Art Spiegelman: One-Page Graphic Novels

(Above: George Booth's “Ip Gissa Gul” from The New Yorker, January 20, 1975. An example of a one-page graphic novel, according to Art Spiegelman.)


Art Spiegelman talks about something called "one-page graphic novels" at the New Yorker blog's
EYEBALL KICKS: ART SPIEGELMAN ON ONE-PAGE GRAPHIC NOVELS by Françoise Mouly:

"'About seven years ago, I was invited to do a comics page for the op-ed section of the Washington Post,' he recalled. 'The editor was very excited and told me, ‘Great—we’ve never had a graphic novel before!' I pointed out that it was only a one-page comic, but the editor repeated, 'Right, and we never had a graphic novel before!' As a result, Spiegelman decided it was time to embrace the term that has come to characterize 'an ambitious comic book,' whether the narrative is drawn on one page or three hundred. 'Since comics is the art of compression, I started looking back on the one-pagers which either in terms of their subject matter or in terms of their resonance had stayed in my brain,' he said.

In other words, size doesn't matter.

I have run into people who use the term "graphic novel" to describe comic strips, comic books -- ANYTHING that's sequential art. Weird. Pretty soon people will not ask a cartoonist "What are you drawing?" 

The new question will be "What are you graphic novelling?"

Hat tip to Randy Michaels for the link! Thanks, Randy.