Comics and graphic novels

Das Einzelheft is the single issue, the thin stapled instalment that later turns up again inside der Sammelband, and its second half is the word an English reader is most likely to misjudge. English heft is weight: the heft of a book in the hand, a hefty volume, hefting a parcel to guess what it weighs. German das Heft points almost the other way. It is a slim booklet with a soft cover: das Schulheft is an exercise book, das Programmheft a theatre programme, and at a newsagent’s das neue Heft is simply the latest issue of a magazine. Nothing about the word suggests bulk, which is why a comic shop can sell Einzelhefte and Comicalben side by side and mean two formats by them rather than two weights. The heavy object is the album or the collected edition; the Heft is the light one.