I can't speak to what is ideal in theory, but what I see in most records for graphic novels is that the writer is given Main Entry (so, under RDA, would get $e author) and the artists as Added Entries (so, $e illustrator; or, if/when more specific terms become available, $e inker, or what have you).
One could certainly argue that "author" is not the correct term (and in point of fact the term I see most often used on graphic novel statements of responsibility is "writer" not "author"). One could also object to the practice of giving the "writer" Main Entry, instead of treating graphic novels as "works of mixed responsibility". The writer is responsible for the story (usually) and script (and sometimes the storyboard as well -- in many ways graphic novels and comics are closer to films than textual books) but obviously without someone to do the art it wouldn't be a "graphic" novel. There is I think at least a background awareness of the problem of assigning "authorship" in graphic novels in the cataloging community. For example in the Library of Congress classification schedules: PN6725-6728 Collections of general literature-Comic books, strips, etc.-By region or country-United States PN6727.A-Z Individual authors or works, A-Z Subarrange individual authors by Table P-PZ40 Subarrange individual works by Table P-PZ43 Prefer classification of comic strips by title PN6728.A-Z Individual comic strips. By title, A-Z So there is a stated preference for classification by title (which makes more sense to me because at least for comic books, writers often come and go as frequently as artists do; this seems to me less often the case with graphic novels), but the schedule is also hospitable to collocating by author. And there are some authors of graphic novels and comics (the inimitable Neil Gaiman springs to mind as an example) who stand out in such a way that collocating their works together on the shelf makes greater sense than dispersing them by title. But regardless of classification practice, assigning "main entry" (or in an RDA milieu, assigning as the personal name part of the authorized access point) seems to be the primary way catalogers have treated graphic novels, in my experience (which is certainly not unlimited, and perhaps other catalogers who work with these materials can inform the discussion further.) --Ben p.s. As long as I'm talking about the classification schedules--the fact that Anglo-American and European countries get number ranges but the rest of the world fits under PN6790.A-Z (Other regions or countries, A-Z) has led to some small amount of havoc in our collection, where by far the number one producer of comics and graphic novels that our users are interested in is, of course, Japan. Benjamin Abrahamse Cataloging Coordinator Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems MIT Libraries 617-253-7137 From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Heidrun Wiesenmüller Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 1:39 PM To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Relationships and comic books/graphic novels Ben, You get me confused here. I'm not an expert on this kind of material, but I would have thought that e.g. for the early Asterix books both Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny are to be seen as creators in the sense of RDA 19.2: "Persons, families, or corporate bodies jointly responsible for the creation of a work (...) may perform different roles (e.g., as in a collaboration between a composer and a lyricist)." In a joint effort, one of them provided the pictures, the other the text. I think this corresponds to 21.24 "Collaboration between artist and writer" in AACR2. But then the relationship designator "illustrator" seems to be not applicable for somebody like Uderzo, because it is for a contributor, not for a creator. This also fits in with the definition of illustrator as somebody "supplementing the primary content with drawings, diagrams, photographs, etc." So, this seems to be about the cases which used to be covered in AACR2 21.11A1. I conclude that the only possible relationship designator for Uderzo listed in the Appendix would be "artist". This is really rather crude. I also wonder about the relationship designator for somebody like Goscinny. The only possible term from the Appendix seems to be "author", but the explanation doesn't really fit: A person etc. "responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content". Well, the Asterix books are certainly not "primarily textual in content". Heidrun Benjamin A Abrahamse wrote: Does anyone happen to know if there is work being done to expand the RDA relationship vocabulary to account for specific roles associated with the illustration of comic books and graphic novels? Under the current RDA relators, it would seem the following roles (which are considered discrete enough to warrant separate mention on the statements of responsibility of comic books and graphic novels) all fit under the category of "illustrator": artist inker colorist (or, color artist) letterer Also, I've noticed that often "cover artist" gets separate mention, though I think they would still be considered an illustrator. --Ben Benjamin Abrahamse Cataloging Coordinator Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems MIT Libraries 617-253-7137 -- --------------------- Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A. Stuttgart Media University Faculty of Information and Communication Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi<http://www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi>
