Why are comic books considered an inferior art medium?

Question

Modern comic books and graphic novels present some extremely insightful and artistic fiction. Why does the literary community at large still consider them inferior?

Answer 1

Historically, comics started out as books printed to sell reprinted stories found in the comics of newspapers, then they evolved into books with new stories written by authors that couldn't get work anywhere else. That's not exactly a royal beginning, and also there is the stigma of being "for kids" and thus not taken seriously. Yes, they have changed quite a bit since then, but society is slow to adapt in their generalizations and even today they could not be considered "mainstream" by any stretch. Movies might be helping.

Answer 2

The following is a simplification/summary of decades of history.
Actually, the reason is because of Fredric Wertham and his crusade against comic books, also known as Seduction of the Innocent.
Millions of people actually read comic books in the medium's original Golden Age heyday of World War 2. Comic books, like the pulp magazines of the time, were cheap escapes that almost anyone could afford.
After WW2, most adults stopped reading, leaving comic books basically a "children's medium". When the problem of juvenille deliquency started to rise to national attention in the very early 1950s, although there were a lot of contributing factors to this situation, Wertham (an otherwise medicore pyschologist) crusaded that comic books were the cause. Needing a scrape goat, and not wanting to admit their own failure as parents, many adults jumped on this bandwagon and almost killed the comic book industry in the process.
It was a slow, long climb to where comic books are today, and even then they have not reached the pinnacle of success (readership numbering in the millions, when the best books today do only a couple of hundred thousand) that they had during WW2.
But comic books in the minds of those that were around in the 1950s and are adults now, still maintained the "children's medium" stigmatism and they passed it down to their kids.
Which is why the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund exists today, to defend shop owners whenever they are accused of. among other things, "contributing to the deliquency of a minor", because "We all know comic books are just for kids," according to several winning prosecutors.
Elsewhere across the globe, especially in Japan with the magna and anime industries as successful as they are, comic books are considered an art form in their own right, for (among other reasons) they never had anyone try to tell them otherwise.
Hopefully a couple of generations from now, comic books will gain a little more respect from the public here.

Answer 3

Definitely. You'd be hard-pressed to convince anyone that (illustrations in) comic books aren't art, since they contain drawings, which are almost universally considered art. Comic books fall into the category of visual art. Beyond that, the style determines the category to some degree. Anyhow, the category is not necessarily agreed upon or important. Comics generally tell stories, like the next level 'up' (that is, in a visual direction) from a heavily illustrated novel, so to speak. May God bless you.

Answer 4

comic books as an art form would most likely have to be classified as pop art which was considered breakthrough art for a very short period of time. there is only so much variation that can be done in the style of comic-book illustration so there is very little opportunity for the artist to "push the envelope" so the movement lasted only a short period of time. illustrating comic books has its own identifiable style. if an artist were to change that style drastically it would most likely just end up looking like a picture book. despite all of this, young adults seem to find pop art very fascinating so i wouldn't loose hope in comic books becoming a far more popular.

Answer 5

I suppose like a lot of 'inferior' art form (animation is another that springs to mind!) - comic books started off as popular entertainment and not in an art gallery. That always seems to cripple an art form somehow - and creates the snobbish notion that it is less that it is, when in fact, as a medium, it can be easily as 'artistic' as anything on canvas or from the pages of 'literature'.

Answer 6

I'm 25 and love reading comics and watching cartoons.I'm tired of being looked down by people for doing so.Especially in bookshops.Once when I asked for some X-men comics the guy at the comic shop said."We are out of those.But would you like to buy an Enid blyton book instead?" Reading comics does not mean that you are childish.It just proves that you have better imagination.

Answer 7

Until recently, comic books were intended purely for entertainment, and not for anything deeper. Since "real art" is about evoking emotion or deeper thought, traditional comics (in the Marvel Comic or Sunday paper sense) weren't taken seriously.

Times are changing, though - my library just recently allowed for graphic novels to have their own classification and shelving section, and graphic novels and comics are being written for adults as well as for children, and for education and "art" as well as for entertainment.

Answer 8

Comic books are not an inferior art medium.
There are people out there who collect, just as they do baseball cards, check this out, I am sure there are better examples but it still is not an inferior art medium. The artist is paid as he produces, this is the career for the artist:
http://cgi.ebay.com/rare-ANDY-WARHOL-1989-exhibit-SUPERMAN-1960-art-POSTER_W0QQitemZ230003794962QQihZ013QQcategoryZ20149QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Answer 9

Usually because they are mass-produced, rely heavily on visuals, and are often targeted at teenage males.
But you're right. There are many graphic novels that are fantastic, and shouldn't be considered inferior. "Maus" and "Persepolis" series comes to mind.

Answer 10

when i read comic, only few that has new ideas
mostly they repeat the story with a diffrent graphic.

it is not inferior, i guess, it is just made cheap for commercial sell

Answer 11

Because it's illustration. Illustration is not a higher art (like painting or drawing). They might be cool to look at, but they're not art.