A graphic novel is a book made up of comics with entertainment content in it. Although the word novel normally refers to long fictional works, the term graphic novel is applied broadly and includes fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work. 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.
Fantagraphics is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. Many notable cartoonists have published their work through Fantagraphics, including Jessica Abel, Peter Bagge, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, Mary Fleener, Roberta Gregory, Joe Sacco, Chris Ware, and the Hernandez brothers.
Acme Novelty Library is a comic book series created by Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware. Its first issue appeared in 1993. Published from 1994 by Fantagraphics Books and later self-published, it is considered a significant work in alternative comics, selling over 20,000 copies per issue.
Peter Bagge is an American cartoonist whose best-known work includes the comics Hate and Neat Stuff. His stories often use black humor and exaggerated cartooning to dramatize the reduced expectations of middle-class American youth. He won two Harvey Awards in 1991, one for best cartoonist and one for his work on Hate. In recent decades Bagge has done more fact-based comics, everything from biographies to history to comics journalism. Publishers of Bagge's articles, illustrations, and comics include suck.com, MAD Magazine, toonlet, Discover, and the Weekly World News, with the comic strip Adventures of Batboy. He has expressed his libertarian views in features for Reason.
Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which in the past have dominated the American comic book industry. Alternative comic books span a wide range of genres, artistic styles, and subjects.
Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter. Most of Clowes's work first appeared in Eightball, a solo anthology comic book series. An Eightball issue typically contained several short pieces and a chapter of a longer narrative that was later collected and published as a graphic novel, such as Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (1993), Ghost World (1997), David Boring (2000) and Patience (2016). Clowes's illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Vogue, The Village Voice, and elsewhere. With filmmaker Terry Zwigoff, Clowes adapted Ghost World into a 2001 film and another Eightball story into the 2006 film, Art School Confidential. Clowes's comics, graphic novels, and films have received numerous awards, including a Pen Award for Outstanding Work in Graphic Literature, over a dozen Harvey and Eisner Awards, and an Academy Award nomination.
Charles Burns is an American cartoonist and illustrator. His early work was published in a Sub Pop fanzine, and he achieved prominence in the early issues of RAW. His graphic novel Black Hole won the Harvey Award.
Joe Sacco is a Maltese-American cartoonist and journalist. He is best known for his comics journalism, in particular in the books Palestine (1996) and Footnotes in Gaza (2009), on Israeli–Palestinian relations; and Safe Area Goražde (2000) and The Fixer (2003) on the Bosnian War. In 2020, Sacco released Paying the Land, published by Henry Holt and Company.
Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Daniel Clowes. The book follows a rather fantastic and paranoid plot, very different from the stark realism of Clowes' later more widely known Ghost World. It contains nightmarish imagery, including dismemberment, deformed people and animals, and sexual fetishism.
Lloyd Llewellyn is a comic book by Daniel Clowes. The black-and-white series, published by Fantagraphics Books, ran for six issues from April 1986 to June 1987. A final "special" issue was published in December 1988.
"Omaha" the Cat Dancer is an erotic comic strip and later comic book created by artist Reed Waller and writer Kate Worley. Set in fictional Mipple City, Minnesota in a universe populated by anthropomorphic animal characters, the strip is a soap opera focusing on Omaha, a feline exotic dancer, and her lover, Chuck, the son of a business tycoon.
David John Mazzucchelli is an American comics artist and writer, known for his work on seminal superhero comic book storylines Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One, as well as for graphic novels in other genres, such as Asterios Polyp and City of Glass: The Graphic Novel. He is also an instructor who teaches comic book storytelling at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
Ghost World is a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. It was serialized in issues #11–18 of Clowes's comic book series Eightball, and was published in book form in 1997 by Fantagraphics Books. It was a commercial and critical success and developed into a cult classic.
Terry LaBan is an alternative/underground cartoonist and newspaper comic strip artist. He is known for his comic book series Cud, and his syndicated strip Edge City, created with his wife, Patty LaBan, a couples and family therapist.
Ice Haven is a 2005 graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. The book's contents were originally published as the comic book Eightball #22 and were subsequently reformatted to make the hardcover Ice Haven book.
Caricature is a book collection of nine comic short stories by Daniel Clowes. In contrast to earlier Clowes collections such as Lout Rampage! and Orgy Bound, Caricature concentrates on the more naturalistic, character-focused side of Clowes's output displayed in Ghost World. It includes some of his most admired short stories, including "Immortal, Invisible", "Gynecology" and the title story. All the material in the collection originally appeared in Clowes's comic book Eightball with the exception of "Green Eyeliner", which was published in Esquire.
Ghost World is a 2001 black comedy film directed by Terry Zwigoff and starring Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Brad Renfro, Illeana Douglas and Steve Buscemi. Based on the 1993–97 comic book of the same name by Daniel Clowes, with a screenplay co-written by Clowes and Zwigoff, the story focuses on the lives of Enid (Birch) and Rebecca (Johansson), two teenage outsiders in an unnamed American city. They face a rift in their relationship as Enid takes interest in an older man named Seymour (Buscemi), and becomes determined to help his romantic life.
Pussey! is a comics serial and graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. It was originally serialized across nine non-consecutive issues of Clowes's alternative comic book Eightball, and was later collected by Fantagraphics Books.
Patience (2016) is a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, published by Fantagraphics. A science-fiction love story about time travel, it describes the misadventures of a man, Jack, after he finds his pregnant wife, Patience, murdered in their apartment. Many years later, when grief has destroyed his life, chance leads him to discover a time machine, which he plans to use to save Patience.
