Strips en sequential art, een moeilijke relatie

Abstract

Following the publication of the groundbreaking book written by Thierry Smolderen, Naissances de la bande dessinée (2009), this article focuses on the relationship between comics in general and graphic novels in particular. The tension between both fields is seen as relatively unimportant compared to the more fundamental debate concerning the definition of the comic: by some seen as a form of sequential art, by others mainly as a way of drawing and dialogically rewriting a certain image culture. The article tries to foreground new aspects of Smolderen's argumentation and places these within a broader discussion concerning the present, past and future of the comic.