Forum:Comic strip, comic story, comic

In a similar vein to Forum:Audio play, audio drama, audio story, I need to move for standardization on disambiguation in comic titles.

For instance, we now have


 * The Lodger (comic story)

but


 * Voyager (comic story)

And this is making the bot's life miserable. It forces a minimum of two runs, or some very clever bot programming, when it could all be so straightforward. I think it should be comic story, becuase, well, that's what it is. Comic strip defines the medium, whereas comic story is more accurately used with the title of a story in the comic strip medium. Moreover, all the categories use "comic story". Since this is such a minor issue, I think it's one in which a poll might serve us well. (Also, I just kinda want to test the poll command.)

How should we disambiguate: comic strip or comic story? comic strip comic story other (define below) Note that the results of this poll will not obligate you personally to change anything. You are not voting to give yourself more work. I'll change things on the basis of this poll, which closes one week from its start date.
 * I think 'comic story' works best, because 'comic' seems a little vague to me and 'comic strip' makes me think of Garfield and the like. -- Bold  Clone  22:23, February 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I would tend to support the original source description as featured on both covers and contents pages which is 'comic strip' in both Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Adventures. Additionally I find those involved in the making of these stories refer to themselves as 'comic strip artists' not 'comic story artists' The Librarian 23:07, February 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem, though, is that with the advent of IDW, we have to come up with a good trans-Atlantic term. As we can see from BC's contribution, "comic strip" definitely connotes something different in the US than the UK.  In no way is The Forgotten a comic strip.  It's a comic book.  So we need a term that works, regardless of the length of the story.  Because we have both comic books and comic strips in the sequential art history of DW, "comic story" works to cover both sub-genres.


 * Comic story.
 * While I see The Librarian's POV and understand it (I think I've used both in different situations throughout my time editing here). The original source description can still be used on article, this discussion is more relating to categorisation and disambiguation.
 * Let's though not get into a discussion of what The Forgotten is (would it not be a "graphic novel" rather than a "comic book"? Comic books make me think of thin publications filled with comic strips.) --Tangerineduel / talk 14:40, February 5, 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I agree. This is a purely housekeeping kinda question. It's simply about a need to give readers (and bots!) a standardized disambiguation for all stories told in the medium of sequential art.   Doesn't mean The Librarian isn't bringing up a good point.


 * And I know TD's admonished me not to go there, but I'm gonna jump in on his point about The Forgotten, because it seems like a fun way to spend five minutes. To a lot of our editors, it would be a graphic novel only.  The Forgotten was never (legally) sold outside the US in its original form.  IDW don't have a comic book license from the BBC outside North America, because those rights have already been given to others.  But in the continent of origin, it was a six-issue limited series.  There's such a thing as Doctor Who: The Forgotten #3, for instance.  All of IDW's output has so far originated as traditional, stapled American comic books.  And your description of what a comic book is proves the point.  Most Americans wouldn't describe comic books as "filled with comic strips", because that would imply, as BC earlier said, Garfield and the like.  A comic strip, in American terms, is what you get in newspapers — literally something that is only more than a single horizontal strip on Sundays — with the emphasis almost always on the word comic.  A comic book tends to emphasize the word book, and is a frequently dramatic narrative told with sequential, but not strictly stripped, art.  In a comic book, the artist is free to vary her panel size, or even the order in which the panels are meant to be read, in a way that would be completely impossible for a comic strip artist, who must adhere to a particular, agreed height for his panels.  In a real sense, it'd have been a lot easier for DW if IDW hadn't acquired the license, because then, we'd be able to use British/Imperial definitions with impunity.  But considering the fact that IDW is, by page volume, far and away the major producer of DW sequential art these days, we can't ignore the Americanisms.

I've used "comic story" before because the word "strip" sounds like an element of the format which would define it as long and narrow like the gag cartoon Doctor Who? in which a single panel or a set of sequential panels conform to this space. It doesn't take into consideration that a comic fits whatever space it is given. Back when you could purchase an issue of TV Comic for a fuppence or a song you could still read comics with panels that were side-by-side but didn't have upper and lower borders that lined up. The Dalek Chronicles are full of weirdly angled, jagged edged, or circular panels layed against each other. The Iron Legion' has an opening "splash page", a whole page with only one panel. --Nyktimos 22:58, February 5, 2011 (UTC)