By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/21/2015
Here's an exclusive first look at the trailer for Craig Thompson's Space Dumplins, his long awaited first graphic novel for kids. It goes on sale next week.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/29/2015
When Scholastic launched its Graphix imprint 10 years ago, graphic novels were a novelty, if you can pardon the expression, in the mainstream publishing world. And kids comics were an unknown quantity—comics shops didn’t want them and bookstores didn’t know what to do with them. In the first wave, there were many miscues and misunderstandings at many houses along the way. But Graphix wasn’t the one making them. Granted, starting out a line with Jeff Smith’s Bone is about as much a sure thing as possible—6.9 million copies in print and counting. But picking Raina Telgemeier to do a Babysitter’s Club relaunch and eventually Smile, and Kazu Kibuishi to publish his Amulet series weren’t as sure—but they sure paid off. Along the way Graphix has picked up multiple Eisner Award wins and nominations, a Stonewall Book Award, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor, an Edgar Allan Poe nomination, and 14 New York Times bestsellers. They’ve published many more top cartoonists such as Doug TenNapel, Greg Ruth, Mike Maihack and Jimmy Gownley. And there’s more to come.
To celebrate their tenth anniversary—Bone: Out From Boneville was published in 20o5—Scholastic has some cool stuff on tap. To kick things off they’re revealing two covers for the first time:
Craig Thompson’s Space Dumplins comes out in August. It’s the first kids book by the acclaimed author of Blankets and Habibi, and his first one in full-color, with Dave Stewart adding hues.
And the sister/brother duo of Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm, best selling authors of Babymouse and Squish have a new one as well: Sunny Side Up (August 25, 2015; ages 8-12), which is a semi-autobiographical story, their first.
In addition, 12 Graphix artists have created new art that will be offered as prints throughout the year at events and online. The line-up: James Burks, Nathan Fox, Jimmy Gownley, Matthew Holm, Kazu Kibuishi, Mike Maihack, Dave Roman, Greg Ruth, Jeff Smith, Raina Telgemeier, Doug TenNapel, and Craig Thompson. Events include ALA Midwinter (Chicago, IL), Emerald City Comic Con (Seattle, WA), Texas Library Association (Austin, TX), BookExpo (New York City, NY), ALA Annual (San Francisco, CA), Comic-Con International (San Diego, California), Long Beach Comic Expo (Long Beach, CA), Salt Lake Comic Con (Salt Lake City, UT), and New York Comic Con (New York City, NY).
Finally, on February 24, Graphic will publish BONE #1: Out from Boneville, Tribute Edition, with a new illustrated poem from Jeff Smith and new tribute art from sixteen top artists.
Along with the cover reveal, Graphic has announced some future projects:
It’s definitely worth giving Graphix and its founder, David Saylor, a tip of the cap. 10 years ago it was a gamble. Today it’s an institution.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/29/2015
When Scholastic launched its Graphix imprint 10 years ago, graphic novels were a novelty, if you can pardon the expression, in the mainstream publishing world. And kids comics were an unknown quantity—comics shops didn’t want them and bookstores didn’t know what to do with them. In the first wave, there were many miscues and misunderstandings at many houses along the way. But Graphix wasn’t the one making them. Granted, starting out a line with Jeff Smith’s Bone is about as much a sure thing as possible—6.9 million copies in print and counting. But picking Raina Telgemeier to do a Babysitter’s Club relaunch and eventually Smile, and Kazu Kibuishi to publish his Amulet series weren’t as sure—but they sure paid off. Along the way Graphix has picked up multiple Eisner Award wins and nominations, a Stonewall Book Award, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor, an Edgar Allan Poe nomination, and 14 New York Times bestsellers. They’ve published many more top cartoonists such as Doug TenNapel, Greg Ruth, Mike Maihack and Jimmy Gownley. And there’s more to come.
To celebrate their tenth anniversary—Bone: Out From Boneville was published in 20o5—Scholastic has some cool stuff on tap. To kick things off they’re revealing two covers for the first time:
Craig Thompson’s Space Dumplins comes out in August. It’s the first kids book by the acclaimed author of Blankets and Habibi, and his first one in full-color, with Dave Stewart adding hues.
And the sister/brother duo of Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm, best selling authors of Babymouse and Squish have a new one as well: Sunny Side Up (August 25, 2015; ages 8-12), which is a semi-autobiographical story, their first.
In addition, 12 Graphix artists have created new art that will be offered as prints throughout the year at events and online. The line-up: James Burks, Nathan Fox, Jimmy Gownley, Matthew Holm, Kazu Kibuishi, Mike Maihack, Dave Roman, Greg Ruth, Jeff Smith, Raina Telgemeier, Doug TenNapel, and Craig Thompson. Events include ALA Midwinter (Chicago, IL), Emerald City Comic Con (Seattle, WA), Texas Library Association (Austin, TX), BookExpo (New York City, NY), ALA Annual (San Francisco, CA), Comic-Con International (San Diego, California), Long Beach Comic Expo (Long Beach, CA), Salt Lake Comic Con (Salt Lake City, UT), and New York Comic Con (New York City, NY).
Finally, on February 24, Graphic will publish BONE #1: Out from Boneville, Tribute Edition, with a new illustrated poem from Jeff Smith and new tribute art from sixteen top artists.
Along with the cover reveal, Graphic has announced some future projects:
It’s definitely worth giving Graphix and its founder, David Saylor, a tip of the cap. 10 years ago it was a gamble. Today it’s an institution.
By: Powell's Staff,
on 9/11/2013
In an age when everyone and their niece has written a tell-all book, when even fictional characters like Ron Burgundy are penning the stories of their lives, how does a memoir stand out among its peers? What qualities make it like nothing we've seen before? Sometimes truly extraordinary experiences can launch a memoir into uncharted [...]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/6/2013
Tweet As you may recall, Craig Thompson’s followup to the long brewing Habibi will be a kids comic, called Space Dumplins, which will be published by Scholastic, arrival date unknown. (What was it we were just saying about space comics?) On his blog, Thompson just announced that Dave Stewart will be doing the coloring: The [...]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/16/2012
As you may know, the metro Manila area has been hit by severe flooding of late, due to monsoon season, and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced as a result. Local bookstore Fullybooked is organizing a fundraiser for the flood victims.
We’re soliciting donations from international comic book writers and artists to give what they can (signed books, original artwork, etc.). We’re planning on holding either a local auction or on ebay for these items, and the proceeds will all go to those in need. A great deal of people have already pledged their support.
As all of you know, I never sell original artwork, so this a rare exception that any piece is available. 14′x17″ India ink on Bristol board. If I have a chance, I’ll personalize a note on the back to the donor. Please, look into bidding to help raise funds for this crucial cause. Thanks!
The Philippines, as we have often noted here, have a unique comics background, and have produced some amazing cartooning talent over the years, so this comics-based grassroots support is very appropriate. Anyone interested in contributing should contact Fullybooked at [email protected] with the subject “AUCTION”.
By: Betsy Bird,
on 10/9/2011
Nursery rhymes. What’s up with that? (I feel like a stand up comedian when I put it that way). They’re ubiquitous but nonsensical. Culturally relevant but often of unknown origins. Children’s literary scholar Leonard Marcus ponders the amazing shelf life of nursery rhymes himself and comes up with some answers. Why is it that they last as long as they do in the public consciousness? Marcus speculates that “the old-chestnut rhymes that beguile in part by sounding so emphatically clear about themselves while in fact leaving almost everything to our imagination” leave themselves open to interpretation. And who better to do a little interpreting than cartoonists? Including as many variegated styles as could be conceivably collected in a single 128-page book, editor Chris Duffy plucks from the cream of the children’s graphic novel crop (and beyond!) to create a collection so packed with detail and delight that you’ll find yourself flipping to the beginning to read it all over again after you’re done. Mind you, I wouldn’t go handing this to a three-year-old any time soon, but for a certain kind of child, this crazy little concoction is going to just the right bit of weirdness they require.
Fifty artists are handed a nursery rhyme apiece. The goal? Illustrate said poem. Give it a bit of flair. Put in a plot if you have to. So it is that a breed of all new comics, those of the nursery ilk, fill this book. Here at last you can see David Macaulay bring his architectural genius to “London Bridge is Falling Down” or Roz Chast give “There Was a Crooked Man” a positive spin. Leonard Marcus offers an introduction giving credence to this all new coming together of text and image while in the back of the book editor Chris Duffy discusses the rhymes’ history and meaning. And as he says in the end, “We’re just letting history take its course.”
In the interest of public scrutiny, the complete list of artists on this book consists of Nick Abadzis, Andrew Arnold, Kate Beaton, Vera Brosgol, Nick Bruel, Scott Campbell, Lilli Carre, Roz Chast, JP Coovert, Jordan Crane, Rebecca Dart, Eleanor Davis, Vanessa Davis, Theo Ellsworth, Matt Forsythe, Jules Feiffer, Bob Flynn, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Ben Hatke, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Lucy Knisley, David Macaulay, Mark Martin, Patrick McDonnell, Mike Mignola, Tony Millionaire, Tao Nyeu, George O’Connor, Mo Oh, Eric Orchard, Laura Park, Cyril Pedrosa, Lark Pien, Aaron Renier, Dave Roman, Marc Rosenthal, Stan Sakai, Richard Sala, Mark Siegel, James Sturm, Raina Telgemeier, Craig Thompson, Richard Thompson, Sara Varon, Jen Wang, Drew Weing, Gahan Wilson, Gene Luen Yang, and Stephanie Yue (whew!). And as with any collection, some of the inclusions are going to be stronger than others. Generally speaking if fifty people do something, some of them are going to have a better grasp on the process than others. That said, only a few of these versions didn’t do it for me. At worst the versions were mediocre. At best they went in a new direction with their mat
By: Neil Gaiman,
on 10/9/2011
I love short stories. I grew up on them, and the stories that had an effect on Add a Comment
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/27/2011
Craig Thompson’s fever-dream of a love story/cultural epic HABIBI is one of the biggest, densest graphic novels of the year…or the decade, probably. And it’s getting a lot of attention. So let’s survey the map, shall we?
§ Oregon Live has a whole section, including the above video of Thompson’s working habits.
When Thompson starts working in the morning, he keeps the blinds drawn while penciling or drawing because he wants to keep the outside world away and craves the “cavern-like quality” he remembers from his dingier apartments. In the afternoon, when he’s inking a page, he opens the blinds and lets the “natural cloudy light” pour in. His pace is careful and deliberate: One page a day was a good rate on “Blankets”; a single page on “Habibi” often took three days. “Here’s some sketches of the characters as they presented themselves,” Thompson says, pulling out of a series of neatly dated and labeled sketchbooks that trace the seven-year evolution of “Habibi.” The two main characters, a brave girl named Dodola and Zam, a boy she looks after through a long string of adventures, came to Thompson in a dreamlike state, “fairly full formed as child slaves. Then I started researching child slavery and that started to inform the world that I made up around them.”
PW Comics World has a 9-page preview.
Reviews! HABIBI is not a political novel about Islam, but it is about Islamic culture, even if the symbolism is heavily taken from Orientalism. So here’s what one actual Muslim thought of the book, namely writer G. Willow Wilson:
Despite the fact that it contains a slew of clichés with which the Musli
6 Comments on People are talking about Habibi, last added: 9/29/2011Display Comments Add a Comment
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/17/2011
BY JEN VAUGHN – “Eat your meat.” Words accidentally lifted from the comic Blutch that made their way into a similar dinner scene of Craig Thompson’s seminal graphic novel, Blankets. This week marks the beginning of Thompson’s two month Habibi tour. His new graphic novel in forty words or less is the story of love (many kinds) by two orphans in an Islamic culture touched by the industrial part of the world; it is epic, sprawling and will take you more than one night and a pizza to finish. Thompson started his tour by signing one-hundred copies sold by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for $100 at the annual SPX this last weekend. Alex Cox of CBLDF happily stated that Thompson, Roz Chast, Sara Varon and an auction raised $12,500 for the organization. And since I’m currently in the midst of the 672 pages of Habibi, terrified of a broken nose (remember falling asleep reading Harry Potter in bed?), I can tell you Habibi is all meat.
Thompson is the first one to admit that his book after Carnet de Voyage took a long time, even though I don’t remember anyone asking. Thompson never meant Blankets to be epic but it turns out both Blankets and Habibi are such. Although if Blankets made so many people love comics and graphic novels, what will Habibi do? What he thought would be a two-hundred page book completed in two years took about seven years total but Pantheon Books knew it was worth the wait. Thompson discussed that fantasy epics are “about the sweeping backgrounds” and the “characters become small” against them. Working within that frame and context made Habibi a challenge given that part of the said background is the storytelling done by the main female character, Dodola. But page by page, Thompson artfully balances black and white with finite Arabic calligraphy and wide array of characters that would have made Eisner do a little jig.
Thompson speaking at The Center for Cartoon Studies in September 2011
When perplexed by how to end Habibi, as Thompson is with each story he starts, he threw down all his notes and took time out for his Carnet de Voyage tour. Time away and working with a perfect nine-square Qur’an style sudoku ‘River Map’ made Thompson realize he could frame each of the nine chapters with a prophet and a letter in mind. His favorite parts of the book ended up being the page spreads with something unfortunate happening to a character juxtaposed with a story of the prophet. It mirrored Thompson’s adolescence, when his reading list was made up of only the profound (sacred texts) and the profane (trashy comics).
The play of sacred words, numbers, l
“I desperately require BLANK JOURNALS to continue my dream research.” If I were about to set off on an adventure with Violet, I would certainly need more than a few blank journals.
Thanks for sharing the book trailer! I’d love to step right into their world along with Violet and her group of lovable friends. Looking forward to its release from Scholastic.
[…] Fonte: The Beat […]