There is the context of how a work was originally composed vs. the context of how it is regularly consumed. Time passes, and the number of people who have encou

There is the context of how a work was originally composed vs. the context of how it is regularly consumed. Time passes, and the number of people who have encountered Great Expectations or Anna Karenina in a serialized format is totally outstripped by the number of people who read them as "novels." The fact that both of those works were originally serialized becomes a trivia fact. Maybe this is a bad thing, and you lose something by erasing their origins, like trying to watch a network sitcom without understanding what a commercial break is. Or maybe it's not a huge deal, and those books have transcended the publishing trends of their day. I don't know. What I do know is that comics fans are especially fixated on the distinction and it has little to do with those kinds of technicalities. It's about prestige.