The concept of the graphic novel – comics printed in permanent book form – has a long history in Europe, but the term itself was originally coined in America in 1964 by the critic and dealer Richard Kyle. It was his attempt to cast off the tropes and trappings of lightweight comedy and juvenile subject matter, which have been so long associated with the word ‘comics’. Among Kyle’s inspirations, assuring him that the medium could flourish in more than ephemeral periodicals like daily newspapers or monthly comic books, were the handsome bande dessinée albums he was importing from France and Belgium at the time. He knew that the buoyant French-language market for comics in book form, often hardcover and kept in print for decades, dated back to the best-selling phenomena of Asterix in the 60s and Tintin in the 30s. Kyle published a call to arms for American creators to aspire to the same sort of lengthy, ambitious and more adult projects, inventing the phrase ‘graphic story’, and out of this, developing the notion of the graphic novel.

Fifty years later, it’s remarkable how much has changed. In Britain, the arbiters of taste have been slow to accept modern comics as anything other than kids’ stuff. But a series of tipping points have included Posy Simmonds and Raymond Briggs being inducted into The Royal Society of Literature in 2005, Mary and Bryan Talbot’s Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes winning the 2012 Costa Book Award for Biography, and this summer The British Library in London hosting Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK, the largest exhibition of British comics ever seen in Britain.

Elsewhere across Europe, the graphic novel has become an increasingly popular sector of publishing and, along with children’s books, one of the few to defy the current trend for declining print sales. By far the largest producer is France, where the output of bandes dessinées has increased astonishingly over the past dozen years, topping 5,000 new titles per year and tapering off only slightly in 2013. Despite the fact that, in the term ‘bande dessinée’, literally ‘drawn strip’, the French have found a neutral, non-judgmental way to describe comics, they too have adopted the term graphic novel or ‘roman graphique’ to promote longer, more literary, serious and experimental work, and distinguish this from the more standardised genre fare in regular, often serialised 48-page albums.

Equally rich and burgeoning are the comics scenes in other countries, spurred on by national funding, and grants for translation and printing, for example from the Flemish Literature Fund, FILI, the Finnish Literature Exchange, and the Dutch Foundation for Literature. Only ten years ago, German publishers had not decided what to call these unidentified printed objects, resolving in the end to adopt the English phrase and nurturing their own vibrant variety of authors. Now major festivals, exhibitions, dedicated centres and a network of activists support and expand local growth and international exchange as never before.

Translating comics requires special skills beyond the purely linguistic. For a start, the space allocated to speech/ thought balloons and narrative captions both defines and confines what can be written within them. And the language of comics is not only verbal but visual, so words and images must interact smoothly. It is no coincidence that perhaps Britain’s greatest living translator of comics, Anthea Bell, famed for her dazzling work on Asterix, is the daughter of Adrian Bell, the first cryptic crossword setter for The Times. As a girl, her lateral thinking was honed every morning when her father would test his latest puzzle on her over the breakfast table.

On May 14, four acclaimed graphic novelists from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany and Spain will read from their works, demonstrate their drawing and discuss their work with me at The British Library in a special extra event as part of European Literature Night. Books featured on the night will include the English edition of Judith Vanistendael’s When David Lost His Voice, published by SelfMadeHero, Line Hoven’s Love Looks Away, published by Blank Slate Books,and Max’s Bardin the Superrealist, published by Fantagraphics. The line-up also includes Lucie Lomova’s The Savages, which awaits translation. Their diversity of subjects, from historical documentary and tender family secrets to the loss and lessons of death from cancer, and Dalí-esque philosophical dreamworlds, is sure to fascinate and inspire. Five decades on, Kyle’s ‘graphic novel’ is firmly established, a significant medium with an exciting, innovating future ahead of it.

About the author

Paul Gravett is a London-based freelance journalist, curator, lecturer, writer and broadcaster, who has worked in comics publishing and promotion since 1981. His latest book is Comics Art published by Tate Publishing (2013) and Yale University Press (2014). He is currently co-curating the first exhibition on British comics for The British Library in the summer of 2014.
www.paulgravett.com

Find out more about European Literature Night, and the writers showcased there.

The British Library exhibition ‘Comics Unmasked’ is open now until 19 August 2014.

Buy When David Lost his Voice and Love Looks Away at Foyles.

The post Who invented the graphic novel? appeared first on English PEN.

Invited to a dinner held by the Dutch Foundation for Literature who are supporting now comics, the first language we found ourselves speaking was Dutch. The great satirical artist and agent provocateur known as Willem (Bernard Willem Holtrop, 1941-) initially made his name as a Dutch cartoonist, but was charged with high treason after a 1966 caricature depicted Queen Juliana as a prostitute, and he moved to Paris and built up an illustrious career in France, combining politics with obscenity. Last year, he was awarded the Grand Prix d’Angoulême, a lifetime achievement award. It gave the Dutch the perfect opportunity to get their foot in the door.

This year, Willem invited twenty comics artist from Holland to come along and produce screen-printed posters satirising French current affairs and fly-post them all over Angoulême. The project was called LA BEDE EST DANS LA RUE and was highly visible and very effective. (Do check out the posters on their weblog.)  A good deal of these artists’ books have been or will be translated into French but few are published in English. Typex’s Rembrandt was recently published by Self-Made Hero, who will also be bringing out Barbara Stok’s Vincent, translated by Laura, next month. Jan Cleijne’s Helden van de tour (Heroes of the Tour) has just been sold to Head of Zeus.As we dined with this select group of Dutch artists, attempts to ply our trade were met with incomprehension. Translators?! What are you doing here? We all translate ourselves into English. Or we write in English. Do comics need professional translators? We can’t afford them.

We ended up editing Jeroen Funke’s self-translated texts at the dinner table instead. The next day when we did a tour of the stands and the rights’ centre, we encountered similar patches of resistance. One publisher translated from French himself and had an editor check it. Others used native speakers of the language being translated from rather than the other way round. Only the French, who with their thriving comics industry form an international hub and translate from many languages, were un-phased by the concept of comics translators.

Unfortunately, we can’t translate into French! So it was time to relax and enjoy the show instead. Two of my favourite graphic novelists, Rutu Modan from Israel and Alison Bechdel from the US were coming to give talks, both had recent books about their family. The concept of the graphic novel as opposed to the comic was partly derived from the fact that there has been a growing trend in biographical and autobiographical works over recent years. La Cité internationale de la bande dessiné, Angoulême’s über-modern, super-fantastic comics museum bore witness to this fact too. ‘Towards the end of the twentieth century a new form arose, featuring current affairs, society, world travel. It was a way for the reporter-artist to reconfigure observed reality and offer a personal vision of the facts’.

The personal is often political though and the comics genre’s history of subversion is one of its most popular characteristics (see for example Mad magazine est. 1952). Alison Bechdel, famous for the Bechdel test, said she knew how it felt to not be seen, and she wanted to render visible people on the margins of society. Her famous series Dykes to Watch Out For is a page-turning, at times hilarious lesbian soap and deliberately includes more than one black character (no token measures). The French interviewer clumsily questioned Rutu Modan on the unconventional-looking female protagonist in Exit Wounds, giving her the perfect opportunity to wonder why a woman shouldn’t be represented as very tall and not conventionally beautiful. This is what real people look like.Meanwhile, a cartoon on the front page of the local paper poked fun at the outrage from Palestinian supporters that the Israeli company Soda Stream was the official sponsor of the festival, and the Japanese ambassador had apparently denied the historical accuracy of a wonderful exhibition featuring Korean works about the enforced prostitution of ‘comfort women’ during the second world war. Check out the drawings of Tack Young-ho, Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, Choi In-sun and Jisue Shin if you can find them. Translation work may have been scarce but there was enough controversy to go round.

About the author
Michele Hutchison worked in British publishing and in Dutch publishing for many years before becoming a full-time translator and blogger. Writers she has translated include Joris Luyendijk, Rob Riemen, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer and Simone van der Vlugt.

Additional information
The Angoulême Festival website in FrenchFleurs qui ne se fanent pas – Korean exhibition on Comfort women.More information on the Sodastream controversy at the festival.Please see here for ‘Ghentish Talent‘, Michele Hutchison’s previous PEN Atlas piece for graphic novels from Flanders.

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