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Ladies and gentlemen . . . the moment I’ve been waiting for.

Wait! Wait!  Background information first!

So for years I worked as a children’s librarian and I’d get girl after girl after girl coming up to my desk asking for funny books.  I credit some of this to Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  The boys and the girls loved that series and wanted more of the same.  Sometimes they wanted it in a notebook novel format, like Kinney’s book.  Sometimes they just wanted something hilarious, and they seriously didn’t care who wrote it.  So I’d grab books for them and then it slowly began to dawn on me.  Huh.  For all that I could find some pretty fantastic and hilarious books out there for kids, where were the funny story collections written by women?  Turns out, there weren’t any.

Until now.

I would like you to join me in applauding the following authors and author/illustrators . . . .

• Cece Bell
• Sophie Blackall
• Libba Bray
• Lisa Brown
• Adrianne Chalepah
• Alison DeCamp
• Carmen Agra Deedy
• Kelly DiPucchio
• Lisa Graff
• Shannon Hale
• Charise Mericle Harper
• Jenni Holm
• Akilah Hughes
• Amy Ignatow
• Christine Mari Inzer
• Lenore Look
• Meghan McCarthy
• Mitali Perkins
• Leila Sales
• Raina Telgemeier
• Deborah Underwood
• Ursula Vernon
• Rita Williams-Garcia
• Delaney Yeager
• and Mackenzie Yeager

Each one of these women has contributed to my new book Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. EVER.

Behold!  The cover by the aforementioned Charise Mericle Harper:

And here’s the full jacket in its entirety:

A portion of the proceeds of this book go to Write Girl, a Los Angeles-based creative writing and mentoring organization that matches girls with women writers who mentor them in creative writing.

When’s it out?  May 9th, 2017!  Feel free to pre-order it.

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Oh! And while I’m thinking of it, there’s this other really fun thing that just started that I have to let you know about.  As I may have mentioned before, my husband’s first book The Secrets of Story just came out recently and I could be prouder.  He’s already put up a couple great videos alongside it (the latest is here and is about those little moments of humanity that make you like a character).  But fun upon fun upon fun, he’s created a podcast with YA author and 90-Second Newbery Film Festival creator James Kennedy and it may well be my favorite thing of all time.  I love it when James and Matt get together because they agree on NOTHING!  And now they’ve a podcast together where they can extol the beauty of that nothing together.  It’s huge fun for me, and it ends with a little feature where they mention a story idea they had that they decided wouldn’t work and give it away (as it were) to the masses for use.  So if you like the process of writing or you just like banter, I’ve your new favorite podcast.  The Secrets of Storytelling podcast is available through iTunes.  Subscribe today!

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Jenni Holm is here today to tell us that currently, children's graphic novel/comics publishing is a veritable Wild Wild West, the processes of acquisition and production are different for all publishing houses, but the ones that ARE making kids comics are behind them whole hog, which is great to hear!

She recommends you read the Comics Making Bible, aka Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. (I'd add the New Testaments of Comics Making are Jessica Abel and Matt Madden's Drawing Words & Writing Pictures plus the follow up, Mastering Comics.)

She briefly tells us how comics were written, and shows us how the actual script pages compare: the old standard Stan Lee Method, the exhaustive/OCD Alan Moore method, and the classic, screenwriting style of script like a Joss Whedon would use. Jenni recommends using a screenplay format or her storyboard format as mentioned below, but probably NOT the Marvel Comic or Alan Moore format, which most traditional children's book editors might not be familiar with.

All do in some way separate out visually in the script the dialogue vs. action vs. narration. How do you use each part in your graphic novel script?

Dialogue: Same as prose, only now in speech bubbles!

Narration: More complicated, primarily used for scene transitions, major backgroun set-up, or increasingly internal monologue, occasionally even as a character, like the snarky narrator in BABYMOUSE.

Action: Stage directions/everything else that happens.

Jenni shares with us the various ways you rough out a comic, different types of storyboards, some of which are artist driven (sketches are fairly fleshed out and laid out and basic composition is done), some that are author driven.


HOW A BABYMOUSE GETS MADE:

Jenni and Matt's graphic novels always start with story first. Jenni and Matt come up with a log line, and then Jenni starts planning the story with this sort of storyboard:


Jenni already knows that the final published BABYMOUSE is going to be 96 pages, which equals about 56 pages of this storyboard.

After Jenni writes it all out, it goes to Matt, and then the editor, and when everybody loves it, it goes back to Matt for thumbnailing.

Those thumbnails get laid out page by page and are then sent to the art director who double checks it for clarity and printing guidelines.

After that it goes back to Matt to do the final art and color spotting!

TADA!

Jenni lists the children's publishers doing kid's comics today:

GRAPHIX (probably biggest commercial titles publisher via Scholastic)
First Second (all ages/arty)
Random House (younger/elementary school)
ABRAMS (Nathan Hale and Cece Bell, Wimpy Kid)
TOON BOOKS (via Candlewick, super young end of spectrum)
DC and MARVEL (may want to start YA)
BOOM STUDIOS (Lumberjanes)

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Jennifer L. Holm is a New York Times best-selling author and recipient of three Newbery Honors.

Lin introduces one of her favorite authors, who excels with both novels and graphic novels (written with her brother Mathew).

When Jenni's ballerina dreams fell apart at a very young age, she decided she wanted to be writer.

Much of her writing has been inspired by her own family.

Jenni's dad was her inspiration for OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA after finding her great aunt's diary in her grandmother's attic.

But Jenni tells us, when you write a book about your dad's family, you did it wrong. You should have written one about your mom's first.

PENNY FROM HEAVEN was inspired by her mom's family.


Jenni's next book TURTLE IN PARADISE came out of writing PENNY FROM HEAVEN and was inspired by her son.


SUNNY SIDE UP was inspired by her gramps, who is "still alive and kicking at 101."

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Dan Santat, a children’s books author and illustrator, has completed the #IceBucketChallenge. The video embedded above features Santat performing the activity in support of the ALS Association.

Before dousing himself with the ice water, Santat requested two colleagues, Jarrett J. Krosoczka and Jenni Holm, and the Sesame Street character Elmo follow in his footsteps. Which writers would you nominate to pick up this challenge? (via Dan Santat’s Facebook page)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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(Except for reading them.)

Had so much fun in Geek & Sundry’s #parent Hangout with authors Jenni Holm and Chris Barton, hosted by Kristen Rutherford. We got to spend an hour gabbing about books we’ve enjoyed sharing with our own kids, how we find new books, what books helped catapult our kids to independent reading, and more.

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