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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:02, 17 August 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Wordless novel

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Wordless novel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Curly Turkey (gobble) 22:13, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it to be a comprehensive article on a medium of expression whose time in the sun was short, and was long forgotten until recently. There seems in the last decade to be a bit of a boom in reprinting these things, many of which were out of print for generations. Curly Turkey (gobble) 22:13, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: before anyone brings this up (because it has come up in more than one of my FACs), the word "comics" when referring to the medium is an uncountable noun, like "politics" or "mathematics". Uncountable nouns" are often called "mass nouns", but the latter term is confusing as such nouns do not always refer to masses of anything; they often refer to abstract concepts and do not take a plural form—so, no, "comics theorist Scott McCloud" (where "comics" is used as a noun adjunct) is not an error. Curly Turkey (gobble) 01:36, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • "where Masereel told tales of Man's struggle against Society, Nückel told of the life of an individual woman" - the primary source supports the description of the latter's oeuvre, but is there a secondary source that makes this comparison?
    • The compariosn is made in the third paragraph: "Qu'est-ce qui différencie cette œuvre d'Otto Nückel publiée à Munich en 1930 de celles de Frans Masereel ou de Lynd Ward? L'Allemand [that would be Nückel] montre le destin d'une femme, quand les autres parlent de celui de l'Homme avec une majuscule." Technically, she's comparing Nückel's work to both Masereel and Ward, but the Ward comparison would be anachronistic at this point in the article. Curly Turkey (gobble) 01:18, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • ISBN for Willett?
  • Compare date formatting within the Rhode entry, and add publisher.
  • Nikkimaria (talk) 22:01, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, as prior GA Reviewer. High quality article. Educational and encyclopedic. — Cirt (talk) 02:51, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments. High quality, generally comprehensive treatment of a sometimes-overlooked predecessor to a modern art form. I look forward to this being promoted, but in the meantime, I will pick some nits:

  • You have parenthetical links to foreign-language Wikipedias alongside the redlinks to Thomas Ott and Hendrik Dorgathen near the end of the article. I've never seen this done before, and can't imagine that it's standard practice. There's nothing inherently wrong with a redlink or, ideally, the foreign-language articles can be used to create a stub here.
    It's done using the {{ill}} template. When an English Wikipedia page of the same name is created, the foreign-language link magically disappears. I actually did create a numver of the articles linked to from this article; in the case of Ott and Dorgathen, the articles were unreferenced, so I didn't bother (I've seen reviews of Ott in the comics press before—if I were sufficiently motivated, I could track down the sources myself. But I'm not). Curly Turkey (gobble) 22:02, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You've got inconsistent date formatting in the works cited. Some of this probably can't be helped, with sources that unhelpfully provide us with season of publication, of all things. But compare the Cohen reference with the Bi reference.
    Done. Curly Turkey (gobble) 22:05, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure I understand what earns some works a place in Further Reading and some in External Links. The Frans Masereel Foundation link is clearly an External Link, but is there a reason the 2006 Bi, Boxer, and Rhode works aren't under Further Reading instead? For that matter, is there nothing from these sources that can enrich the article? Boxer's work, just by example, looks like it might have value for modern reactions to the form.
    This was my "logic" (though I'm not taking a hard line with this):
    • The Silent Shout was cited by several of my sources, so I assumed it was a worthy "Further reading", even if I couldn't get my hands on it.
    • Bi is interesting, but it's mainly about silent comics, with detours into the wordless novel along the way. Interesting, but it's out of scope for the article. so I put it in "External links".
    • "Stories Without Words: A Bibliography with Annotations" also has a much broader scope, but includes a bibliography of wordless novels ("Woodcut Novels") at the end. As it's a list, I didn't feel it qualified as "Further reading" per se.
    • Boxer was interesting, and I had originally intended to use it as a source, but I found it didn't say anything about wordless novels in general that wasn't already in the article (it focuses on Lynd Ward). I've now removed it and put it in the Gods' Man article. Curly Turkey (gobble) 22:02, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - please do not use templates on the nomination talkpage. They tend to break the nominations viewer and slow down page processing within FA-nominations. GermanJoe (talk) 10:58, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image check - all OK (PD-age, PD-1923, PD-US no notice, Flickr CC). Sources and authors provided.

Comments from Ceranthor
Overview
History
General

Once my comments are resolved, I can !vote. ceranthor 14:57, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support - ceranthor 02:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notes from requested WP:GOCE copyedit I have copyedited this article, as requested on the Guild of Copy Editors' Requests page. This is not a support/oppose statement, just feedback. The following are notes on problems with the text that I could not resolve with a copyedit:

  • Lead: "Following World War II, examples of wordless novels became increasingly rare, and early works went out of print." Do you mean that the novels were being destroyed, or that new novels were not being written and published, or that existing published novels were not being reprinted, or something else? The sentence is ambiguous.
  • Lead: "Cartoonists such as Eric Drooker and Peter Kuper took direct inspiration from worldess novels to create wordless graphic novels." The difference between "wordless novel" and "wordless graphic novel" is not clear here in the lead. It is explained below. Maybe add a link to graphic novel, which would make it visually clear that the word "wordless" modifies "graphic novel" and not just "novel".
  • Overview: "Wordless novelists" is awkward. "Novelists" is usually preceded by an adjective identifying the person, not the type of novel, e.g. "American", "female", or "gay". I suppose "graphic novelists" would be acceptable, though it does have an ambiguous meaning. The phrase "wordless novelists" appears three times in the article. If it is an accepted term in the field, I'm fine with it. Otherwise, I recommend changing it.
    • There doesn't appear to be an accepted term at all. "Graphic novelists" is right out, as it's not a given that these books are comics. To be honest, I don't see what you do when you call "wordless novelists" "awkward", though. Any other suggestions? Curly Turkey (gobble) 05:04, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Images: Some images have no alt text.
  • English variant: I suggest placing some country's version of {{British English|form=editnotice}} on the page. The variant of English appears consistent to me, whichever one it is.
  • Decline: "Lynd Ward, who found himself on an FBI "person of interest" list..." Person of interest and other sources appear to say that the phrase dates from 1996 or later, so using it here is probably not appropriate.
  • Relation to graphic novels: You introduce the apparently redundant term "silent comics" without a link or an explanation of it. Comics are by their nature silent, like novels, paintings, and deceased parrots, are they not? Like "wordless novelists", if this is a common term in the field, I will accept it (with a link or a quick explanation). If it's a phrase that you made up, please change it.
    • I definitely didn't make up the phrase—in fact, even in French "bandes dessinées muettes" is used. I can see the issue, though, so I've switched in "textless" and "wordless" for silent in that paragraph. Curly Turkey (gobble) 05:04, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relation to graphic novels: You quote Eisner on Ward, and then you quote McCloud, but there is only one citation for the whole paragraph (Chute p. 410). I looked at the source, and I think you need to move the Chute ref up to the Eisner quotation and cite Understanding Comics or another McCloud work at the end of the paragraph.
    • I removed the McCloud bit. I think it was likely that I just decided to through in the word "closure", since it's "obvious" to comics people that that's what Eisner was talking about, before the accepted vocab had popped up. Curly Turkey (gobble) 05:28, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relation to graphic novels: Again in the Dorgathen sentence you use the word "silent", twice. I object gently to both instances.
  • See also: Another "silent comics".
  • I think that's it. Overall, great work. The above are nitpicky, but you asked for an FAC review. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:11, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment -- Quite a few duplicate links in the History section; not sure they should be necessary in an article of this (relatively modest) length. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:47, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That was because I felt the links seerved the reader best in the History section, but that the History section should follow the Overview. I don't feel that strongly enough to make a stink about it, though, so I've removed the five duplicate links. Curly Turkey (gobble) 04:13, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks. I'm not fanatical about them, and will generally respect reasons for keeping them, but if they're not considered vital... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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