More on Vocabulary

What to call sequential art narratives, especially comics and graphic novels, has been on the mind of various populations who study or who have recently "discovered" the form. I prefer sequential art narratives, obviously, but the term hasn't caught on because of its length and, my guess is, because it has the word "art" in it, and that tweaks literary-minded folks (I sort of laugh at this. Literature isn't art?). Others don't want nonfiction labeled under the heading of novel. We see "graphica," "graphic nonfiction," "poetry comics," etc. popping up to try to distinguish one form of comics-based sequential art from another. A recent discussion on a comics list serve brought up a redefining of the term "comics" as a shortening of the verb "co-mixing" since comics mix together words and images. Very cool idea, I think.