History of Graphic Novels: 1990's

Definition

During the 1990’s, the graphic novel medium was on the road to legitimization. Over the course of the decade, great writers and artists rose to the forefront, some comics came to be regarded as works of literature, and graphic novels handled themes not seen previously in the medium.

Introduction

Graphic novels came to be regarded as legitimately literary in the 1990’s, in large part because of mainstream media attention, inclusion in bookstores, and increasing recognition of the superhero genre. Prior to the 1990’s, large publishers such as Marvel Comics and DC Comics were slow to adapt to the graphic novel format. Rarely would either company release a graphic novel of original content. There was some dabbling in original stories in book-bound form during the 1970’s and 1980’s, but mostly, publishers reprinted collected runs of superhero comics.

The mass-merchandizing phenomenon that had taken off with the Star Wars films in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s continued into the 1990’s. This proved to be beneficial to the comics industry, as the 1989 film Batman, directed by Tim Burton, had a wide range of licensing contracts across different media. The film’s popularity led to an increase in interest in the superhero. Because of the success of the film, bookstores began to carry more comic books and graphic novels. Frank Miller’s 1986 graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns particularly resonated with readers, demonstrating the ability of graphic novels to tell complex, mature stories to a wide audience.

Throughout much of the 1990’s, comic book publishers sought to increase revenues by marketing comics to collectors and encouraging them to buy multiple copies. To that end, publishers released comics with variant covers, foil, embossing, and other gimmicks. The marketing technique for graphic novels was the opposite, as publishers wanted wide distribution to make comics more inclusive.

Writers and Artists

During the 1990’s, many artists imitated other artists, creating house styles for publishers. Image Comics, one of the largest comics companies at the time, was founded in the wake of a dispute between Marvel and a group of its creators, including Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane, who were upset about the lack of negotiation in their contracts and the lack of creator ownership opportunities. Although Image Comics first published works set in a superhero universe like those of Marvel and DC, by the late 1990’s, the company began to experiment with stories in other genres and with original graphic novels.

While many comics of the day were visually striking, they lacked substance. However, the nonsuperhero realm of 1990’s comics was dominated by a stable of rising writers. Many of the industry’s most popular creators, such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, and Warren Ellis, were British writers who were rising in prominence in the United States during the 1990’s.

Moore was the first writer of the group to become widely known in the United States. He was primarily known for Watchmen (1987), but throughout the 1990’s, he worked on the superhero book Supreme, which played with the Superman archetype. Moore revived some of the larger-than-life ideas of the Golden Age and Silver Age that other creators had eliminated in favor of more realistic superheroes, proving that some of the less realistic ideas of those ages could still resonate with contemporary audiences. Moore also worked on nonsuperhero works such as From Hell (1989-1996), about Jack the Ripper. In 1999, Moore founded America’s Best Comics, a publishing imprint that allowed Moore and other creators to experiment with form and genre.

Comics as Literature

The defining moment of legitimization for the comics medium occurred when Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 1992 for Maus, which chronicles Spiegelman’s father’s experience as a Holocaust survivor. The first volume was published in 1986; a second volume was published in 1992, and both volumes were collected into a complete novel in 1993. Widely recognized by the mainstream literary establishment as a work of legitimate literature, Maus encouraged readers to consider the literary nature of the graphic novel medium as a whole.

Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics, was a driving force for comics as literature during the 1990’s, and it co-opted the term “graphic novel” to describe collected editions of its nonsuperhero work. Throughout much of the 1990’s, Vertigo republished Gaiman’s The Sandman (1989-1996) in hardcover volumes and trade paperbacks. The series received much critical acclaim and went through several printings. Likewise, Morrison’s series TheInvisibles (1994-2000) was published as individual issues and republished in collected volumes throughout the 1990’s, as was Ellis’s series Transmetropolitan (1997-2002).

As graphic novels began to be accepted as literature, works such as Scott McCloud’s critically acclaimed Understanding Comics (1993) helped readers better understand the form. McCloud’s book, presented in the form of a comic narrated by the author’s avatar, explains how the reader interprets the comics form and describes the techniques used to convey the story.

New Themes and Plots

Increasingly, DC Comics began to trust the original graphic novel format, releasing many of its titles under the Paradox Press banner. Paradox’s publications included The Big Book Of series (1994-2000), which explored a different theme in each volume. Paradox also released English editions of the manga series Gon (1992-2002) by Masashi Tanaka. The wordless story tells the adventures of a hungry dinosaur who often gets in tangles with other animals. The publication of Gon and similar books illustrates the increasing influence of manga during the 1990’s. Another important graphic novel published by Paradox during the 1990’s was Road to Perdition (1998), written by Max Allen Collins and illustrated by Richard Piers Rayner, which would inspire a 2002 film adaptation.

A number of other companies successfully published graphic novels during the 1990’s. Oni Press was founded in 1997 by Joe Nozemack and Bob Schreck and went on to publish many original graphic novels. Dark Horse Comics, founded during the previous decade, republished limited series such as Frank Miller’s 300 (1998) in graphic novel format. Some of Dark Horse’s graphic novels won Eisner Awards, including Moore’s A Small Killing (1991), Joe Kubert’s Fax from Sarajevo (1996), and Mike Mignola and John Byrne’s Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (1994). Dark Horse also gained mainstream attention for its licensed products, publishing comic books based on preexisting properties such as Star Wars and Alien vs. Predator (both beginning in 1992).

The diversity of themes and plots and the talent of the writers working in the field allowed comics to become a more respected genre during the 1990’s than it ever had been before. Though slice-of-life tales, gangster stories, and tales of wayward dinosaurs did not always fit into the mainstream comic book form, the graphic novel proved to be the ideal form through which to tell such stories. Through the publishing and marketing efforts of independent publishers and specialized imprints and the groundbreaking work of writers such as Moore, Gaiman, Morrison, Ellis, and Miller, graphic novels became both critically and commercially successful.

Impact

The first graphic novel to earn mainstream acclaim, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns called attention to the literary potential of graphic novels. Comics creators such as Spiegelman and Will Eisner saw the graphic novel as the final legitimization of the medium and a further extension of the art. The publication of a number of high-profile graphic novels throughout the 1990’s confirmed the medium’s status as a legitimate form of literature, with novels such as Spiegelman’s Maus garnering recognition from the mainstream literary establishment.

During the 1990’s, the definition of the graphic novel expanded to include trade paperback collections of ongoing series. Many of the early serialized works of small presses found new life as graphic novels. For example, Daniel Clowes’s Ghost World (1997) was originally published in his Fantagraphics series Eightball.

Collections of the Vertigo series The Sandman sold well throughout the 1990’s. Publishers adapted a model in which they released comic books in both hardcover and paperback format. The Sandman series drew mainstream attention to the existence of comic books for adult readers, and this series and others were soon shelved in bookstores. Graphic novels became a staple product line of chain bookstores such as Borders and Barnes & Noble.

In another major development, small presses put their trust in writers, publishing many original graphic novels and marketing them based on the writers’ reputations and existing fan bases. Marvel, DC, and, to a lesser extent, Dark Horse raced to find the next breakout writers and artists, at times signing them to relatively generous exclusive contracts. This focus on writers would greatly shape the comic book industry over the course of the following decades.

Bibliography

Lopes, Paul Douglas. Demanding Respect: The Evolution of the American Comic Book. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009. Provides a short history of the evolution of the comic book in the United States with an eye toward comics’ legitimization.

Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2007. Examines the comics form, looking at how several creators in the industry have applied their art, including Eisner, Miller, Morrison, and Moore.

Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Links events in the history of the United States, such as U.S. involvement in World War II, to events in the comic book industry.