European comics are comics produced in
Europe. The
comic album is a very common printed medium. The typical
album is printed in large format, generally with high quality paper and colouring, roughly
A4-sized, approx. 21x30 centimetres (8.4x11.6 in), has around 40-60 pages, but examples with more than 100 pages are common. While sometimes referred to as
graphic novels, this term is rarely used in Europe, and is not always applicable as albums often consist of separate short stories, placing them somewhere halfway between a comic book and a graphic novel. The European comic genres vary from the humorous adventure vein, such as
The Adventures of Tintin and
Asterix, to more adult subjects like
Tex Willer and
Thorgal.