Dickens also wrote novels published in serial form.
Most of them were published that way.
So any argument that there is an inescapable distinction between a work published serially or published in one chunk is frankly doomed from the outset.
It’s a reasonable try at defining what the heck the difference is apart from publisher’s whim.
I can see some merit in arguing that a comic is distinct from a graphic novel in that the “novel” should have an overarching theme or plot linking individual serial episodes whereas a “comic” might have that but doesn’t have to.
I agree and concede that something can be both serialised and a graphic novel. Maus would be a good example, having largely been published as a comic strip over a course of several years. It absolutely reads like a graphic novel, not as a collection of comic strips.
Within the artform and industry of comics themselves, I think my distinction still stands pretty well, and I remain steadfastly opposed to the practice of recategorising comics as graphic novels. Whilst I’ll admit it doesn’t actually matter in any real sense, I still feel like it’s akin to taking, say, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables by the Dead Kennedys, and insisting that the quality of the musicianship and lyricism means it must be something other than a punk album.
