Though many purely European comic books exist, 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.