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I was wondering what tags you all use on GoodReads for comics or graphic novels. After I read a book I usually like to look and see how people categorize their reading habits. For instance, someone said Hope Larson's Chiggers is a fun-reads.
I tag all my comics as "comics" rather than "graphic-novels," for two reasons:
1. sometimes they're not novels
2. comics is more fun to say. You can't put an exclamation point after graphic novels(!) as easily.
Comics has 8,000 more tags than graphic-novels, though there are more graphic-novel tags for the most popular comics. Watchmen has 257 graphic-novel tags, but only 170 comics tags.
I also tag for the major publishers, just because I like to keep track of my reading habits. I've tagged three more Marvel books than DC. (Fascinating!)
Anyway, I'm curious about your shelving systems.

I use "comic-collection" because that's how I roll.

I should tag them as comics too, but I use graphic novel for the longer works. Haven't tagged any comics yet, but I've read some.

My bookshelf is comics-and-manga.

i think i go with graphics

In my constant state of oblivion and random ignorance I have failed to tag any of my books. Of course I am way too slothful to go back and correct the error of my ways.

my shelf is:

"comix-cartoons-graphic-novels"

My Shelf is "comics" but I also break them down into "X-men", Daredevil" "Grant Morrison" etc

I just lump everything into comics. I've always felt that "graphic novel" is just a term created by publishers to disassociate things like Maus and Persepolis from "lower" works. There are no graphic novellas, graphic short stories, graphic collections of poems. It's all comics.

Well, though I'm another person who just uses the term "comics" -- I didn't really think about it a lot, honestly -- I have to disagree with you, ²Ñ²¹°ùé.

Sure, there's a snooty factor to using the term "graphic novel", but there IS a difference between types of comics in terms of substance, you can't pretend there isn't... Maus and V For Vendetta are totally different than X-Men and Teen Titans, which are in turn totally different than Scooby Doo and Archie.

In fact, I tend to think that the term "comics" stopped being relevant awhile ago -- they used it because the old "comics" were all comical, funny, trivial amusement aimed at children. Some of the superhero titles were real breakthroughs, very different from the old yuk-yuk books, and probably should have been called something else (if for no other reason than to avoid the jurisdiction of the Comics Code).

And in the same way, Maus is very different than Justice League, and deserves a separate terminology. The material is substantially different. Sure, there are some great writers in the spandex genre, who really have done wonders expanding it all, but still -- you can get Dostoyevsky to write Spider-Man, and it will still be Spider-Man.

Though I do agree that the term "graphic novel" isn't quite right as a blanket term; I generally only use it to refer to the TPB collections, and really there's no reason not to apply that to TPB collections of Superman as well as TPB collections of V For Vendetta. However, I think coming up with the term "graphic novel" is a reach in the right direction.

I agree that the term "comics" is outdated, but graphic novel refers to a genre and comics is a medium.

Regardless of the word's origin, it's our personal associations with it that makes the difference. I'm sure there are plenty of people who still can't take graphic novels seriously.

And if you consider a trade paperback a graphic novel, then what about the single issues? They're essentially the same thing but I think that it affects people's perceptions of syndicated comics.

The bulk of superhero comics, I don't really care for, but it's unfair to say that all Spider-Man comics are the same. Walkmen and Miller's Dark Knight wouldn't exist without an established genre to break out of.

I understand that not all comics are created equal. And works like Maus really do deserve a special title. But I don't think dismissing other works is the best way to go about it. I'd be surprised if half of the people who read Maus would know that it began as a self-published series in Spiegelman's magazine, Raw.

Maus exists as more than a graphic novel and this should be recognized. The story isn't changed if it's hardback, paperback, on the internet, or in a magazine.

There are plenty of important web comics and comic strips. But for some reason, anything worth reading gets turned into a book, as if the format has anything to do with the content. I know that people are more comfortable with reading a book rather than staring at a computer screen, but it's my belief that that will someday change.

I definitely agree with you, Mare, that the idea of the "book" dominates our current publishing industry; some publishers, like McSweeney's are doing their best to at least challenge how we define a "book," and it will be interesting to see the ways in which internet publishing alters our concept of the physical book. That said, I'm not entirely convinced that publishers invented the terms "graphic novel" or "graphic fiction" in order to distinguish comics based on quality alone. I agree that it has certainly taken on that meaning (again, going back to our associations with books, generally: if it was published as a book, then it must be good). However, I use the term "graphic novel" also to identify a self-contained story. X-Men is not self-contained. In other words, X-Men does not have a limited narrative arc; X-Men could persist almost indefinitely since there is no narrative impetus to create a final, conclusive end to it. V and Maus, by contrast, were of course initially published serially, but they have very clear destination points.

I use 'graphic-novel'. 'Comics' would be individual issues/periodicals, which aren't tracked here.

Admittedly, some of them are really 'graphic short story collections', but I'm not bothering to separate them, or try for a more inclusive term. For me, 'graphic novel' just means 'sequential art published in book format' anyway.

Well met folks.
New to the group.
I just have them in the "read" or "to read" pile...dull, I know...I only use them and the currently reading heap.
Does no one stick them into genre stuff though? Fell Volume 1: Feral City - Limited Edition in detective fiction for example.
I'll read all sorts of things and don't care about the medium so much as the story or information that is transmitted.

I file mine as "graphic novel." Many recent works, especially stand-alones, just don't seem like "comics" to me.

I also do cross-file them according to genre.