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We told you a while ago about Kate Beaton’s new book King Baby. She’s updated her site with the pub date, which is this September. As with her bestseller The Princess and the Pony, King Baby will be published by Scholastic. Beaton also updated her readers on a few other projects, including, a secret animated […]

Here's the third part of our annual creator survey with a varied look from people in all aspects of the business from creators to publishers to journalists. As always, buried among the answers you will find a bunch of news items for the sharp eyed and also some preview art. In case you haven't noticed, our panel certainly did: 2015 was the year diversity broke around the comics industry, although much, much, much more needs to be done. Read on to see what our our respondents thought about the year past and what they have coming for 2016.

It's becoming a tradition like plum pudding and A Christmas Story: Kate Beaton's annual comics about her family from her trip home for Christmas. I'm not sure how they're tagged but if you click around her Tumblr you'll see them all. Kate's family is no more odd or endearing than anyone's and that what's make these so universal. IF these don't give you that fuzzy holiday feeling, nothing will.

The cover has been unveiled for Kate Beaton’s forthcoming book, King Baby. We’ve embedded the full image for the jacket design above—what do you think?

According to Comics Beat, “Beaton’s autocratic baby has been a feature of her tumblr for a while, and any resemblances to Donald Trump are purely a coincidence.” Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint at Scholastic, has scheduled the release date for Sept. 13, 2016.

That Kate Beaton book we told you about has been officially announced. And yes, it’s called King Baby, and here’s the cover, courtesy of Publishers Weekly. The book will be out on Sept 13, 2016 from Scholastic’s Arthur A. Levine Books. 
Beaton’s autocratic baby has been a feature of her tumblr for a while, and […]

Following the success of The Princess and the Pony , Kate Beaton has a follow up children's book coming from Scholastic in 2016, at least as indicated by this tweet.

Enter to win a copy of The Princess and the Pony, Kate Beaton! Giveaway begins July 13, 2015, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends June 12, 2015, at 11:59 P.M. PST.

Well, I’m just about as pleased as I can be.  For years I’ve adored and promoted and generally yammered endlessly about webcomic artist Kate Beaton and her Hark, A Vagrant strips.  Whether it was her Nancy Drew covers or her psychedelic take on The Secret Garden (to say nothing of her history strips) she’s one of my heroes.  This year, she’s gone a step further and created her very first picture book.  Called The Princess and the Pony, it’s edited by Cheryl Klein and published by Scholastic.  As you can see from the cover here, the book contains a fat little pony character that Beaton created for the Hark, A Vagrant strip years ago.  On June 30th it’ll hit shelves everywhere.  Before that happens, though, I was given the chance to chat a bit with Ms. Beaton about her work.

Betsy Bird: Let’s talk about the impetus for the character of Princess Pinecone here. I get a bit of an Adventure Time vibe off of her, but that might just be because kickass princesses are in the air these days. From whence did she spring?

Kate Beaton: There are a lot of kickass princesses on Adventure Time! Funny you should mention it, because one time years ago, the Pony itself was featured on an episode. Only it was purple. And turned out to be the Ice King in a costume. But they asked my permission, which was cool! Of course I said yes!

Princess Pinecone came to mind almost immediately for me. I’m one of four girls, our house growing up was full of Girl Stuff and princesses are a part of that. I loved princesses myself, I drew them all the time. I don’t think anyone had to tell me to like them, they were my jam. But kids do get lobbed a crazy amount of princess stuff these days, and some of it is a little too much, so if I was going to make a story about one, who she was and what she wanted would be pretty important. Pinecone deliberately sort of looks the princess part with the blonde hair and ribbons, but she’s also small and tough and she’s named for a bristly little plant thing. And really she is only a princess because I tell you she is, it’s not like her status carries the story, because no one else cares that she is a Princess. What’s important is her goals and how she wants to work to achieve them, and her family that supports her.

BB: With your comic background you haven’t had much need to dive into the wide and wonderful world of watercolors before. How was the switchover?

KB: I’m super flattered that you think it is watercolor but it’s digital colors. And that was new to me for sure. I chose digital because it was my first picture book and I was ready to make 2000 mistakes that would need to be fixed. And that happened so god bless photoshop! I picked a color palette and tried my best to make things look ok, but I’m still new to the whole thing. Go to art school, kids.

BB: If you had to choose your top historical real world princesses, which ones would you select?

Rani Lakshmibai is a good one, so is Boudicca, if you are talking warrior types! Or Tamar of Georgia, and of course Eleanor of Acquitaine and Elizabeth I. Or Anna Nzinga. There are a lot you know!

BB: Any plans for future picture book princessing?

KB: I do enjoy this world, so yes! I hope there will be more adventures. Outside of this book, I have sketched out a bigger family and world, so you never know. But first hopefully people like this story.

BB: Awesome.

So many thanks indeed to Ms. Beaton for her patient responses.  And no discussion of princess would be complete without a nod to this.

Millennial comics superstars Kate Beaton, Luke Pearson and Noelle Stevenson have just been announced as the first guests at this year’s SPX which will spotlight creators who have only worked in the 21st Century. So get ready to write either your 6000-word think piece or your series of tweets on what this all means.

This year’s SPX will be held September 19-20, with over 650 creators, 280 exhibitor tables, 22 programming slots and countless rollaway beds. IT’s the annual Camp Comics on the schedule and this sounds like a real watershed year.

Her humorous, quirky takes on history, literature and famous people propelled Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant! series of webcomics into a New York Times bestseller, as well as winning both the Harvey and Ignatz Awards. SPX 2015 will see the debut of Ms. Beaton’s latest compendium of comics, Step Aside Pops! A Hark! A Vagrant Collection  for Drawn and Quarterly. She also just published her very first children’s book,  The Princess and The Pony from Scholastic Books.
 
Luke Pearson‘s Hildafolk series started as a single issue comic that expanded into three volumes of Scandinavian inspired, critically acclaimed children’s books for the artistically daring publisher Nobrow. Mr. Pearson’s notoriety with the Hilda series and his other comics have led him to storyboard episodes of Adventure Time, as well as illustration assignments for such prestigious outlets as The New York Times, The New Yorker and the New Republic.
 
Noelle Stevenson’s hit webcomic Nimona  has just been nominated for a 2015 Eisner Award for Best Digital/Web Comic, on top of having the first Nimona graphic novel released last month by Harpercollins. Ms. Stevenson was one of the primary writers of the hit series Lumberjanes from Boom! Studios, which has just been optioned for a movie. She is now writing for such Marvel titles as Thor and Runaways, as well for the Disney series Wander Over Yonder. SPX is honored to host Ms. Stevenson as guest for the first time.

 
Small Press Expo (SPX) is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. SPX is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that brings together more than 650 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, and distributors each year. Graphic novels, mini comics, and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. The expo includes a series of panel discussions and interviews with this year’s guests.
 
The Ignatz Award is a festival prize held every year at SPX recognizing outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning, with the winners chosen by attendees at the show.

As in previous years, profits from the SPX will go to support the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program, which funds graphic novel purchases for public and academic libraries, as well as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), which protects the First Amendment rights of comic book readers and professionals. For more information on the CBLDF, visit their website at http://www.cbldf.org. For more information on the Small Press Expo, please visit http://www.spxpo.com.
 

Although most of these books have been announced, here’s all of Drawn & Quarterly’s fall schedule in all it’s glory. You can read the complete catalog here — commentary below is my own.

STEP ASIDE, POPS: A HARK! A VAGRANT COLLECTION

Kate Beaton

9781770462083 6c2d3

In stores September 15, 2015! $19.95 / 5.5″ x 8.75″ / 160 pages / b+w / hardcover / 9781770462083

Surely one of the biggest books of the fall —collecting Beaton’s strips over the last four years—a hilarious mosaic o Canadian history, strong female protagonists and people who take themselves a leeeeeetle too seriously—perfect for gifting!

KILLING AND DYING

Adrian Tomine

9781770462090 fbf67-1

In stores October 6, 2015! $22.95 / 6.25″ x 9.25″ / 128 pages / full color / hardcover / 9781770462090

Collecting the last few OPtic Nerve’s — Tomine’s cartooning has never been more insightful.

SHIGERU MIZUKI’S HITLER

Shigeru Mizuki, translated by Zack Davisson

In stores November 2015! $24.95 / 6.5″ x 8.75″ / 296 pages / b+w / paperback / 9781770462106

HIstorian/cartoonist Mizuki is known for SHOWA! his history of wartime and post-war Japan. I’m not familiar with this work but this should be “compelling” to coin a phrase.

PUKE FORCE

Brian Chippendale

In stores October 2015! $22.95 / 10.875″ x 8.025″ / 120 pages / b+w / hardcover / 9781770462199

D&Q’s first book by Fort Thunder ally Chippendale—these strips were originally serialized on the PictureBox website, I believe. Here’s the catalog blurb:

A bomb explodes in a coffee shop: the incident is played out over and over again from the perspective of each table in the shop, revisiting moments from ten and twenty years before. We see the inevitable as the characters bicker or celebrate, unaware of what awaits them. Throughout this dystopic graphic novel, Chippendale uses humor and a frantic drawing style to show how the insidious nature of corporate greed and the commodification of everything have warped society into a killing machine. Sardonic and self-aware, Puke Force asks all the right questions, providing a startling and on-point take on contemporary social issues. Chippendale’s artwork makes each panel a masterpiece of thrumming linework and lo-fi magic, as his storytelling wends and winds its way to a fascinating conclusion.

 

RED COLORED ELEGY

Seiichi Hayashi, translated by Taro Nettleton

9781770462120 3ac17-1

In stores August 2015! $19.95 / 6.875″ x 8.25″ / 240 pages / b+w / paperback / 9781770462120

New paperback edition of a manga that reads like the best literary fiction.

THE NATIVE TREES OF CANADA: A POSTCARD SET

Leanne Shapton

9781770462137 bff04

In stores August 2015! $14.95 / 4″ x 5.75″ / 30 postcards / full color / 9781770462137

Postcard set for the horticulturally minded.

PIPPI LONGSTOCKING: THE STRONGEST IN THE WORLD!

Astrid Lindgren & Ingrid Vang Nyman

translated by Tiina Nunnally

In stores October 2015! $22.95 / 7.5″ x 9.5″ / 160 pages / full color / paperback / 9781770462151

Is there a better role model for anyone than Pippi?

THE OWNER’S MANUAL TO TERRIBLE PARENTING

Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher

TERRIBLE.cover

In stores August 2015! $12.95 / 5″ x 7″ / 204 pages / b+w / paperback / 9781770462144

The third book in Delisle’s witty series of short cartoons on crappy parenting.

MOOMINMAMMA’S MAID

Tove Jansson

In stores November 2015! $9.95 / 8.5″ x 6″ / 64 pages / full color / flexicover / 9781770462168

This small, back-pack sized Moomin reprint books are perfect for the kids in your life.

An autobiographical comic about her time working at the Fort McMurray logging camp. :

Comics creators Kate Beaton has signed a deal with Drawn + Quarterly.

A release date for Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection has been scheduled for September 2015. Editor Tom Devlin negotiated the deal with Seth Fishman, a literary agent at the Gernert Company, and acquired North American English rights.

Devlin had this statement in the press release: “Kate’s wit is sharper than ever in Step Aside, Pops. She’s found the perfect way to explore her love of history, while effortlessly deflating the pompous, self-righteous figures of authority we were taught to respect in school. Her restlessness has made her drawings even funnier.”

The long awaited second collection of Kate Beaton’s madly popular Hark! A Vagrant comic is finally on its way, and it’s called Step Aside, Pops, a phrase we’ll all be saying a lot come September. Tom Devlin acquired the book for Drawn & Quarterly.

“Kate’s wit is sharper than ever in Step Aside, Pops,” said Devlin in a statement. “She’s found the perfect way to explore her love of history, while effortlessly deflating the pompous, self-righteous figures of authority we were taught to respect in school. Her restlessness has made her drawings even funnier.”

2011’s Hark! A Vagrant spent five months on theNew York Times graphic bestseller list, and is one of D&Q’s all time best-sellers. It won the Publishers’s Weekly Critics poll and propelled Beaton to the Beat’s Comics Industry Person of the Year.

In case you’re not familiar with Beaton’s comics, they are impeccably researched and slyly drawn, with a keen eye for the human foibles of blow-hard, the fretting parent, the bicycle riding vixen, and more.

Beaton has a brief interview in the LA Times:

HC: How much historical research goes into a comic? Are your comics based on things you’re reading anyway, or do you go in search of information for specific cartoons?

KB: A little of both here. I’m always reading, I’m always sort of trying to pull in ideas and information and hoping that there is a comic in there somewhere. But once you pick a subject and say “I’m going to do this one,” if it’s a literary parody or a historical figure, then yeah there is a lot of research in it. I want to make sure all my ducks are in a row, and I feel like people would know if I hadn’t bothered to look at the thing from all angles before commenting on it. There is always an essay that will make you think more, an angle that will surprise you, a whole closet of things you never read before. History and literature live many lives after the fact, years of opinions and interpretation.

Also, in case you’re in the mood for Kate Beaton merch there’s a ton of it here:

Every year cartoonist Kate Beaton returns to her parents house in the maritimes for the holidays, and the series of hilarious and touching comics that result are getting to be a holiday tradition, as the intersection of parental concern and parental eccentricities combine to form HUMOR. IT’s an experience that many of us are going through right now, and Beaton’s gentle, loving humor—while rooted firmly in her own family’s character—can also stand in for the universal experience.

She’s been posting her comics on twitter, but they’re also up on Tumblr, where they are easier to find. And should anyone be searching in the far flung future for them, here’s the direct link for the one shown above.

Kate Beaton’s DUCKS, an autobiographical comic about her time working at Fort McMurrayruns five parts and here are links. Fort McMurray is part of ming operation around the Athabasca oil sands in northern Alberta.

Warning: it’s the opposite of funny.

Before she was a world-famous cartoonist, Kate Beaton studied history and worked at a oil mine in remote Fort McMurry Canada. Once in a while she does a comic about her experiences there. Here’s one.

RT: I'm starting to sketch out another Fort McMurray story, this one is called Ducks, and here is the first bit. http://t.co/065pH5mCtT

— Kate Beaton (@beatonna) March 20, 2014

I have a sister.  Did you know that?  Tis true.  She’s not a librarian and her interest in children’s literature pretty much begins and ends with me, which is probably why she hasn’t come up before.  One thing she is?  Crafty.  Crafty as all get out.  And the kicker is that she’s just started this new blog called The How To, How Hard, and How Much to Your Creative Products.  Here’s how she describes it:

What if there was a blog out there that took Pinterest ideas and showed people how to do it, how much time it took, how much money was spent, and had a level of expertise (1-5). Maybe even sell the final product. Is this something people would read? Has it already been done? How could I rope guys into doing it (other than if it involved mustaches and bacon)? I’ve never blogged before but I feel like it might be helpful, especially since the holiday season is quickly approaching. People could even send me recommendations and I could do those as well.

And make it she has.  Amongst other things she has a wide range of Halloween ideas including spider cookies, 5 minute ideas, and my personal favorite, the cleaver cupcakes.  In fact, if you could just repin those cupcakes onto your Pinterest boards she’d be mighty grateful (there’s a contest she’s entering them into).  But of special interest to the blog (aside from outright nepotism) was her recent posting on literary jewelry where she turned a book of mine into a bracelet.  Nicely done, l’il sis.

• I attended the Society of Illustrators event the other day (did you know the place is free on Tuesdays?!) and the New York Times Best Illustrated results are on the cusp of an announcement soon.  Both lists are chosen by artists as well as librarian types, and so one could consider them the form with which artists are allowed to voice their opinions about the best of the year (just as the National Book Awards are how authors talk about writing).  Still, there are those that have disliked the Caldecott from the outset because it is decided not by artists but librarians.  Robin Smith recently dug up a 1999 interview with Barry Moser voicing just such a concern.  A hot little discussion then emerged in the Horn Book comments.  Go!  See!

• Brian Biggs + Jon Scieszka + 6 way auction = interesting.

• I think a fair number of us have seen Business Insider’s Most Famous Book Set in Every State map by this point, but I’d just like to mention that what pleases me the most about it is the fact that they included children’s books as well as adult.  Six children’s and one YA novel by my count.

• Let’s Talk About Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants, and Misogyny.  So says author Lynn Messina.  Interesting title, no?

• And since we’re on an interesting title kick, let’s throw out another one.  True or False? Multicultural Books Don’t Sell.  We’ve all heard that argument before.  Now an actual honest-to-god bookseller tackles the question.  You may normally know Elizabeth Bluemle from the ShelfTalker blog at PW, but here she’s guest talking at Lee & Low.  Cleverly, she specifies whether or not we are talking about how they don’t sell to kids or how they don’t sell to adults.  Without giving anything away, let me just say that her experiences mirror my own in the library.

In other press release news, I am shocked and appalled that I wasn’t aware of this until now.  I mean, I knew that Kate Beaton, the genius behind Hark, A Vagrant, was working on children’s books.  What I did not know was how close to fruition my dream of shelving her in my children’s sections truly was.  The Wired blog Underwire, of all places, was the one with the scoop when they interviewed Ms. Beaton.  She discusses the book, which contains her most famous creation (the fat pony) and a princess.  Says she about princesses in general, “. . . for little girls historically [princesses] are the only people like them who had any power at all. It’s not just oh, princes and dresses. It’s also, here’s a person with agency. Is she just someone who wants a pretty dress and prince? Or is she a warrior living in a battle kingdom? I think it just depends on how you depict what a princess is.”  I think we know the direction Ms. Beaton will go in.  And I waaaant it.  Thanks to Seth Fishman for the link.

• As slogans go, this might be one of my favorites: “Kill time. Make history”.  How do you mean?  Well, NYPL is looking for a few good bored folks. Say they, “The New York Public Library is training computers how to recognize building shapes and other information from old city maps. Help us clean up the data so that it can be used in research, teaching and civic hacking.”  Sometimes I just love my workplace.

• Me stuff time.  Or rather, stuff I’m doing around and about the world that you might like to attend.  You see, on November 6th I’ll be interviewing legendary graphic novelist Paul Pope at 4pm at the Mulberry Street library branch here in NYC.  If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Pope’s name, all you really need to know is that he’s a three time Eisner Award winning artist who wrote the recent GN Battling Boy and whose work is currently on display at the Society of Illustrators on their second floor (which just means I get to tell you again that you can get in for free on Tuesdays).  This event will also be free.  If you’ve ever wondered what the “Mick Jagger of graphic novels” would look like, you’ll find out soon enough.

• Also going on in NYC, they have transferred Allegra Kent’s Ballerina Swan to the stage for kids.  Makes perfect sense when you put it that way.

• This is utterly delightful.  Recently Picture Book Month’s Education Consultant Marcie Colleen contacted me with this awesome PDF entitled Picture Book Month Teacher’s Guide: Why Picture Books Belong in Our Classrooms.  It was so useful, in fact, that I tapped her for an upcoming Children’s Literary Salon about the Core Curriculum.  More about that later, though . . .

• My reaction to finding out that Henry Selick was going to direct Adam Gidwitz’s A Tale Dark and Grimm was simple.  The best possible person is doing the best possible thing and is making everyone happy in the process.  My sole concern?  Selick’s going live action on this.  What was the last live action film he directed?  Monkeybone, you say?  Ruh-roh.  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.

In 1991, artist Jeff Smith founded Cartoon Books to self-publish his comic book work, releasing his critically acclaimed series Bone.

Cartoon Books published a hardcover graphic novel of his Rasl story this week, a book following an ex-military engineer who uses the journals of Nikola Tesla to pull of mind-bending capers. We caught up with Smith to find out how comic book self publishing has evolved over the last 20 years. Smith explained:

Self-publishing has been a badge of honor in the comics community for two decades now, since the early 1990s. The Self-publishing Movement was a loosely affiliated group of like-minded writer-artists, who believed that the cartoonist was an author who’s work should be controlled by him or her, and should be read by the widest possible audience. We were on a quest for equal shelf space, equal critical reviews, the ability to sell our work beyond the confines of the comic book retail shops, and perhaps most important, the ability to print our own work and to keep it in print.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hark! A Vagrant Kate Beaton

Do you read Kate Beaton's most awesome webcomic Hark! A Vagrant? because you should.

In it, Beaton regularly makes history, Canadians, and classic literature hilarious. Often with a paragraph or two of commentary that is also hilarious. Listen to Charlotte and Emily Bronte tease Anne about her horrible taste in men. Doesn't she know that drunk losers who ruin everyone's lives are HOTTTTT? What if Ben Franklin's political cartoons had a modern editor? And, well, her retellings of Shakespeare just make me laugh a lot. I especially enjoy her comics where she sketches out the plots of books based solely on their covers. (In this collection, she has a series of books with covers by Gorey and some classic Nancy Drews.) Nothing is safe or sacred, but it's all hilarious.

Her comics are funny and awesome and hey look! There's a whole book of them! So you can read them when you're not on your computer. You should probably go read them.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

As I’m sure many of you heard Jan Berenstain, half of The Berenstain Bears, passed away recently. The Gothamist called us up at NYPL and wondered if we had any Berenstain goodies in our collection. We don’t but we knew who did. You can read their obit here. The SLJ obit is also well worth seeing since they managed to work in that crazy What Dr. Freud Didn’t Tell You book the Berenstains worked on years ago and full credit to Leila at bookshelves of doom for discovering THAT gem. In fact, Leila has posted what may be the cutest picture of the Berenstain humans I’ve ever seen. A-dor-able.

• Meanwhile the good folks at TimeOut Kids New York gave me an impossible challenge: Come up with the Top 50 Best Books for Kids. And while I’m at it, balance the classics with some contemporary stuff. Just to be cheeky I added some nonfiction, poetry, graphic novels and works by people of color. The result is a list you will enjoy but not entirely agree with. I think that that’s sort of the point, don’t you? Everyone has their own list. This one’s mine.

• Let me just put it this way: If I were in the publishing business and I saw this (created by the hugely talented Kate Beaton of Hark, A Vagrant) I would run, not walk, to the nearest cell phone and put in a call with her agent. Stat.

• I think we’ve all seen at least one dead-to-irony Lorax ad by this point, yes? Seems to me that about the time you have a Lorax shilling for SUVs it’s time to throw in the towel. Or, at the very least, to try to wrest the Seuss rights from the widow (fat chance). And we thought the Cat in the Hat movie was the low point! Ha! Rocco Staino translates his disgust into a Huffington Post piece that speculates on what other famous children’s book characters might want to get some lucrative corporate sponsorship going.

• I like illustrator Scott Campbell anyway but when I saw him illustrate the cast of one of my favorite movies, that just clinched it. Check it out. The man does a darn good Elijah Wood.

• Re: Hunger Games, I only advise you to look at Capitol Couture if you have a couple hours to kill. Darn thing sucked me in and was mighty reluctant to let me go. Had to break out the pruning shears to make my escape. True story. Thanks to Marci for the link.

• 6 Comments on Fusenews: “whimsically apocalyptic”, last added: 3/5/2012