I hate, nay despise the term 'Graphic fucking novel' to the point were I can't actually say the words novel and graphic without inserting the word 'fucking' between them. Every time I see the words 'BASED ON THE...' projected on the cinema screen my arse clenches so tightly I walk out the auditorium with my own chair.

You may wonder why? Isn't it a nice mature term for comics that makes them seem more adult orientated and therefore acceptable to a potentially new audience. Well I suppose it is, in the same way 'Ethnic Cleansing' is a nice way to say genocide.

I hate it for many reasons, it's misleading, pretentious, inaccurate, corporate interference and often not even used for it's intended purpose. But the real reason I have a collection of cinema chairs is because it's been made to cover a shame that doesn't exist except in comic geeks.

We don't use the term 'Moving Pictures' any more, we don't call the theatre 'Live Cinema' and we don't refer to the radio as the 'Magic talking box' (though that is what I called my ex') so why do we feel the need to dress up a medium in this wankery? It's a comic. It doesn't matter how big it is if it's definable by the term put down by Scott McCloud "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence" then IT'S A FUCKING COMIC!

I could understand slightly different terms to denote length of material: Comic Strip, Comic, Comic Book gives you a sense of length and size of the three main types of comic. Trade Paperback implies the same as collected edition and are at least partially descriptive of the product if not the medium but I've asked a few people not savvy to the four colour world what they think graphic (fucking) novel means. I got answers along the lines of, 'Like a horror' or a 'book with pictures' no one really thought comics. This means marketing has failed and should bow it's head for the axe!

There's nothing wrong with the term 'comic'. Using the term in relation to mature subject matter will elevate the term not devalue the subject matter.

I'm sick of the world being afraid of words, it's about time we called a spade a ni...........