Tpbs are just collections and Graphic novels are original format? Or is Graphic Novel now the accepted term for both?

You got it right in your first sentence.

K. Thanks.

I agree, mostly. But you can find people using the terms interchangably, so don't be surprised. And since they're all made-up terms, there's no "wrong" way to use them, really.

The reason I ask is that I am getting older and behind on tech and I almost never hear the term TPB but rather Graphic Novel when describing comic stories. And sometimes they came out in comics first.

I suppose Watchmen is the example. I disagree with calling that a "graphic novel." Yes, it was conceived as a finite story. However, it was also conceived as individual issues of a comic book. Ergo, the whole thing is a collection. To me, the word "novel" implies not only a complete story, but also a standalone product.

The Christian Bible. One book, or many books?

I've often thought of it as relating to TV and Movies. A TPB is like a DVD set of a TV series, where as a Graphic Novel is more like a movie.

At one time, graphic novel had a snobbish element to it as people used it to distinguish certain work from those grubby comic books. The opening credits of The Walking Dead list it as being based on a series of graphic novels, for example. Despite that, graphic novel is now used more as a term of convenience in describing any comic work in book form.

Mike

I remember that.

Didn't the waters get muddied when trade paperbacks like Watchmen and Dark Knight started being called Graphic Novels. Here were the two biggest books in most peoples minds, collected as TPB, and it seemed more correct to call the GN. Ongoing works like Sandman and Swampthing were being published monthly, serialized at the time, eventually collected in TPBs. And it seemed more correct to call the GN.

Should there be a distinction? A novel is a novel, a movie is a movie.

I think pretty much everybody is right, 'graphic novel' has been used as a term of convenience and as an attempt to elevate a comic above other comics which are still 'funny books' in a lot of people's minds. Allen's right too that the term is often used inaccurately, but I have to say that common usage justifies itself when it comes to language. All I have to add is that I think length matters (what SHE said). Just like there is required number of pages to distinguish a novel from a novella or short story, it feels silly to call a comic under, say, 60 pages a graphic novel.