The NYT is using that term because most Americans have never even heard the more fitting English-language term "graphic novels", and wouldn't know what it meant if the NYT used it.
(Though, also, it's clickbait. They want to shock people into reading the article by asking an implicit question with an evocative contrast: highlighting the discrepancy of mood between a term usually used to refer to high-brow concepts — "Culture" — and a term usually applied to low-brow media — "Comic Books". The body of the article, though investigating a similar tension, doesn't carry that same derogatory editorial thrust.)
Comments
The NYT is using that term because most Americans have never even heard the more fitting English-language term "graphic novels", and wouldn't know what it meant if the NYT used it.
(Though, also, it's clickbait. They want to shock people into reading the article by asking an implicit question with an evocative contrast: highlighting the discrepancy of mood between a term usually used to refer to high-brow concepts — "Culture" — and a term usually applied to low-brow media — "Comic Books". The body of the article, though investigating a similar tension, doesn't carry that same derogatory editorial thrust.)
For sure, but they're not all novels. There's lots of factual graphic books and lots of conceptual things that can be learned from those books.
It's also notable that the NYT did not mention any of the differences between US and French or Belgian "comics."