Interesting. I hadn't realized that artists of graphic novels are not
commonly treated as creators (and still find it hard to reconcile that
with the rules in AACR2 21.24 and RDA 19.2). Is this also common
practice for coffee table books of the type "photographs by ... text by
..."? I had assumed that the first-named person gets main entry in these
cases.
According to the German RAK rules, picture books, coffee table books
a.s.o. are entered under title. However, the people responsible for the
text and the pictures are considered to be authors. The rule says to
give an added entry for the first-named person responsible for the text
and for the first-named person responsible for the pictures.
In RAK, we already use certain relationship designators, and
"illustrator" is one of them. But it is only used when the text is the
main thing, and the illustrations only supplementary.
Heidrun
Benjamin A Abrahamse wrote:
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>
--
---------------------
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Faculty of Information and Communication
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
