaim and insist on their own expertise. In addition, I am afraid that we have been on this road so long, the concept of being a teacher and a professional may be increasingly harder to recognize let alone reclaim.