V For Vendetta Delayed Until March 2006

chad
writes, The release date of V for Vendetta
has been pushed
back
to March 17, 2006 from Nov. 4th. The official
cause is to accomodate the post-production schedule.
Those familiar with VfV will understand why Nov. 4th
was a special date.
Notice how the article describes V for Vendetta
as a graphic novel? This irks me because it was
originally released as a comic book mini-series and
was only later reprinted in graphic novel form. With
the release of VfV looming, I’ve seen several
discussions about the superiority of the graphic
novel, yet all of the ones I own were first published
as individual comics. Does anyone else see a problem
here?
I know at least one of our authors has a
copy that can be reviewed in time for the movie.

11 replies on “V For Vendetta Delayed Until March 2006”

  1. Allow me to be an ass for a moment…

    Notice how the article describes V for Vendetta as a graphic novel? This irks me because it was originally released as a comic book mini-series[…]

    You – step away from your parents’ basement. Let me explain why, fanboy, that they’re calling it a Graphic Novel. It’s because most people hear “comic books”, and think of, well, COMIC BOOKS. The term “Graphic Novel” means, for most of us, that it’s not just a bunch of comic books, but an actual story, replete with all the trappings that “Novel” allows.

    Most norms would never read a comic book, but might be persuaded to read a Graphic Novel because it’s, well, a Novel. And they’ve heard about how good Graphic Novels can be. Whereas comic books are still the purview of nerds, geeks, losers, and the fat twenty-something guy at the bookstore obsessing over which Yu-gi-oh cards to buy. With his grandmother. (true story)

    Now that I’ve been an ass, let me further state that I’m not picking on you specifically (although, let’s be honest – you asked for it. The last time I saw someone that nitpicky, it _was_ the character Fanboy from Freakazoid! [see, I am a nerd, too]). But it makes it a lot easier to market. A comic book: Superman. X-men. Batman. Spider-Man. You know – superheroes. Graphic Novels: From Hell. Watchmen. Maus. You know – books.

    And that is why they’re calling it a graphic novel. It’s not about a guy in tights fighting for The American Way.

    Now let’s see if I get banned from here.

    • Re: Allow me to be an ass for a moment…

      Most norms would never read a comic book, but might be persuaded to read a Graphic Novel because it’s, well, a Novel.

      Whereas we Slans know better? Please.

      I have personally defended The Watchmen as literature to a class of fourth year English students, and I know how deeply set in their ways people can be in defining certain things for kids (case in point, I had a mother asking for GTA San Andreas today for her 9 year old) or as unimportant. The word ‘novel’ will do nothing to change their view, just as that “AO” will do nothing to stem the playing of GTA: SA by preteens. Serious, solid criticism would probably do that (and it does exist, but it’s damn hard to find), but the LCD has no interest in that sort of thing – kind of like raising their kids, but I digress.

      Now let’s see if I get banned from here.

      I wasn’t aware that B42 had a way of doing that…

      • Re: Allow me to be an ass for a moment…

        Now let’s see if I get banned from
        here.

        I wasn’t aware that B42 had a way of doing that…

        We probably could, but we’ve never done it. (At least, we
        could easily delete a user account, but that wouldn’t stop
        the user from creating another one. We could probably stop
        creation with the same e-mail address if we really wanted
        to.) However, I think it would take a lot more
        than this to get us to do it. These are just two different
        opinions. chad put forth a topic for discussion, and
        mbourgon responded. mbourgon may have come across a little
        more strongly than he needed to, but his objective points
        are valid: “graphic novel” is a significantly more
        marketable term. I’ve even seem some people call the
        “writing to the trades” style of writing that is
        increasingly popular a “serial graphic novel” style, as the
        story is planned out in a graphic novel length rather than
        as a series of quick adventures.

        • Re: Allow me to be an ass for a moment…

          These are just two different
          opinions. chad put forth a topic for discussion, and
          mbourgon responded. mbourgon may have come across a little
          more strongly than he needed to, but his objective points
          are valid: “graphic novel” is a significantly more
          marketable term. I’ve even seem some people call the
          “writing to the trades” style of writing that is
          increasingly popular a “serial graphic novel” style, as the
          story is planned out in a graphic novel length rather than
          as a series of quick adventures.

          I understand that – it was more the use of the word “norms” that I disliked, thus the Slan reference.

          Although I do agree that “Graphic Novel” is significantly more marketable, I don’t think that the use of it alone is going to change the majority view – it’s akin to simply calling them visual novels or painted novels – a good chunk of people will open them up, go “Oh, it’s a comic collection” and then put it back down and wander off to buy the new Oprah Book Club pick. Serious, solid criticism is needed, something akin to what T. Campbell is doing for webcomics, in an accessible, understandable format – the only examples I can think of are confined to scholarly journals, but I’m going to see if I can find one.

          And as to the banning thing, please, please, please don’t ever ban/delete an account. I can only think of one ‘troll’ off the top of my head, so I don’t think it would be worthwhile. I’d like to think we police ourselves.

          • Re: Allow me to be an ass for a moment…

            And as to the banning thing, please, please, please don’t ever ban/delete an account. I can only think of one ‘troll’ off the top of my head, so I don’t think it would be worthwhile. I’d like to think we police ourselves.

            It has never been discussed at all among the authors. We’ve never even come close to the need for it, as far as I can remember (and I think I created an account a few hours after Dave turned Technopagan.org into Bureau42.com). I can’t imagine doing so without a cause so severe that it would require police involvement.

            • Re: Allow me to be an ass for a moment…

              I can’t imagine doing so without a cause so severe that it would require police involvement.

              Damn. That’s the kind of sentence that fires the imagination. I mean, there are the obvious physical threats that could get out of hand, but that seems kind of mundane for this place. I’m thinking more along the lines of an admission by someone that they were personally responsible for a rash of “alien abductions.” :)

    • Re: Allow me to be an ass for a moment…
      I just have one question: Was your insulting delivery really necessary to make your point? What made you decide that this story/post was so offensive that you had to act the fool? It would be one thing if you were being sarcastic and were unconscious of it, but you decided to present your opinion and admit up front AND in back that you were being “an ass.”

      I can’t imagine a “ban” springing from this, but really…not cool. Not cool at all.

      PS- I looked back over the rest of your posts, and all of them seemed to indicate a person who knows what B42 is “about” (in terms of the tone it’s had since I’ve been frequenting the joint, anyway). All I can think is that you either had a really bad day, really wanted some attention (which, unfortunately, I’m providing – I may need to relearn some parenting skills regarding “good attention” and “bad attention”), or both.

  2. Whooplah
    I wasn’t even aware that “graphic novel” was anything else than fancy-talk for “comic book”.
    Is this like people who somehow find a difference between “sci-fi” and “science fiction”?

    Anyway, I’m mad at the Whashowski bros. for a certain franchise sequel fiascoI shan’t name, and I dunno V for Vendetta at all, so I wasn’t planning on seeing this before it got to video.
    Therefore the news itself isn’t as interresting to me as the way it’s being described at this point : )

    • Re: Whooplah

      I wasn’t even aware that “graphic novel” was anything else than fancy-talk for “comic book”.
      Is this like people who somehow find a difference between “sci-fi” and “science fiction”?

      My understanding is that “comic book” refers to the regular monthly releases with number issues, etc, that “trade paperback” refers to a collection of material first published as comic books, and that “graphic novel” refers to material that was never published in a monthly format, but which was designed to be released in the thicker format to begin with. Things get a little fuzzy with items like DC’s Prestige format one-shots.

  3. Novels are sometimes serialized
    Dickes wrote his novels for a serial format.
    Does that make them not-Novels?

    Didn’t think so.

    Novels have a certain structure, a certain length.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel

    Comics are a medium, just like cinema is a medium, or prose text is a medium.

    Novels, novellas, short-stories, fables — these are forms of story that are independent of the medium used.

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