![]() While writing styles affect things somewhat, the standard comics format is a short story form. Which doesn't mean it doesn't have its own pleasures.) The JLA story is coherent enough as comics stories go, and just as coherent and sophisticated as many things being published as graphic novels today. In fact, 48 pages is roughly the length of the story content in two mid-'60s DC comics, so that any story extended over two issues there - the two 25 page issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA that brought back the Justice Society, for instance - would qualify under those guidelines. The minimal criteria that many publishers apply to "graphic novels" these days - 48 pages, with lots of movement hung on something vaguely resembling a plot - could easily apply to the Justice Society Of America stories that ran in DC's ALL-STAR COMICS throughout the 1940s. Will Eisner was fond of citing artist Lynn Ward's several "woodcut novels," books composed solely of striking images (one to a page, I think) printed from woodcuts, specifically GOD'S MAN, while others have tried to make a case for Eisner's own THE SPIRIT, which, while published as more or less discreet short stories throughout its run, was known to carry plot threads for weeks or months at a time. Certainly many arguments can be made for many products. ![]() ![]() Glancing to the past, I've recently reassessed what I consider the first (albeit faltering) modern American graphic novel. ![]() Plus, reader e-mail, a handful of reviews and much more. The question of "Which was the first graphic novel?" may have been asked before, but today Steven answers the question by making a strong argument for a Marvel run in the mid 1960s that might surprise you. ![]()
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