A comic book is a drawn story, a story in pictures.
Comics combines features of such types of art as literature and fine art. A type of book and magazine illustration, sometimes used in print media.
There are many different names for this art form and its individual varieties. Large-scale comics with a through plot are called graphic novels (aka graphic novels), short – strips. Web comics are posted online.
In some states and countries with a developed industry of graphic stories they have their own name. Thus, in the French-speaking world comics are called bande dessinée (drawn tape) or BD, Japanese comics are called manga.
There are many definitions of a comic book, but all of them, in general, boil down to the fact that a comic book is a series of images in which a story is told. According to most researchers, a comic book is a unity of narrative and visual action. Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics, offers a short definition of “sequential images,” and a fuller definition of “adjacent drawings and other images in a meaningful sequence.” Georges Sadoul defines comics as “stories in pictures.
Comics do not necessarily contain text; there are also “silent” comics with an intuitive plot (e.g. Jean Giraud’s Arzac). But more often than not, direct speech in a comic is conveyed by a “word bubble,” which is usually depicted as a cloud coming from the mouth, or, in the case of a depiction of thoughts, from the character’s head. The author’s words are usually placed above or below the frames of the comic.
Comics can be anything in terms of both literary genre and drawing style. Even the works of classics of literature are adapted in the form of comics. But historically, the most common genres of comics have been adventure and cartooning. This stereotype has long marred the reputation of comics.
Drawing in a comic book has a certain amount of conventionality. It is simplified for speed of drawing and ease of perception and reader identification with the character.
In terms of volume, comics range from short “strips” of a few (usually three) pictures to voluminous graphic novels and series of multiple issues.
Comics are closely related to cinema, and especially to animation. As the same McCloud points out, “Film on film is a very slow comic book. Space means the same thing to a comic book as time means to a movie. In English the word “cartoon” can mean both a comic book and a cartoon[. A great many Japanese “anime” cartoons are adaptations of Japanese “manga” comics.