Comics 101: An Introduction for Non-Comic Nerds

So, you are a cataloger and now they have you doing comics and graphic novels. But you have no idea where to start. This is designed to be a primer on recognizing the particular attributes of this unique media.

Comics vs. Graphic Novels

First off, let’s simplify something: on this blog I use “comics” and “graphic novels” interchangeably. I tend to think of “comics” as those magazine-like periodicals that feature super-heroes and the like. Meanwhile, graphic novels are those more book-like versions that often either tell a longer story than a comic or is a collection of comics that tells a longer story. When you get down to it, though, they really are the same thing in this day and age. “Graphic novel” is really just a way the past made comics sound more socially acceptable. I’m going to use both terms, but I basically mean the same thing.

A Little Bit About Comics

Comics are a strange medium. They aren’t quite books, since they have pictures that are as prominent as the words (or sometimes take the place of words altogether). And they typically have many people involved in the creation of a comic, similar to a movie or television show perhaps. This is where the problems arise.

Modern comics have been around in some form since the early 1930’s. But it took a long time for comics to start being accepted as legitimate literature and not just “funny books” for kids. I like to point to a couple of the earliest books that gained a foothold in the socially acceptable world: Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories (1978) and Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1986). These helped spread the idea of “graphic novels” and how comics could actually tell serious stories that spoke of societal concerns.

But it would still be awhile before the medium as a whole would be more than just a sub-culture looked down upon by many, libraries included. Without going into great detail, I would say that what changed was that the “popular” comics made by the likes of Marvel and DC started getting some heavy writing in the 1980’s that drew in new fans to comics. Stories like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1987) started to make people realize comics weren’t just silly fluff stories. Those people who discovered comics as more than just a hobby for kids have grown up and are now in positions of influence in movies and television as well as academia and libraries. This has made the world of comics an important part of popular culture and as such, it gets studied and accepted.

So now, more and more libraries are adding copies of popular and critically regarded graphic novels. It’s probably a little more common in the world of public libraries, but it’s gaining in the academic world as well, especially since more and more classes that focus on comics are popping up.

Since it has really only been recently that comics have really started showing up in libraries, cataloging them properly is still a work in progress. There are many different ideas about how these should be classified. This blog is my opinion, based on my long history of collecting comics and my knowledge of cataloging.

I highly recommend reading Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. He does a stellar job of breaking down comics in a way that is easy to understand whether you are a long time collector or have no experience with comics at all. If you are going to end up cataloging graphic novels regularly, this book will help you become more knowledgeable about the medium.

Parts of a comic and where to find information

Generally speaking, a comic has the same parts as your typical book/monograph. It has a cover, and a spine, and pages within. There is one key characteristic of most comics that make them different from other books: the indicia. Usually, you can find the indicia within the first few pages of the comic although sometimes (and I find this to be more common in smaller, independently published comics) it is found somewhere towards the back.

If you are unfamiliar with the term, the indicia is that small block of text generally found in periodicals/magazines that gives information about the publication. Graphic novels and comics use this as well, regardless of whether it’s in magazine or book form. Here’s what it typically looks like:

You can see that the indicia gives you pretty much all of the publishing info you will need, including the official name of the work, the publisher, and the dates associated with publication. Additionally, if this is a collection of previously published comics (usually the magazine style that come out monthly or follows a similar regular schedule), this will tell you under what title it was originally published.

Now, here’s my first nitpick/possibly controversial opinion. I often see 500 field notes in records that give the original publication titles that are then followed with the source listed as “title page verso.” While this might be technically correct in some cases (the publishing information is on the back side of the title page), there are plenty of instances where the indicia is on the back side of the creator credits, or, if in the back of the comic, nowhere near the title page at all. This is why I recommend using “indicia” as the source since that is the proper name for the text that provides the publishing information. It isn’t in a standard location like a regular book’s “title page verso” and as such, should be properly named.

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