The 1950s saw this format broadened, as popular movies were similarly adapted. The 1940s saw the launching of Classics Illustrated, a comic-book series that primarily adapted notable, public domain novels into standalone comic books for young readers. That same year, the first European comic-strip collections, called "albums," debuted with The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets by the Belgian Hergé. Other prototypical examples from this period include American Milt Gross' He Done Her Wrong (1930), a wordless comic published as a hardcover book, and Une Semaine de Bonté (1934), a novel in sequential images composed of collage by the surrealist painter, Max Ernst. American Lynd Ward also worked in this tradition during the 1930s. Among Masereel's works were Passionate Journey (1926, reissued 1985 as Passionate Journey: A Novel in 165 Woodcuts ISBN 0-87286-174-0). The 1920s saw a revival of the medieval woodcut tradition, with Belgian Frans Masereel often cited as "the undisputed King" (Sabin, 291) of this revival. While these collections and longer-form comic books are not considered graphic novels even by modern standards, they are early steps in the development of the graphic novel. The United States has also had a long tradition of collecting comic strips into book form. Vieux Bois by Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer, is the oldest recognized American example of comics used to this end. The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, the 1837 English translation of the 1833 Swiss publication Histoire de M. Blake created several books in which the pictures and the "storyline" are inseparable in his prophetic books such as Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Vala, or The Four Zoas. The first Western artist who interlocked lengthy writing with specific images was most likely William Blake (1757-1826). Cave paintings may have told stories, and artists and artisans beginning in the Middle Ages produced tapestries and illuminated manuscripts that told or helped to tell narratives. Since the exact definition of graphic novel is debatable, the origins of the artform itself are also a matter of interpretation. Likewise, in continental Europe, both original book-length stories such as La rivolta dei racchi (1967) by Guido Buzzeli, and collections of comic strips have been commonly published in hardcover volumes, often called "albums," since the end of the nineteenth century (including Franco-Belgian comics series such as The Adventures of Tintin and Lieutenant Blueberry, and Italian series such as Corto Maltese). Whether manga, which has had a much longer history of both novel-like publishing and production of comics for adult audiences, should be included in the term is the subject of ongoing dispute. It is also sometimes used to create a distinction between works created as stand-alone stories, in contrast to collections or compilations of a story arc from a comic book series published in book form. Collections of comic books that do not form a continuous story, anthologies or collections of loosely related pieces, and even non-fiction are stocked by libraries and bookstores as "graphic novels" (similar to the manner in which dramatic stories are included in "comic books"). In the publishing trade, the term is sometimes extended to material that would not be considered a novel if produced in another medium. Following this reasoning, the French term Bande Dessinée is occasionally applied, by art historians and others schooled in fine arts, to dissociate comic books in the fine-art tradition from those of popular entertainment, even though in the French language the term has no such connotation and applies equally to all kinds of comic strips and books. The term is commonly used to disassociate works from the juvenile or humorous connotations of the terms comics and comic book, implying that the work is more serious, mature, or literary than traditional comics. However, it is sometimes applied to works that fit this description even though they are serialized in traditional comic book format. It generally suggests a story that has a beginning, middle, and end, as opposed to an ongoing series with continuing characters one that is outside the genres commonly associated with comic books, and that deals with more mature themes. The evolving term graphic novel is not strictly defined, and is sometimes used, controversially, to imply subjective distinctions in artistic quality between graphic novels and other kinds of comics. Graphic novels are typically bound in longer and more durable formats than familiar comic magazines, using the same materials and methods as printed books, and are generally sold in bookstores and specialty comic book shops rather than at newsstands.
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