Which Book Does PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY Call, “A Near Perfect Union Of Pictures And Words”?
August 15, 2012 by Stefan Blitz
I’ll give you a hint, it’s set here…
NBM in October: The Rise of the Graphic Novel
August 14, 2012 by NBM
Here’s what we’ve got being solicited for in comics stores now. First up: an updated edition of THE book tracing the origins and evolution of the phenomenon of graphic novels in this country:
FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET: THE RISE OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
2nd Edition
Stephen Weiner
Introduction by Will Eisner, cover by Jeff Smith
Graphic novels have exploded off bookstore shelves and into movies, college courses and the New York Times Book Review, and onto the coffee tables of the cognoscenti. What’s fueling this explosion? Where did all the excitement come from? Stephen Weiner, a comics historian and children’s literature specialist, provides the answers in this groundbreaking book—the first history of graphic novels.
From the agonizing Holocaust vision of Art Spiegelman’s Maus to the teenage angst of Dan Clowes’s Ghost World, this book takes you into the heart of the graphic novel revolution. The author of 101 Best Graphic Novels now tells the whole history of this new medium—from the first modern urban autobiographical graphic novel, Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, to the hip indy comics of the Hernandez Bros.’ Love and Rockets, the dark mysteries of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and the postmodern superheroics of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight.
It’s all here, in this newly updated edition—the must-reads, the milestones, and what to look for in the future of this exciting new medium.
6×9, 80pp., B&W hardcover, $14.99, ISBN 9781561637027
AND NEW FROM EUROTICA:
A new edition of this classic now in hardcover collecting the long out of print paperbacks in thicker volumes:
SHADOW & LIGHT, vol.1
Parris Quinn
After the light of day, some people like to unwind in the shadow and let out steam in unusual ways. One man likes to be his woman’s slave, one woman dares her boyfriend to watch as she services a group of bankers, another gets a leash on her collar and lets her animal instincts run wild in front of her lover’s camera… Some of the most beautifully rendered erotic comics you will ever see, holding nothing back!
8 ½ x 11, 128pp. B&W, hardcover, $19.99, ISBN 9781561637157
See the amazing pages from this gorgeous edition in our Eurotica section (look for the October banner)
—————————————————————————————————————-
Our sister company PAPERCUTZ has a very busy line-up for October, the main news being an all-new Nancy Drew series where she’s only 8 and already solving mysteries! This features art by Stan (Archie) Goldberg.
Also in October:
A new Trondheim: Monster Turkey, the last in this charming series.
a new Geronimo Stilton
The Best of the 3 Stooges comics, vol.2
The Book is Here!
August 13, 2012 by Margreet de Heer
Today, FedEx delivered a box full of ‘Philosophy: a Discovery in Comics’ to my door!
Boris and me inspecting the impressive box.
Note how cool it is that the title is printed on the side!
- Open! Open! Open!
Oh, the suspense!
Inspection by the Highest Authority…
The book looks soooo good!
And I’m not just saying that because I made it.
The hardcover, the colors – it’s so well executed! Thanks NBM (and China)!!
…and how about these cool endsheets?
The Dutch version doesn’t have these.
So Dutch fans: you really NEED this book to complete your collection!
See that face?
You can be just as happy if you order your copy today!
Boris says:
“Buy the book. It has me in it. It is good.”
Welcome, Steve Weiner
August 9, 2012 by Terry
I’d like to welcome Graphic Novel Expert Steve Weiner to this blog, starting with the post right before this one. Steve was one of the first librarians to recognize the power of comics to bring youth to reading and its worthiness as a library item. He has championed comics into libraries for decades, in fact.
My work relationship with him goes back to the nineties at least where he helped us put together a targeted mailing to libraries when we were among the first to get GNs recognized by library associations such as Rick Geary’s Jack the Ripper going on the YALSA reluctant reader top 10 Quick Picks over 15 years ago!
We’re fellow pioneers and we’ve got his history of the GN in the US coming back out in a revised and updated edition: “Faster than a Speeding Bullet, The Rise of the Graphic Novel.”
What Forces Led to the ‘Graphic Novel’?
August 9, 2012 by Steve Weiner
One of the major drivers was the Comic Book Store
The world of comics was changing in the 1970s. The fan conventions and the head shops of the 1960s had led to the creation of the comic book store, where readers could buy new & used comics. The comic book store offered a wider variety of comics than newsstands, so readers who might have given up on comics in their teens could read undergrounds and other kinds of books. Through the undergrounds publishers knew there was an older comic book reading audience & the comic book store gave publishers a way to reach these readers. However, the 60s were gone and mature readers were interested in more than tales of sex crazed stoned out hipsters, so publishers experimented with more sophisticated genre tales. One of the first was Manhunter, published by DC Comics by the team of Archie Goodwin & Walt Simonson. Manhunter originally a 1940s hero, was in this incarnation revived by a Terrorist organization to be their assassin. The writing was smart and the artwork inventive. Equally important, the tone was bitter. Manhunter ran as a backup feature in Detective Comics, and was awarded 6 awards from the Academy of Comic Book Arts (the major industry award at the time) for a series 7 episodes long. Although it wasn’t collected in graphic novel form until the 1980s, it was one of the first commercial attempts to tell a completed genre story. The editors at DC comics realized that the time was right for this story partially because of the comic book store clientele. Others followed.
See more about the origins of the graphic novel in my upcoming 2nd edition of “Faster than a Speeding Bullet, The Rise of the Graphic Novel.” Being solicited in comics shops now.
Next: the Trade Publishing Influence
Stan Mack’s “Taxes, The Tea Party and Those Revolting Rebels” is out in comics stores now.
August 9, 2012 by NBM
His fun graphic novel about the American Revolution where one can draw many parallels with modern day: the writing of the Constitution was a raucous, divisive process, The Tea Party uprising, the chasm between rich and poor, makes this surprisingly timely. More info.
See his blog posts on this very subject. And run get the book at your local comics shop!
The Oxford Experience
August 8, 2012 by Margreet de Heer
My ideal vacation? GOING TO SCHOOL. Well, not just ANY school. My husband and I are enjoying a week’s stay in Christ Church College, the biggest college of Oxford University, where we are taking classes every morning on the subject of English Country Houses.
Me, student at Christ Church College
But we’re mainly here for the food, which is extremely good, and served in the astonishingly beautiful Hall that served as a model for the Great Hall in Hogwarts.
Christ Church College Dining Hall
Many places in the college have been used to shoot the Harry Potter movies. It’s easy to see why: there’s a mixture of imagination and magic here. In all of Oxford actually: it’s the city that boasts the most published writers per square mile; it’s here that Middle Earth took shape, and Narnia – and now it’s home to us, and this is where we’re staying:
The Top Floor Room is ours!
(I figured out this balcony is the ACTUAL balcony from Brideshead Revisited – where a drunken Anthony Blanche recites poetry from)
Couldn’t be happier.
The classes are wonderful, all about old english houses, why people built them, how they lived in them, how they treated their staff. It’s illuminated by many slides and films. We sit in the back and are secretly doodling, like we did in high school. Except now we don’t get punished for it, but admired by our kind classmates. Which is nice.
Here’s what I doodled so far:
Fantasy house
Country house dress
Country house bath
A myth laid to rest: inhabitants of the early castles in Britain actually never used boiling oil to repel their opponents.
More fantasy houses. Although there is a Victorian dog house in here that actually exists.
Word of the day: CRENELLATE. “To supply with battlements”.
In the sixteenth century you were not to crenellate without permission from the king, on pain of execution.
*Now You Know!*
The Delaval Family of Seaton Delaval were also called “the Gay Delavals”.
They loved playing practical jokes on their guests, like putting chickens in their bed.
One of the Delavals died when falling down the front stairs, dead drunk.
*Now You Know!*
This programme is called The Oxford Experience and I should really let the whole world know it’s an excellent way to spend your holidays: it’s a 5-star hotel combined with the best teachers you’ve ever known, amongst an international crowd that is enthusiastic and interesting.
But I think I won’t.
This will be our secret holiday (re)treat for years to come, wouldn’t want it spoiled by hordes of other people. So: DON’T COME! It’s Horrible! And who in his right mind would want to go to SCHOOL in their vacations anyway…?!
Lewis Trondheim at Bergen St. Comics this Friday.
August 7, 2012 by NBM
Taking the occasion of a family vacation here in New York, Lewis Trondheim is taking some time from that to meet fans at Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn this Friday at 8PM. Besides premiering his new series with Fantagraphics, the main occasion for this appearance, he’ll be signing Dungeon, Little Nothings and Papercutz’ Monster series, at least for as long as Bergen has stock!
Trondheim doesn’t make it that often over here so here’s a chance to meet him!
Word of warning: don’t be surprised if he sets fire to your Dungeon book after drawing Marvin the dragon breathing… fire onto the corner he will singe for you. Someone in San Diego actually got upset over this, sweartoGodcrossourheartshopetodie!
Review Round-Ups: Here’s What The Critics Are Saying…
August 7, 2012 by Stefan Blitz
Image from Bubbles & Gondola by Renaud Dillies
“The timing of this book couldn’t be better, speaking as it does to what the citizens of a well-off community value, and how they shirk social responsibility. The lesson is plain, yet sensitively and elegantly rendered.”
The AV Club on The Fairy Tales Of Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince
“Wilde’s beloved allegory is beautifully and smartly adapted by master craftsman Russell…The tale of the lifeless boy and the faithful avian is conveyed sweetly and with great heart.”
The Miami Herald on The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde:The Happy Prince
“P. Craig Russell has taken an interesting approach to illustrating this tale: he includes all the text from Wilde and adds a visual element to enhance and compliment that text…It’s his classic and timeless art style that elevate and enhance this story so well. It’s worth noting that Russell does everything on this book: layout, design and lettering along with the art. A meticulous artist who doesn’t do anything without a reason.”
Comic Book Daily on The Fairy Tales Of Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince
“I first read the prose in my late teens and it’s stayed in my heart ever since. Here P. Craig Russell has done wonders with the work, his fine, clean line lit with lambent colours. I even love what he’s done with the speech bubbles linked to their square-boxed, qualifying commentary. More than anything, though, his art here is the ultimate essay in tenderness.”
Page45.com on The Fairy Tales Of Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince
“The book is charming and sweet and well told. Gillies does very attractive comics, and his work can definitely be shared with kids who will probably appreciate this story.”
Comics Bulletin on Bubbles & Gondola
“Dilles’ engaging cartooning style is a bod to Krazy Kat, and he paces the book with a categorial whimsy that is simultaneously well-plotted and fanciful.”
Comic Buyer’s Guide on Bubbles & Gondola
“Despite the whimsical drawing and fanciful setting, one can’t help but feel that this is an intensely personal book for Dillies. This isn’t simply a book about writer’s block, but about a specific kind of aspiration and the blocks against that aspiration.”
“Despite focusing on two young girls, this is a very adult book. There are strips making jokes about the theory of relativity, adult toys, violence, and alcoholism. The twins’ mother’s sexual frustration and odd ways of coping with that frustration is a major storyline throughout the collection. The book derives a lot of its humor from the ridiculousness of seeing 8-year-olds make jokes about adult topics, such as the Neo-Nazi classmate who says the Holocaust never happened or when Kinky and Cosy have drinks in a bar with some aliens…The plotline involving the mother falling in love with the recycling bin, for example, was a bit too out there.”
No Flying No Tights on Kinky & Cosy
“A very bittersweet tale about love and how it fills our lives when it’s there and how we feel its absence…This is a book for pet lovers, the romantic, and anyone needing a pick-me-up.”
Portland Book Review on Stargazing Dog
“This melodramatic horror story should be popular with manga fans…The black-and-white drawings are bathed in pastel shades of pink, blue, and lavender, adding to the otherworldly tone of the story.”
School Library Journal on Rohan at the Louve
Small Summer Philosophies #4
July 31, 2012 by Margreet de Heer
VACATION
Everyone is on vacation. Officially, I have been “free” for a few weeks now. That’s what the word “vacation” literally means, by the way: “to be free”, from the Latin word vacare – also the root of vacuum, which is a space devoid of anything. But I don’t feel very free at all, especially not on the inside. To continue the metaphor of vacationing as “emptying” – I feel like I’m trying to dig a hole in the ocean. Yes, a lot of Work is tossed out of the daily routine, but immediately Daily Stuff has flowed in and replaced it with small worries, aches & pains. Nope, I’m not in vacation-mode at all yet.
My inner unrest is made worse by the general imperative, shouted at me from commercials, billboards and through the social media, that THIS IS THE TIME TO RELAX! HURRY UP! SUMMER’S HERE! ENJOY YOURSELF! NO STRESS! OR ELSE!!
I must forget about getting a vacation. I’m not going to be “free” from my own thoughts & routines. A better approach is to consider this period the Holidays – and I really mean Holy Days. (called that because in the Olden Days people only got days off that were religion-related).
What did people do on holy days? It was not a matter of being free, but of doing something ELSE than the daily routine. To find an occupation that is a bit more edifying than just work. Something that lifts you up and gives you a new perspective.
When you look at it this way, everything can be Holy. As long as it gets you away from the ordinary.
This Summer, I’m not going to be Vacationing – I’ll be Substitioning.
