Yes, we do need a more accurate method of cataloging graphic novels and it starts with the Library of Congress. Since I’m in America, that’s where I choose to start. Then onward across the pond!

And we can’t compare apples to oranges here. A prose novel is and apple and a graphic novel is an orange. I'm not talking about prose novels that may or may not have spot illustrations. A prose novel can sink or swim without illustrations.

Also, the author term is causing problems. How about for a moment we replace that with storyteller. The writer is the "written" storyteller. The artist is the "visual"storyteller and both are needed for a graphic novel or comic to happen.

Can we agree that the writer and the artist are using their respective mediums to tell the story?

Absolutely.

I would definitely agree that 'storyteller' or 'creator' applied equally to writer and artist, too.

The only way that the illustrator can/should be listed as co-author is if the comic is done "Marvel Style" (or the two came up with the idea together).

If it's "Full Script Method", then the writer is the author and the illustrator is the artist. Both storytellers- but only one is the author. Otherwise, if the artist wants to be a co-author, then when I give him/her/it my panel "stick figured" breakdowns, I have to be listed as co-artist. All's far in love and comic book creating, right.

Nuff Said.

Since writing a comic book is a rather dubious idea, and as Paul Smith points out, there are so many ways to do it, why not go for "co-creator"? I believe that's how Leave It To Chance was credited, right?

Or for a more exalted example, wouldn't proper credits for the Fantastic Four be "by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby", thus sparing everybody except for real trivia fanatics the blow-by-blow of who did what, while not denying either their proper credit? It's Lee's words and Kirby's pictures (except when Vinnie Colleta was inking :p ) but the resulting comic was by both of them.

While James and I gave titles to credits for others, we intentionally avoided them for ourselves. It was simply, "by Robinson & Smith." We even went the added step of connecting our names by ampersand rather than the word "and" to state we were a team, not two people working on the same thing.

We routinely stepped into the others province. Not the biggest example but, most of the story titles were mine while many of the covers were James' ideas. He even did a cover sketch for #3. He may have done one for #12 or maybe he just described it over the phone but, I remember the idea as his.

And watch what you say about my main man Vinnie or I'll ... I'll wag my finger at you. Wag it, I say. Wag! And don't think I won't.

Ah! But there is exactly the problem I have! If I draw a comic in pictures and then ask you to write the dialogue, am I a co-author? I engaged in no actual "writing" as it is pedantically understood by many of you so if your answer is "yes" then clearly you are basing authorship on something else.

I for one already stated that where a creator is dominant in originating the work or dictating its final narrative form he or she is the author. So therefore, a scriptwriter working full script and/or supplying stick figure roughs to an artist might indeed be sole author. But that understanding of "author" was rejected. And if you accept that the artist's drawings are a form of writing then under the other terms of author = writer that autmatically makes him a co-author under any circumstances (which I don't entirelly agree with).


And also from Dictionary.com:

And from wikipedia:

In literary theory, the author function is the writer of a work as seen by the reader. Each work by the same author has a separate author function, and each work by numerous or unknown authors has a single distinct author function.

It is pretty clear that author is most associated with mediums of the written word but is used in other mediums, adapted in compliance with its root to fit the nature of that medium. And the nature of comics is one that is both words and images.

And even in the context of writing it is not the act of writing alone that makes one an author.

Teddy...

Please don't take this the wrong way - I mean no offence - but a writer does far more than just put dialogue in the mouths of the characters.

In order to truly write something, you must create an entire framework including plot, structure, pacing, characterisation and dialogue. You'll also be describing locations and objects in varying degrees of detail in order to create the right atmosphere or make sure plot-critical items are included at the right points.

Any mess up or lack of clarity in any of those details is the fault of the writer, not the artist (Unless the artist is willfully ignoring the writer, of course, but that's pretty unlikely I would say).

If an artist creates the plot, structure & pacing he is also doing much if not most of the writing, and should certainly be credited accordingly.

'Writing' is not just putting words on paper. What you see is the tip of the iceberg, even with a novel.

The funny thing is that I already realize this. I said that it was absurd to give co-authorship to someone hired to only write dialogue. Not that all writers only write dialogue. I said earlier I came at this from both sides. I've read books on scriptwriting and plot structure as well as books on sequential art, drawing, and directing and while no master of either am directly familiar with both aspects of creating a comic. You all are trying to paint this as an either/or scenario of two divided columns in a medium that is entirelly about integration. What I am trying to point out is, to paraphrase your argument, that "artist" does not just mean putting lines or pictures on paper, either and that a sequential artist is also often creating the character, pacing, and structure that the reader will see through his own judgement of the material and the tools of his craft. You don't seem to appreciate how much control a visual artist often has in plot progression alone through the use of color, composition and layout. I suggest you pick up some books on film directing.

I’ve been playing devil’s advocate a lot and exploring different paths (some dead ends) so let me make myself clear here. Clearly author is used in other mediums like film and music that is different than the assumption that writer=lyricist or scriptwriter or he who composes words . And clearly the meaning in such mediums is tied to the root of creator or originator and refers to the composition of not just words but sounds and images as well.

Even in the context of Literature, a writer is not automatically an “author.” Author status seems tied to the notion of the creative authority of the work, the individual(s) that form the central identity of it. So I do not consider a hired artist who illustrates a comic to the specifications of the writer automatically a co-author. And yet, neither do I think scripting Marvel Comic’s Spiderman automatically makes you an author. It makes you a hack (no value judgment intended).

I appreciate that author is so closely tied to writing and in more conventional terms is used as a shorthand for a writer. But comics, like film, and music has its own conventions and if you used the conventions of writing to assume a song’s author is a lyricist or a film’s author is the scriptwriter you would be wrong.

In relation to writer/artist collaborations it represents a certain paucity in understanding collaborations and the medium to state that the only way an artist could be a co-author is to work Marvel method of:

1. Summary
2. Pages and notation by artist
3. Script.

Another scenario could be two sympathetic creators with similar tastes and preoccupations in the act of brainstorming in a far less formalized way, simply through discussion, trading sketches of ideas both verbal and visual. A work takes shape from that discussion, the writer writes up a script and the artist then takes that script and draws the art which is as a final product represents the vision of two minds and set of skills integrated to produce one work.

Or how about the manga collective CLAMP. 4 cartoonist friends who trade off their creative roles from project to project, each project credited to “CLAMP.”

I personally have no problem with the term author being adapted to comics appropriately in the conventions of the comics medium. Obviously, the public may think of author as writer. To list a genuine collaboration between artist and writer, giving both co-authorship quite obviously informs the reader something about the nature of the medium that sometimes the artist is just as much the author as the writer.

So for the love of all that is holy please stop thinking my position is to diminish the role of the writer. It is not. It is to properly recognize the contribution that each creator gives on a work by work basis (I have always tried to qualify my statements to point this out) and I think that it is impossible to do so using the writer=author structure insisted on here which makes assumptions about the nature of the medium which aren't true.

Teddy...

I have never disputed 'co-creator', nor would I, and as you say the line does get blurred a lot between writer and artist in some collaborations so it's clear that each case must be judged upon it's individual merits, but to me applying 'co-author' is going to be wrong in many and perhaps most cases because the word 'author' is primarily - and in common parlance entirely - used to refer to a writer only.

In literature, BTW, I would dispute your conclusion that not every writer is considered an author. Anyone who has had a novel or short story published would most certainly be considered an author.

I wouldn't give 'co-illustrator' or 'co-artist' to a writer who used stick figure layouts to help explain things either, though it could be argued that panel layout is part of the artist's role.

My understanding of the medium is far from perfect, as I will be the first to admit, but I know very well what a writer does and thus what can and cannot be defined as the writing side of any project.

Edit: I must admit I have stopped thinking you are trying to diminish the role of the writer. The main debate remaining to me is now about the terms in which we should refer to the creators so that any reader will readily and easily comprehend what is meant by them. 'Author' is completely the wrong word for achieving that, at least when applied to artists who have no role in the writing.

You are probably correct. I was thinking in terms of this:
..but it in the form of a noun, I'm assuming it would be as you state. No wonder all the confusion if one could be considered an author but not to have authored a work.

I speak of my experience from my own modest creative efforts but I suppose that could also be considered prejudical. I study all the elements of proper draftsmanship and yet don't really consider myself as an illustrator or even artist. Similarly I have too much respect for writers to consider myself one under conventional meaning even if I am writing dialogue and constructing the story. And yet I am composing a narrative of sorts as the sum of my efforts in my own way in the visual language of comics and so I would happily call myself a comics author.


The Library of Congress has the search term of "author/creator" and it seems to me that in other catalogs this is just designated as author in the search field and it makes sense for utility sake to list the artists as an alternate author search term. In the actual listing, might as well use the specific credits listed in the book as seems to be the case. If I search for Dave Gibbons as author I get Watchmen. But the full catalogue title of illustrator/letterer is taken straight from the book credits.