Final Report for final consideration
Jim Van Dore
We assume that this will be accomplished through the database (by a
pulldown menu, for example).
We assume that the keyword field will be used for more specific
information than will be captured in the official genres and that some
of the information currently in the genre field will be moved to the
keyword field.
We recommend that in the future genres may be added to the official
list based on their number of uses as keyword and their qualification
as a genre.
The aspect of age-appropriateness, previously reflected in such genres
as Adult, Children, Teen, and reflected in many terms listed in lists
of manga genres, is not in fact an aspect of genre. We recommend the
addition of a field for publisher-supplied target age designations.
We defer any recommendation on whether some sequence types should not
accept genre identifications.
Though a majority of the members of the committee thought that all
stories could be assigned at least one of the first four genres
(adventure, drama, humor, non-fiction), the majority of the committee
also thought that the user should not be required to first choose on
of the first four genres.
1. Adventure
A. This genre consists of works characterized by an emphasis on
physical and often violent action, exotic locales and danger.
B. This genre includes action.
C. See also animal, aviation, car, crime, detective-mystery, fantasy,
horror-suspense, jungle, martial arts, science fiction, sports, spy,
superhero, sword and sorcery, war, and western-frontier.
D. Examples include Bob Morane, Indiana Jones, Tintin, Captain Easy,
and Terry and the Pirates.
2. Drama
A. This genre consists of works containing events having vivid,
emotional, conflicting, or striking interest or results on a human
level.
B. This genre includes melodrama, soap opera, joho, and ryori.
C. See also erotica, fashion, medical, and romance.
D. Examples include Box Office Poison, Love & Rockets, Mary Worth, and
A Tale of Two Cities.
3. Humor
A. This genre consists of works that are primarily comical or amusing
B. This genre includes pantomime and demenziole.
C. See also anthropomorphic, children, domestic, military, satire-
parody, and teen.
D. Examples include Mutt and Jeff.
4. Non-Fiction
A. This genre consists of works purporting to present factual
information.
B. This genre includes fact and real life.
C. See also biography, history, math & science, and nature.
D. Examples include Ripley's Believe It or Not.
5. Animal
A. This genre consists of works featuring animals essentially acting
like real animals.
B. Example keywords include dog, horse, and cat.
C. Examples include Lassie, Rex the Wonder Dog, and Inubaka.
6. Aviation
A. This genre consists of works centered on flying planes or other
flying machines.
B. Example keywords include jets.
C. Examples include Airboy and Steve Canyon.
7. Car
A. This genre consists of works featuring automobiles, race cars,
trucks, etc.
B. Example keywords include hot rod, NASCAR, and trucks.
C. Examples include Hot Wheels, Speed Racer, Michel Vaillant.
8. Crime
A. This genre consists of works featuring realistic stories centering
on the commission of a crime or crimes and those who commit the crime
or crimes.
B. Example keywords include gangsters and prohibition.
C. Examples include Stray Bullets, A True Crime Story, and Torpedo.
9. Detective-Mystery
A. This genre consists of works featuring realistic stories centering
on the solving of a crime or mystery and those who solve the crime or
mystery.
B. Example keywords include private investigator and whodunnit?
C. Examples include Charlie Chan, Roy Raymond, and P.C. 49.
10. Fantasy
A. This genre consists of works set in worlds where magic or the
supernatural predominate over the material, scientific world.
B. Example keywords include mythological and fairy-tale.
C. Examples include Pixies, Fables, and Kelly’s Eye.
11. Horror-Suspense
A. This genre consists of works intended to terrify, frighten, shock,
mystify, or otherwise hold the reader in tension or dread. Stories in
this genre are often concluded with an ironic plot twist.
B. Example keywords include monsters and supernatural.
C. Examples include Swamp Thing, The Walking Dead, and Jack O’Justice.
12. Jungle
A. This genre consists of works featuring stories primarily set in the
world’s jungles, rainforests, or other equatorial wildernesses.
B. Example keywords include Africa.
C. Examples include Tarzan, Nyoka, and Saber - King of the Jungle.
13. Martial Arts
A. This genre consists of works featuring stories centered on
characters who use the fighting styles developed in East Asia and
similar fighting styles.
B. Example keywords include kung fu, karate, and judo.
C. Examples include Master of Kung Fu, Street Fighter, and Jimmy
Chang.
14. Science Fiction
A. This genre consists of works featuring advanced scientific,
futuristic, or extra-terrestrial elements.
B. Example keywords include cyberpunk, dystopian, post-apocalyptic,
and mecha.
C. Examples include Buck Rogers, Star Wars, and Dr. Who.
15. Sports
A. This genre consists of works featuring athletic activities.
B. Example keywords include baseball, Olympics, and tennis.
C. Examples include Joe Palooka, Strange Sports Stories, and Roy of
the Rovers.
16. Spy
A. This genre consists of works featuring spies, secret agents, and
secret service agencies.
B. Example keywords include espionage, thriller, and political.
C. Examples include Man from U.N.C.L.E., Modesty Blaise, and Nick
Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
17. Superhero
A. This genre consists of works featuring the adventures of costumed
crime fighters, who may also battle alien or supernatural menaces,
similarly costumed and/or powered criminals, or other antagonists bent
on conquest, often with the aid of specialized and/or superhuman
abilities or unique weapons and gadgetry. Also include stories of
non-costumed characters who otherwise fit the definition, particularly
if they are often referred to in story as super-heroes, and also to
stories featuring super-villains.
B. Example keywords include team and pulp.
C. Examples include: Superman, The Phantom, and Marvelman.
18. Sword and Sorcery
A. This genre consists of works featuring stories of epic or heroic
fantasy, violent conflicts, often with elements of romance, and
usually elements of the supernatural.
B. Example keywords include enchanted swords and post-apocalyptic.
C. Examples include Conan, Axa, and Elric.
19. War
A. This genre consists of works featuring armed forces in combat, or
related, activities during wartime.
B. Example keywords include Revolutionary War, World War II, navy,
army, and frogmen.
C. Examples include Sgt. Rock, Willie and Joe, and Charley’s War.
20. Western-Frontier
A. This genre consists of works primarily set in the American frontier
during the 19th or early 20th century and often featuring cowboys,
Indians, ranchers, etc., and other period stories in a similar style,
set in other times and places.
B. Example keywords include Native Americans.
C. Examples include Red Ryder, Lucky Luke, and Jonah Hex.
21. Erotica
A. This genre consists of works with sexually explicit content whose
primary purpose is to elicit sexual arousal.
B. Example keywords include hardcore, softcore, gay, and hentai.
C. Examples include Tijuana Bibles, Little Annie Fannie, Sally Forth,
and Dragon Pink
22. Fashion
A. This genre consists of works centered on fashion and the fashion
industry
B. Example keywords include models.
C. Examples include Katy Keene, Barbie, and Cloth Road.
23. Medical
A. This genre consists of works centered on medicine and the medical
profession.
B. Example keywords include nurses and doctors.
C. Examples include Rex Morgan, MD; Linda Carter, Student Nurse; and
Black Jack.
24. Romance
A. This genre consists of works centered on love and related personal
relationships.
B. Example keywords include soap opera, dating, and wedding.
C. Examples include Reach for Happiness, Johnny Love, and Dance ‘Til
Tomorrow.
25. Anthropomorphic
A. This genre consists of works featuring characters acting like
humans which are not human.
B. Example keywords include Disney and furry animals.
C. Examples include Donald Duck, Corky the Cat, Cerebus, and Milk and
Cheese.
26. Children
A. This genre consists of works featuring children (approximately age
12 or younger) as the primary protagonists, often having to act more
reasonably and resourcefully than their age, in the absence of adult
figures.
B. An example keyword term is kid gang.
C. Examples include Little Lulu, Peanuts, and Dennis the Menace.
27. Domestic
A. This genre consists of works centered on life in and around the
home.
B. Example keywords include family and sitcom.
C. Examples include Blondie and The Simpsons
28. Military
A. This genre consists of works featuring armed forces outside of
combat, or related, situations.
B. Example keywords include army and coast guard.
C. Examples include Sad Sack and Steve Canyon.
29. Satire-Parody
A. This genre consists of works using irony, sarcasm, ridicule and the
like to comment on, denounce, or deride social conventions, human
relationships, or other literary works (including other comics).
B. Example keywords include pastiche and social commentary.
C. Examples include: Mad’s Spy Vs. Spy, Cerebus, Sid the Sexist,
Fighting American, and normalman.
30. Teen
A. This genre consists of works featuring teenagers (approximately
13-19 years of age) as the primary protagonists, particularly in
stories that deal with their coming of age or maturing into the
beginnings of adulthood.
B. Example keywords include pop music, high school, and school life.
C. Examples include Dick Cole, Archie, and Kare Kano.
31. Biography
A. This genre consists of non-fictional works depicting the actual
events and experiences of a real person’s life or real persons’ lives.
B. Example keywords include memoir and autobiography.
C. Examples include American Splendor, Political Power, and Wonder
Women of History.
32. History
A. This genre consists of works relating actual events from history.
B. Example keywords include American history and World War II.
C. Examples include Hop Harrigan’s History of Aviation and Picture
Stories from American History.
33. Math & Science
A. This genre consists of works relating information about the
mathematical disciplines or the hard sciences.
B. Example keywords include astronomy and algebra.
C. Examples include Science Says You’re Wrong If…, and The TRS-80
Computer Whiz-Kids.
34. Nature
A. This genre consists of works relating information about the
environment and the natural world.
B. Example keywords include ecology.
C. Examples include Nature’s Notebook and Ma Nature’s Curiosity Shop.
Adult – removed, partly replaced with erotica
Adventure (action) – renamed adventure
Autobiography – removed
Bio – renamed biography
Celebrity – removed
Detective – renamed detective-mystery
Fact – renamed non-fiction
Family – renamed domestic
Funny animals – renamed anthropomorphic
Gags – removed
Horror – renamed horror-suspense
Humor (comedy) – renamed humor
Monsters – removed
Occult – removed
Period – removed
Political/propaganda – removed
Satire – renamed satire-parody
Sitcom – removed
Soap – removed
Western – renamed western-frontier
Barbarian - considered
Adaptation – considered
Undergrounds – considered
Mythology - suggested
Countercultural – suggested
Here I present additional notes for the Board with the intent of
pointing out our thought process or where we had trouble arriving at a
consensus. These are in the order we discussed them, not alphabetical.
1. Adventure
We discussed keeping Action as part of the name of this genre, but
rejected that notion.
2. Drama
We discussed whether this was an appropriate name for this genre, as
Drama is usually associated with acting in some way or another. We
are using this term in the sense of fiction without other specific
genre qualities; that is, generic fiction.
3. Humor
4. Non-Fiction
This is a replacement/modification of the current Fact genre. Part of
the reason was that Non-Fiction does not imply a judgment as to the
facticity of the story. Technically, non-fiction does not have
genres, but subjects, but for purposes of the GCD we are ignoring that
distinction.
5. Erotica
This is a replacement/modification of the current Adult genre. We
discussed the original “adults only” meaning of the genre tag,
particularly for things generally referred to as undergrounds, but
eventually decided those functions would be more appropriate in the
keyword and target-age fields.
6. Satire-Parody
This is a re-naming of the current Satire genre.
7. Superhero
8. Science Fiction
9. Western-Frontier
We discussed the possibility of separating Frontier out as a separate
genre, but rejected that notion. We added Frontier to the name to
better reflect the existing definition.
10. War
We considered the possibility of changing this genre to War-Military,
primarily to include features like Sad Sack, but decided on tagging
non-combat features and stories with a separate genre.
11. Military
12. Crime
13. Detective-Mystery
The name of this genre was changed to reflect the many write-in genres
used to indicate the mystery-side of this genre.
14. Jungle
15. Sword and Sorcery
16. Martial Arts
17. Sports
18. Animal
19. Car
20. Aviation
This was added on the basis of current write-in uses, over some
resistance. We discussed whether use of aviation should be prohibited
with war, but rejected that idea.
21. Anthropomorphic
We voted on this name change from funny animals and whether they
should be two separate genres.
22. Children
Discussion here was primarily on establishing an age range,
particularly in distinction from teen.
23. Teen
24. Domestic
This to some extent replaced family. Also suggested was family life
25. Romance
26. Medical
27. Fashion
This was another new genre suggested by the number of write-ins and
added by a majority vote.
28. Biography
We discussed eliminating this, but settled on combining biography and
autobiography.
29. Nature
This and the following two tags were added to fill out the sub-
categories of non-fiction.
30. Math & Science
31. History
32. Fantasy
We discussed horror, occult, fantasy, and monsters at one time,
eventually deciding to eliminate occult and monsters, while changing
horror to horror-suspense. There was some hesitation to eliminate the
two and a suggestion to change occult to supernatural.
33. Horror-Suspense
34. Spy
Considered changing this to espionage, but no support for that idea.
Current Genres Recommended for Elimination
1. Political/Propaganda
The things formerly categorized under this genre would be now be
tagged with non-fiction, religious, or other tags. They could also
additionally have in the keyword field such things as political,
promotional, etc.
2. Gags
The things formerly categorized under this genre would now generally
be tagged humor, though they may be tagged with other genre tags.
3. Sitcom
The things formerly categorized under this genre would now generally
be tagged humor, though they may be tagged with other genre tags.
4. Soap
The things formerly categorized under this genre would now generally
be tagged either drama or romance, though they may be tagged with
other genre tags.
5. Celebrity
There was no support for keeping this genre.
6. Autobiography
No one objected to folding these back under biography.
7. Period
Decided better used as keyword.
Suggested Genres Not Included
1. Barbarian
The general response was that other genre tags handled these types of
stories.
2. Adaptation
Though used frequently as a write-in, not a true genre, and a
reasonable keyword.
3. Undergrounds
Growing out of the change of adult to erotica, we could not agree on
what makes the group of works called this a genre.
Tony Rose
tony
From: "Jim Van Dore" <jrva...@gmail.com>
To: "GCD Genre Committee" <gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2012 7:49:20 PM
Subject: [gcd-genre] Final Report for final consideration
Brian Saner Lamken
Jim Van Dore wrote:
> We recommend that in the future genres may be added to the official
> list based on their number of uses as keyword and their qualification
> as a genre.
I don't remember us discussing this. Not that I'm against it per se, and I realize that there are two parts to the litmus test proposed, but I hafta tell ya that on my first reading of the sentence I thought, "Supernatural would be added in a week." I bring this up less to get back on that particular hobby-horse than to suggest that this makes it sound like the addition of Genres is to be considered a much more regular than than I would expect based on all the work we just did to pare the list down and short it up.
> We defer any recommendation on whether some sequence types should not
> accept genre identifications.
You noted that nobody had made a proposal and so I made one. It's true that nobody picked up on it, but I was surprised that there wasn't a poll or something to see if anyone wanted to pursue that further. The past couple of weeks I've been too distracted / exhausted by one of my cats getting sick and dying to pursue the thread myself.
> 1. Adventure ...
> C. See also animal, aviation, car, crime, detective-mystery, fantasy,
> horror-suspense, jungle, martial arts, science fiction, sports, spy,
> superhero, sword and sorcery, war, and western-frontier.
Don't we maybe want to knock a few of those off? I submit that just because an(other) official Genre *can* have Adventure-like qualities doesn't mean that it would — Superhero, War, Martial Arts, sure, but to me Animal and Sports can go right out while many of the others just be subsumed into a catch-all. Perhaps "See also crime, detective-mystery, jungle, martial arts, superhero, western-frontier, and several others, as comics publications often have an inherent bent of adventure".
> 3. Humor ...
> C. See also anthropomorphic, children, domestic, military, satire-
> parody, and teen.
Military? I wouldn't… oh, wait, I see that we separated it out from War.
> 4. Non-Fiction
> A. This genre consists of works purporting to present factual
> information.
> B. This genre includes fact and real life.
> C. See also biography, history, math & science, and nature.
> D. Examples include Ripley's Believe It or Not.
Non-Fiction is not a genre, and I'll believe that 'til I'm blue in the face. I won't be holding my breath, mind you; I just mean that even if someone were painting my face blue I would be happy to expound on how ridiculous this is. 8^) I especially don't get having Non-Fiction if we do have all the things listed in C, although I realize that this is meant to cover what was Fact and what I think is far better kept that way.
> 14. Science Fiction ...
> C. Examples include Buck Rogers, Star Wars, and Dr. Who.
This is one of the places, Horror-Suspense being another, where I think that excluding mention of anthologies because we give a Genre to Features or Sequences rather than Series hurts us in terms of representing the full breadth of potential examples. I would include, perhaps instead of Star Wars, "one-shot stories in such anthologies as Weird Science [or Mystery in Space]".
> 25. Anthropomorphic ...
> B. Example keywords include Disney and furry animals.
Don't we mean "funny animals" here? I've heard the terms "furries" — especially thanks to many years in CAPA-Alpha with Carl Gafford — and of course "funny animals" but "furry animals" is unfamiliar and seems redundant.
> 28. Military
> A. This genre consists of works featuring armed forces outside of
> combat, or related, situations.
I really think that not lumping this and War together like Western-Frontier is a mistake, particularly given our attempts to tighten the list and particularly when, grumble grumble, something that Supernatural fits so well has to be tagged with Fantasy or Horror-Suspense.
> 1. Political/Propaganda
> The things formerly categorized under this genre would be now be
> tagged with non-fiction, religious, or other tags.
There is no Genre of Religious. I took that sentence to refer to keywords at first, but Non-Fiction is a Genre and keywords are mentioned by name in the next sentence.
Unless I missed it there's nothing in here until discussion under the section on Current Genres Recommended for Elimination that explicitly preserves the notion of making more than one Genre selection, which in some cases is crucial. Perhaps it should be included with the opening statement about a drop-down menu.
I didn't realize that we'd made some of the decisions that we apparently did, but I can chalk that up to not always having the time or ability to pay attention to the extent that I would have liked. I'm still impressed that we did this, however, and our committee co-chairs, Jim in particular, deserve a great big unironic pat on the back.
>
Blam
Brian Saner Lamken
blamken.blogspot.com
"Ohhh! You're creating a terrible nightmare in my head!"
— Dream Girl, "The Secret Villain the World Never Knew"; Superboy #218 (DC, 1976)
Jim Van Dore
bobah...@comcast.net
Sent: Thursday, March 8, 2012 1:43:17 PM
Subject: Re: [gcd-genre] Final Report for final consideration
Tony Rose
tony
From: bobah...@comcast.net
To: gcd-...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, March 8, 2012 12:54:54 PM
Jim Van Dore
Tony Rose
tony
Jim Van Dore
James Ludwig
went away hating anyone else.
>>
Tony Rose
tony
From: "James Ludwig" <narfs...@gmail.com>
To: gcd-...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, March 8, 2012 1:40:27 PM
Subject: Re: [gcd-genre] Final Report for final consideration
James Ludwig
On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 2:41 PM, Tony Rose <tonyr...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Speak fer yerself. :)
>
>
Tony Rose
tony
said with a slight misting of the eyes
Subject: Re: [gcd-genre] Final Report for final consideration
James Ludwig
I guess that is why I get careless. Most here are well aware of each
others political leanings and accept how strongly we disagree but that
is just the way it is. We have grown to like each other.
Jim Van Dore
Dave Reeder
dave
Tony Rose
The problem will be in getting malicious compliers to understand what is expected of them.
tony
From: "Dave Reeder" <da...@cpidubai.com>
To: gcd-...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2012 9:58:55 AM
Subject: Re: [gcd-genre] Final Report for final consideration
Brian Saner Lamken
Jim Van Dore wrote:
I want to (belatedly, as usual) reiterate that my aim was not so much to demand that certain topics get addressed — or re-addressed… or redressed... And I'm certain that I *did* miss a discussion on occasion. It was just to pipe up on what I felt were important points in case, like you suggested, anyone else concurred on making one last go at this or that.
> whereas I was proud we had managed to reduce the number of official genres, he questioned whether that was part of our mandate, and I could find no evidence that it was.
No, I didn't take our mandate to explicitly include the reduction in size of [dun-dun-*dunnnn*] The Approved Genre List, although I'd expect that to be a by-product of us examining and tightening it up. And while the list of officially sanctioned Genres may not be any shorter now, if you consider that we went from (1) allowing write-ins as long as they were accompanied by at least one of the Approved Genres to (2) [a recommendation of] *only* allowing Approved Genres to be entered then we've certainly ended up with a shorter list. 34 is definitely < whatever the number of Approved Genres was before + the commonly used supplementary entires + theoretically anything else that an indexer would put in and an approver would not reject.
> On the question of sequence type and genre, there were several suggestions made by you, Mark, and someone else. None were seconded, so none were moved to discussion or voting.
I know that this is too late to do any good, and it's not really a complaint so much as a lament of likely misunderstanding / failure of realization on my part, but I'm compelled to mention that I didn't realize that certain things brought up by others that I thought were a good idea were more likely to have threads started on them by you if I chimed in to support them. In general I only reply to a comment that I support if I have something to add; I tend not to just ditto / "plus one" a comment unless I really feel strongly about it in the face of obvious opposition or if I know that some kind of informal poll is being taken.
> On the see alsos: All of the genres are listed under one of the first four.
I didn't realize what you meant by this for the longest time. Now I's got it, but I don't see the point, because I remain against the concept that if we're not breaking out certain Genres as Top-Level Genres (or whatever) the "other" Genres are nonetheless still subordinate to those first few Genres. The current definition of Adventure says "Realistic action and adventure stories that rely on the efforts of normal people to handle crises." And I continue to be of the mind that it should read along those lines — "realistic" and "normal people" — specifically contrasted with other Genres in which action or adventure play an explicit or implicit role per their definitions.
> On changing non-fiction to fact: That is a dead issue and I see no reason to open it or anything else on which we voted and came to a conclusion unless there is new information to discuss. I tried to address your concern in the discussion at the bottom. I will make it even clearer that there were objections: "Some on the committee objected that non-fiction is not a genre."
I appreciate it, and like I said above I'm not trying to relitigate it; it's just a big enough does-not-compute for me that I couldn't pass up the last chance to speak or forever hold my peace.
> From my side, I appreciate the acknowledgement, but to my mind I allowed this to go on much too long and we lost too many people along the way.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree there, too, at least on the larger issue of you doing a yeoman's job in seeing this through particularly *because* it took so long and had so many hiatuseses.
> I also empathize with your loss. I have been separated from my cat much too much the past 2 years and now what it means to miss a pet.
Thanks; I still have to remember far too many times a day that he's not around. His sister is enjoying more lap time, but as much as I love her too that's not exactly a consolation.
Blam
Brian Saner Lamken
blamken.blogspot.com
"Subatomic particles of local materials rearranged themselves into a coded pattern to reform you! Do you understand me?"
— Superman, "Mission to Earth!"; Action Comics #571 (DC, 1985)