Proposal: Literature
Naturally many graphic novels will overlap with scifi/fantasy, but what about graphic novels that do not fit that category? Maus comes immediately to mind as a "graphic memoir" unrelated to fantasy (even if the artist incorporates anthropomorphized animals into the illustrations).
I would vote yes.
I wish I could remember the name of it, but I read a graphic novel a year or two ago depicting a young Chinese-American man's struggle with balancing the culture of his parents with the culture of his predominantly white neighborhood.
No elements of science fiction or fantasy. Just real life experiences told through text and illustrations. The illustrations carried information and meaning not always supplied by the text.
I think the tough call would be collections of comic strips. As much as I enjoy the Far Side, I think of it more as art than literature as it's all one-shots. Doonesbury, on the other hand, has long-running story arcs and characters who are born, age, and die.
What if we allowed narrative-based questions but not art-based questions?
If I may, I feel there is some confusion of what a graphic novel is (or even what literature is) and isn't. A Graphic novel isn't a genre; it's a format, much like an audiobook.[1] While it is often lumped and viewed distastefully alongside comic books, graphic novels come in as vast a range of genres as audiobooks do.
Visual/artistic Narratives as literature precedes the written language and limiting literature based solely on word count vs imagery would exclude a vast array of ancient and Classical pieces of literature, particularly hieroglyphics and illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Hours or the Book of Kells, which often contained substantial more artwork than written words, if any at all, and modern translations, such as The Prince, into graphic novel format.
As someone who has spent the past 9 nine years immersed in the academics of Ancient and Classical History and work in the wonderful world of books, after having read many of these posts, I get the sense that people are confused in what literature is. Literature, in itself, refers to any piece of writing that holds artistic merit, is both fiction and nonfiction and encompasess all genres, including comic books. We can't simply pass over a title because of a lack of understanding of what literature is. I've included a succinct list of academic sources at the bottom to help uncover the world of graphic novels!
Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower
Other Sources:
Interesting question. Generally most example questions would easily fit such works too. Thus, we would need a community decision on meta in the private or public beta to discern if the site views graphic novels as part of literature.
Here's my opinion:
Any book that consists more of graphical content than it does of text, should not be allowed.
This means that some comic-style literature is allowed as long as there is around as much text as there is graphics, with exceptions to be decided on a case by case basis.
