Comics Professionals Discuss "GN" as Term

As evidence that not just newcomers find the term "graphic novel" problematic. I've "come to terms with the term," though I prefer "sequential art narrative." (Both are phrases popularized by comics master Will Eisner). MLA has recently referred to them as "graphic narrative." Last year, "graphica" had a nice run of a couple of months before "graphia" debuted. Perhaps "graphein" would be the best term, since it has the clout of being ancient and by definition reminds us that all scratches, whether evolving into pictures or letters, have traits in common.

But, I'm cool with "graphic novel" except when people just assume that it applies to any work of sequential art, including pamphlet-style single issues of a comics series. Spider-Man #600 was not a graphic novel, but a trade paperback collecting Spider-Man #600-612 could be. All graphic novels are comics, but not all comics are graphic novels.

And please don't tell me that "comics" is a problematic term as well. I know this, and I see the entire conversation as wheel reinventing, but others think it is important, and I don't want to be caught off guard when the next hip terminology gives it a go at some staying power. ;)

So, "Drawn or painted or computer-crafted images with no real space or temporal relation on their own except when the reader infers them in conjunction with adequate suspension of disbelief that life can be disjointed into frames and language can be represented as a seemingly tangible object that take up lots of space within the narrative yet is not really supposed to exist except as heard speech or other sound within the diegeses of the narrative -- which is always linear but often misconstrued as non-linear; bound not by staples puncturing thin filmed paper but rather by various types of card stock and with a spine of some girth," you're on the batter's deck, and I'm ready for you!