Difference between graphic novels and comic books?

It's sort of like how there are short stories, novellas, and novels with regular written books. Comic books are closer to short stories in a way, even though they are usually a single part of a longer story (I guess you could sort of think of it like a chapter in a book) and then a graphic novel is where the initial release of the "comic" is significantly longer -- closer to a novella or novel length book. And I mean it's first publication not when they release comic books in a compilation, as I believe those are still referred to as comic books, but I could be wrong on that part.

So basically:

Comic book = a short installment of a larger story released at regular intervals

Graphic novel = an entire story (or at least significantly larger portion of a story, if it's released in a series) bound and published in a single release

Graphic Novel Vs Comic

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RE:

Difference between graphic novels and comic books?

The reason I ask this question is that I've been recently collecting comic books and there's a comic book called Batman The Man Who Laughs and the comic is I believe 44 pages long, but the graphic novel is 144 pages long. Can any one help me out on this one I'll add additional info if...

A graphic novel is just longer, keep in mind that there is another story incluuded with it to bump up the page count, a batman/alan scott team up, atleast for the hardcover.

If your not familiar, Alan Scott is the golden age green lantern.

Jade has it pretty much spot on, the only thing I would add is that you often get 'extras' in the back of a graphic novel like sketches/layouts/scripts and notes from the writer/artists.

Oh and in graphic novels you don't get all the crappy adverts that fill a comic!