Results tagged “Graphic Novels”

Excitement filled our offices yesterday as Kazu Kibuishi delivered his final cover painting for Flight Seven. I love the Flight covers and every year its like Christmas morning when Kazu turns in his cover painting. In fact, Flight is a lot of Christmas mornings as I get the same giddy feeling when each artist submits their final stories. Flight Seven will be available in summer 2010 but you should check out the other six volumes if you haven’t had the chance to yet.

In other exciting news, Michel Gagné has teamed with FuelCell to create an animated game called Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. The game looks amazing and has an old school Defender and Asteroids sort of feel to it. But the real thrill is seeing Michel’s creations brought to life in stunning animation. Flight fans will thrill to this, as will casual video game players. Here’s the amazing trailer for the game!

Stone Rabbit author and illustrator Erik Craddock sat down with Dominique Cimina (Random House) for an interview recently. Erik is a graduate of The School of Visual Arts (SVA) and worked on several interesting animation projects before creating the Stone Rabbit series of kids’ graphic novels. They’ve become pretty popular (and with good reason - they’re fun).

Check out the interview below to hear Erik talk about his work, his rabbit protagonist, and anything else that pops up along the way like favorite video games.

Enjoy!

Tell us about the hero of your graphic novel series, Stone Rabbit. Why a rabbit?

Well, to be honest, even I’m not 100 percent sure why I chose a rabbit to play the hero’s role. It just kind of came out of left field for me. I think subconsciously I chose a rabbit to act as the vehicle of the story because a rabbit is a very vulnerable animal, in that it’s not something that you would expect to do any form of heroics or show any kind of bravado. Plus I like playing with oxymorons in my work. For example, Henri Tortoise is very macho and athletic. This is contrary to the nature of a tortoise. The same goes for Andy Wolf, who’s generally a wimp and wouldn’t hurt a fly. As for Stone Rabbit, he’s a reluctant hero, short tempered and impatient. But underneath that, he’s a genuine humanitarian who believes in good and doing the right thing. Believe it or not, Stone Rabbit is almost a carbon copy of my own personality, so writing for him is pretty darn easy. Plus, when I first created him, I was actually trying to think up a simplified way to draw myself … and for some reason I added two bunny ears to the head of the doodle Nine years later, I have a full-blown graphic novel series with the biggest publisher in the history of the known world. Go figure!

With Stone Rabbit, the constant theme is that there is no constant theme. So I’ve taken an opposite approach to storytelling than most writers typically do. The only elements that bond the stories together are the characters and their hometown. After that, it’s anybody’s guess. To me, my characters are more like actors than anything else, each playing different roles from book to book. But despite the fact that all of them are animals, they’re far more human in nature. They have flaws, they make mistakes, and they are highly emotional with one another. I chose to make them vulnerable because doing so makes it “real.” People keep forgetting that it’s easy to be superman when you’re bulletproof…

So, as you may have heard, last week we had Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier in for a live chat. They spoke about writing X-Men: Misfits, about collaborating with each other and with Anzu half-way around the world, about their upcoming projects, and even helped us clean up afterward. Aren’t they great?

Of course, part of the fun of doing these chats is allowing you to grab it and run with it on your own site. Go ahead! All you need to do is download the embed code

Don’t want to download it? Well, that’s cool. Just select all the code in the box below and copy-paste it into your site.

So what else did we cover? Dave and Raina gave us some examples of who inspired various characters…

When I was a kid, my father used to take my older sister and me to “the green striped store” once a week and give us each a dollar to buy comic books. I can remember getting to buy five each (which should date me!). Oddly enough I don’t remember the ones I used to buy, probably because I read them to shreds and they ended up, after a suitably long time under my bed, in the garbage. But I remember the ones my sister had. She was OCD about keeping them looking new, organizing them, and keeping them away from me. She had more success in the first two tasks than she had in the last.

Even battered and torn, her comic collection is worth a pretty penny — but if I hadn’t been her little sister, she’d probably be independently wealthy by now. So all those people she’s helped keep healthy (she’s a doctor) owe me one.

She had the X-Men before they were cool and all of the issues where the old X-Men were captured and Prof. X had to bring in the new ones — you know, like Wolverine and the Banshee. She had The Amazing Spiderman, Sheena Queen of the Jungle, The Claws of the Cat, and a dozen others. Most importantly for you and me, she collected a comic called Werewolf by Night.

And that’s where I came by my love of werewolves; that’s why I write about them.

We’re bringing the husband-and-wife creative team behind Del Rey’s forthcoming X-Men: Misfits in for a live chat with us and with you. The chat is slated for Monday, August 24th, at 2pm.

Have you entered that into your smart phone’s calendar yet? If not, or if email is more your style, why don’t you use the widget below to sign up for a reminder? And don’t worry, we’re not keeping your addresses with this thing, it’s a one-time reminder.

Of course, if you can’t attend the live event, but still want to ask a question, you can send them along to the team at Del Rey Manga by clicking this link: Del Rey Manga @ RandomHouse.com.

And if you’d like to know a little more about Dave and Raina, you can read about them here.

Want to know more about X-Men: Misfits? Follow me after the jump to read the official synopsis.

Rainy Sundays are good for three things: laundry, reading, and surfin’ the webs. Thus far, I’ve managed all three of those things today, on top of other less exciting ventures such as eating breakfast, brewing coffee, and showering (two of those other things were done simultaneously; I’ll leave it to you to imagine which they were). And it was while I was crawling aimlessly through the webs, like a hungry spider who’s misplaced that plump captured fly, that I came across two juicy morsels that I thought I’d share with you. Both are about graphic novels AND both relate to Suvudu.

No kidding, it’s Suvudu outside the box, in a way.

Our first article comes to us by way of NYU’s School of Publishing and is about a visiting talk given recently by Del Rey’s own (and thereby also our own) Tricia Narwani on Graphic Novels 101. Tricia talked about a number of issues in the graphic novel industry including the various genres, the rise and popularity of Manga, non-fiction graphic novels, and the influence of webcomics. The article summarizes the talk quite nicely and, for such a deep topic, reads quite easily.

“Bully to you, NYU School of Publishing!” As the kids today might say*. You can read the article here:

Graphic Novels 101 | NYU School of Publishing Blog

“You’ve heard of ‘Maus’ and ‘Persepolis,’ but, really, what’s a graphic novel? Tricia Narwani, Editor with Random House’s Del Rey Books (with more than 100 manga titles this year), recently answered that question at NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute. Speaking to students, she talked about the state of the industry, the various genres and much more. Even though the term ‘graphic novel’ was popularized in 1978, the category can be amorphous…and confusing, she noted. More simply put, graphic novels are comic books that may have complex story lines and are bound in similar format to books. To get everyone on the same page, Tricia mentioned Neil Gaiman’s ‘Sandman’ and Brian K. Vaughn’s (of Lost fame) ‘Y, the Last Man’, and this got students nodding their heads in recognition.” Read the whole post.

The death of Batman, the hard noir of Parker, and the life of Asterios Polyp make up the next article on anti-heroes after the jump…

Today, Suvudu takes you back to the Eisner Awards to view the doling out and accepting of:

• Best Publication Design
• The Spirit of Retailing Award
• Best Archival Project-Strips
• Best Archival Project-Comic Books

The Spirit of Retailing award is one of my favorite awards in the Eisners. I just love the idea that, in the middle of this awards show honoring some of the best creative talent that the industry has to offer, the whole she-bang takes a time-out to honor the folks working in the retail trenches. Also, I love watching the store submission videos (for those who do submit them). We’ll also be seeing Mike Mignola pick up an Eisner for Hellboy Library Editions 1 & 2 (a sight that would be come a familiar one as the evening went on). Then, in video two, we’ll see the winners for the Best Archival projects (comic strips and comic books).

So sit back and enjoy Suvudu’s Sunday showing of the Eisner Awards.

Best Publication Design & The Spirit of Retailing Award

When I returned home from the San Diego Comic Con I took a quick look through the daily editions of the Seattle Times newspaper that had accrued, to get reacquainted with what I had missed while being gone. I keep up as best I can on world and local affairs, but am truly partial to the Life section where the articles and discussions on books, music and local cultural events are placed.

As I flipped through, I stopped on a very cool article. It was about the libraries of our area and what people were mostly checking out. Seattle is a bookie city, and its libraries are some of the best used—and loved—in the country. The article writer did a bit of research and posted the top-five books in Fiction and Non-Fiction people were checking out and how many holds were in place.

It was really neat to see what people were reading—new books by Janet Evanovich, Lisa See, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, James Rollins, Malcolm Gladwell and several others.

One shocked me though, mostly for its cover.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

Yes, it is the classic Regency romance—now with ultra violent zombie mayhem!

Since Seattle holds the Guinness World Record for largest zombie walk in the world at 4200+ stumbling, brain-eating dead, I read a bit deeper into Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to learn exactly what it is.

And if you haven’t done so, do so. Sounds awesome!

Then imagine my surprise yesterday when Del Rey announced this!

Max Brooks was a hot ticket item at this year’s Comic-Con. It seems like every other person who visited our area wanted to know something about Max and his books. Was he attending Comic-Con? Was he signing? Where was he signing? When was his new book coming out? Did we know about the movie? Would there be an unabridged full-cast audio edition of World War Z? Those were just a few of the questions we got many times over during the days of the Con.

Well, Max took some time out of his very busy Con schedule to speak to us about the forthcoming graphic novel, The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks (due out on October 6, check it out here) as well as zombie preparedness in general, before asking for a wake-up call at the highest levels of leadership.

Max is always a fun time. Here’s what he had to say.

It’s one of the biggest events going on during Comic-Con: the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards, or “The Eisners” for short. It honors some of the best of the best working in the industry and pays tribute to the most well-known of names (like Mike Mignola) to the integral but sometimes overlooked comics workers, like those nominated for Best Lettering. It’s an opportunity to celebrate, educate, and have a little fun.

So why is so little written about them?

Well, here at Suvudu we’re trying to bring the Eisners to you in a big way. We ran a shakedown of many of the Eisner categories, we tabulated our results, and we filmed the ceremony. Now it’s time to bring the show to you. This year’s show brings some humor to the preceedings as well as a few of those big names. It was an interesting awards ceremony and now it’s your turn to see how it all went down.

With that in mind, let’s start the show. And the nominees are…

Patton Oswalt Presents the Best Publication for Kids & Best Publication for Tweens/Teens

Patton Oswalt opens the awards with a touch of humor and some minor difficulty with name pronunciation. We can’t fault him there. Check out the awards and speeches in the video below.

Predicting outcomes is fun. Checking your predictions can be fun. Finding out that you predicted incorrectly? Maybe not so much fun. But then when it comes to the Eisner’s, there are so many talented nominees in each category, you have to go into your predictions knowing that you’re probably going to get it wrong. This year followed that model, with a few notable exceptions: Mike Mignola was the safest bet on the block, walking away with three Eisner’s and securing his place as the winningest individual of the night, and Dark Horse, the publishing outfit, that won eight Eisner awards. For those of you crunching the numbers, that means they walked away with nearly one-third (30%) of the Eisner awards. Wow.

So how did our predictions turn out? Take a look…

Best Short Story

I said: “Freaks,” by Laura Park, in Superior Showcase #3 (AdHouse)

Actual Winner: “Murder He Wrote,” by Ian Boothby, Nina Matsumoto, and Andrew Pepoy, in The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror #14 (Bongo)

I wasn’t confident in this pick from the get-go, acknowledging that the competition here was fierce. Still, I chose, and chose wrong. “Freaks” is still a great story, but so is “Murder He Wrote.” So I have no complaints.

Also, an in-house congratulations is due to Nina Matsumoto for this Eisner victory. Nina publishes Yokaiden through Del Rey Manga and the home team couldn’t be happier!

Best Limited Series

I said: Hellboy: The Crooked Man, by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben (Dark Horse)

Actual Winner: Hellboy: The Crooked Man, by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben (Dark Horse)

Mike Mignola’s big night begins. He would go on to collect two more Eisner Awards, making him the night’s biggest individual winner.

Holy crow what a title! Since there’s so much to talk about, let’s skip the formalities and jump right in.

Best Publication for Teens/Tweens

• Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, adapted by P. Craig Russell (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
• Crogan’s Vengeance, by Chris Schweizer (Oni)
• The Good Neighbors, Book 1: Kin, by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh (Scholastic Graphix)
• Rapunzel’s Revenge, by Shannon and Dean Hale and Nathan Hale (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
• Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood Books)

It’s a good thing you don’t have to be a teen in order to read these books, or I’d be suffering from a case of jealousy. Rapunzel’s Revenge marks a fresh re-imagining of the tired old fairy tale, where in Rapunzel is more a**kicker than damsel-in-distress, Skim is an honest coming of age story with more depth than you might expect, Crogan’s Vengeance is a fun pirate read, Good Neighbors, Book 1 is great faery fantasy fun (written by one of the Spiderwick Chronicles authors and sometimes compared to the work of the next author on this list), and then there’s Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, an incredible interpretation of the Alice in Wonderland idea.

Despite the amazing competition, I think this one comes down to Coraline, which has had an incredible year, and Skim, who, though quieter than the other main characters found in the nominated books, is perhaps the most compelling (and that’s saying something). In the end, I think Coraline continues to roll along and picks up the award (it has been, after all, an incredibly entertaining title over the past year). However, I hope Neil Gaiman will forgive me if I silently pull for Mariko and Jillian Tamaki’s creation to pull it out.

Want a dark horse here? The Good Neighbors, Book 1. Though if the series continues, it’ll have plenty more chances in coming years.

Best Humor Publication

• Arsenic Lullaby Pulp Edition No. Zero, by Douglas Paszkiewicz (Arsenic Lullaby)
• Chumble Spuzz, by Ethan Nicolle (SLG)
• Herbie Archives, by “Shane O’Shea” (Richard E. Hughes) and Ogden Whitney (Dark Horse)
• Petey and Pussy, by John Kerschbaum (Fantagraphics)
• Wondermark: Beards of Our Forefathers, by David Malki (Dark Horse)

Easily one of my favorite categories. There’s so much great work here ranging from black humor to crazy, but I’m looking and thinking we’re coming down to Wondermark: Beards of our Forefathers and Aresenic Lullaby Pulp Edition No. Zero. So which way am I predicting? I’m following my own sense of humor here and thinking that Wondermark is taking home the Eisner. Hilarity ensues.

It is only fitting that the most prestigious awards in comics should be dolled out during the biggest comics event in the US (maybe in the world). The Eisner Awards, as I’m sure our readers are all very aware by now, are a very big deal in the industry. Like the Oscars, the Pulitzers, and Grammys, the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards is the pinnacle award, the gold standard. Winning here is tough. By the time the field is narrowed down by category, your fellow nominees are just as talented as you are.

Of course, a win here is a big deal, as evidenced during last year’s win by the Umbrella Academy group, who perhaps say it better than I can.

This year’s Eisner Awards could see even more moments like the one above. As Comic-Con announced (and as I wrote earlier) there are quite a few newcomers in the field this year. Three of whom, Canadian cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki (writer and artist of the teen angst graphic novel Skim) and French biographer Emmanuel Guibert (Alan’s War) have four nominations a piece, giving them all a good shot at walking away with a win somewhere.

So, it’s happened. I’m writing a catch-up post. When I first decided that shaking down the Eisner Awards would be a cool feature, I didn’t quite understand the work involved in putting it on and trying to select a winner when each and every nominee is worthy of an award. Let me go on record as saying, I don’t know how the actual judges do it. I imagine that there are a few Nerf weapons involved somewhere in the decision making process. Also, I think having as many judges as they do for the Eisner’s, while probably not speeding things up, is surely a help to making the right selection. Whereas, when I’m the only one reviewing a category, all my predjudices and preferences as a reader come into play all on their own and without the checks and balances of a group. So, my hat is off to you, Eisner judges.

Now, I’m not here to make excuses about all the other stuff that’s been going on. Nope. I’m here to get on with the Shakedown and with that in mind, we’re off again, into the world of graphic storytelling at its finest!

So, where were we when last we left off? Oh yes, how about we start with…

Best Reality-Based Work

• Alan’s War, by Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)
• Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story, by Frederik Peeters (Houghton Mifflin)
• Fishtown, by Kevin Colden (IDW)
• A Treasury of XXth Century Murder: The Lindbergh Child, by Rick Geary (NBM)
• What It Is, by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)

Despite the brilliance of What It Is, Fishtown, and Alan’s War, I see this one as a race between The Lindbergh Child and Blue Pills. They couldn’t be more different (well they could, but you know what I mean). Blue Pills, the story of an HIV-negative man’s romance with an HIV-positive woman, is more than just a love story, but an honest examination of how such a relationship can change the way in which the author sees and interprets the world around him. In the other corner, Rick Geary handles The Lindbergh Child like a good crime writer, keeping to the facts as closely as possible and avoiding, almost always, allowing his own theories to leak on to the page. I’m going with Blue Pills, the mciteoir, but don’t be surprised if its Lindbergh. And the dark horse candidate? Fishtown. Honestly, I’ll say it again, I don’t know how the judges do this stuff.

M-O-O-N! That spells adaptation!

As reported HERE in February, Del Rey Books will be adapting The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub into a monthly comic book series, to start releasing at the end of the year!

And since it was announced the project has been moving forward!

The Talisman is definitely one of those foundational books that make up who I am as a whole. I first read it after I had read the first two Dark Tower books and the connection between them could not be ignored. And like the Dark Tower series The Talisman is filled with great characters—both good, evil and in between—and the settings are wondrous. The kid who still lives within me and who yearns to visit the Territories is excited to see the tale of Jack Sawyer come to life!

Tony Shasteen, the artist Del Rey tapped for the project, produced character sketches before the first page of the comic book was produced, each one of them sanctioned by King and Straub. In February we showed you Morgan Sloat and Speedy Parker.

Well, Tony, Del Rey, and StephenKing.com have released the next three!

Visit HERE to view the character sketches for Lily Cavanaugh, Jack Sawyer and Phil Sawyer!

A lot more will be coming in the next few months concerning the adaptation of The Talisman, so stay tuned!

M-O-O-N!

I read some fantastic books that shaped my life when I was in middle school.

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley and Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson, among a few others.

None of them altered my perception of the world more than one book.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Long has Bradbury’s dystopian masterpiece about censorship and the effects of technology on reading been lauded—for great reason. It seems everywhere I turn I see elements of this book coming to life. The death of newspapers. The media reducing the news to quick sound bytes that spread paranoia rather than knowledge. Twitter and its 140 character limit. Game consoles given more love than books. Mayors asking if specific books should be banned from city libraries.

Even Japanese robot dogs!

What more proof do you need?

Well, I’m not the only person who not only loves Fahrenheit 451 but wants to see the importance of the book never fade from public consciousness.

First, Farrar, Straus & Giroux will publish a graphic novel adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 in August. The project is being overseen by Ray Bradbury and once published will have significant publicity highlighting the importance of reading and books.

To read more about the graphic novel, click HERE!

Second and also very cool, the American Place Theatre in NYC is not only honoring Fahrenheit 451 with its 2009 Literature to Life Award and presenting a theatrical adaptation of the book, but the theater is also debuting a campaign based on the book’s themes—Project 451—where celebrities and civilians can record snippets of literature that they feel must be preserved for future generations.

Meryl Streep kicks off Project 451’s Living Library, all in support of The American Place Theatre’s Literature to Life program which reaches 30,000 students across the country annually with arts rich literacy programs. When officially launched at a Benefit event on May 17 & 18 at the Theatre at St. Clement’s Church in NYC, users can begin to upload their own readings to add to the Living Library. This online collection will include short readings from notables, educators, students and the public at large.

Take a look at these upcoming Fahrenheit 451 events!

Guess I better go memorize the book now, huh?

I mean, just in case…

Vito Delsante knows comics. To that end, he very nearly is comics. His 9-to-5 gig has him managing Jim Hanley’s Universe in Manhattan. Jim Hanley’s is one of those New York institutions, a trusted source of comics for a horde of fans both dedicated and casual. And, generally speaking, you don’t work there unless you know your stuff. So yes, there’s that. But it’s the other job that’s beginning to take over.

Delsante is also a writer with a growing list of credits to his name, including having written for properties in both the DC and Marvel lines*. Surfing his website you come across the following list of credits:

• Batman Adventures #9


• Batman Adventures: Volume 2: Shadows and Masks


• X-Men Unlimited (Volume 2) #5


• Reflux Comics #3


• Beowulf #7


• Hope: New Orleans GN


• Scooby-Doo #’s 109, 110, 126, and 128


• The Mercury Chronicles #0


• Savage Tales #7 & #8


• Cartoon Network Block Party #42


• Superman #676


• No Formula: Stories From The Chemistry Set Volume 1 GN

Fine, fine, I admit it: I’ve been droning on for what seems like ages now about A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. First, I made up for lost time by sharing the article in Newsweek about A.D. and told you to check it out from the beginning at Smith Magazine. Then, I shared more buzz and even taunted you with the knowledge that there was a panel at NYCC.

That last part might have been a little cruel on my part if you couldn’t get to New York. But, I aim to make good.

Don’t believe me? Click here to listen to the panel.

Or, if you’d prefer, watch it here:

As a web developer for several authors, I am always interested in clever marketing.

Well, DC Comics has done a gem, I think! Today I ran across the website www.AfterWatchmen.com, a DC site devoted to the comic books people should read after having read or watched Watchmen. Looking back on DC history, they have published an impressive line of literary comic book series by some of the best talent in the business. These graphic novels are absolutely fantastic, every single one.

The website features Watchmen but the majority of the space is devoted to titles that echo certain elements of the Alan Moore classic.

I dig the look of the website. I dig the Watchmen Doomsday clock being a couple of minutes after midnight. I dig the navigation of the website and the perfect list of great graphic novels on it!

Of those I have read, Kingdom Come, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns are my favorites.

It’s great that DC Comics has supplied that website, a stroke of marketing genius in my opinion. Sure, they publish Watchmen, but the other comic book publishers could just as easily market to readers who enjoyed Watchmen. I myself have not read the entire list supplied by DC but that is something I will remedy. To me, a well written graphic novel can be just as enjoyable as a novel or a movie.

As soon as I finish writing The Dark Thorn, I will be reading. Every day for hours a day. I simply must catch up on all the cool great stuff I’ve missed out on!

I will start with Fables.

And go from there!