The Cage (a review)

Here’s a fun fact for you guys: the term “graphic novel” has a real wacky history. It was first coined in 1964 by Richard Kyle in the fanzine Capa-Alpha but apparently, it’s been floating around for a little while before that. The term gained traction in the 70’s with books put out by legends like Will Eisner but got really popular in the 80’s with the publication of works like Watchmen and Maus. There’s plenty of arguments floating around about the exact origin of graphic novels or what was considered a graphic novel back in those days before the term was a thing.

So, what is a graphic novel? Essentially, a graphic novel is a longer comic story published all at once in a single book. There is some wiggle room like with Watchmen, which was originally published in single issues before being compiled into a book. Some of you have also heard of the term “trade” or “trade paperback” used interchangeably with “graphics novel” but they have one crucial difference. A graphic novel is one story that was published as one book from the get-go while a trade is a compilation of a certain mini-series, story arc/arcs, or part of a specific comic run. Again, there’s a lot of wiggle room.

With that bit of history out of the way, let’s look at a graphic novel from the 70’s before the medium became as popular as it is today.