Falkenherz: Where did you get the idea that someone
deliberately chose the term visual novel to obscure anything? Is this projection on your part? Are
you insecure about reading comics or playing visual novels? Are you insecure about others reading comics or playing visual novels?
hedwards: Because they are comic books and are commonly known as such. Apart from offering an opportunity to roll eyes sarcastically while stating that it is a graphic novel, not a comic book, there's little point in using a different term for something that has a commonly accepted term.
This has nothing to do with me, the cartoonists I've known weren't able to come up with any method by which one can distinguish between a "graphic novel" and a comic book. The closest thing I can find is that the former tends to be a single volume for the entire story arc and the latter isn't but that's a pretty ridiculous reason to create a term.
I thought we were talking about "visual novels", a term used for certain kinds of video games (that, admittedly, share a huge similarity with comics in their visual presentation)? I am not that much into comics (or graphic novels) to make an intelligent comment on whether there are differences to these terms in regards to the products they are used for. However, to my ear graphic novel sounds more classy than the term comic, so I would guess that some artists might choose this term to evoke a certain kind of expectation in their audience that their work is more classy than the average comic. Is that what you meant by insecurity? Might be true in some cases, but I guess I would be careful to use such a broad brush for any artist that uses the term graphic novel. And if both mean basically the same (as you claim), then why shouldn't people use both terms? I am not entirely sure what you are trying to get at here? Tell people which words they are allowed to use and which not? (Which reminds me of the people obsessing about the usage of the term roguelike.)
But that is just me spouting the thoughts that came to my mind on this thing right now.
Edit: Breja bet me to it :)