Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
Melanie Gillman (As the Crow Flies, Stage Dreams) is currently publishing their experience at a wilderness artist residency in a series of diary pages at TCJ.com. Gillman is known for their colored pencil work, and the soft shades work well with the sparse desert landscape. The first page was May 20, and they will run for 10 days. You can follow new pages at the site’s author page. My favorite so far is the one with the dog:
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This happened a couple of months ago, but I just found out about it. I don’t know that it will have much practical effect, but there’s an historical component that made me nostalgic. F+W Media is a publisher of hobby and specialist magazines, books, and price guides, including Writer’s Digest, Goldmine, Antique Trader, Old Cars Weekly, Numismatic News, and Impact Books (which put out volumes on how to draw manga and comics, among others). (This field is known as “enthusiast […]
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The third in Terri Libenson’s series of connected middle school graphic novels, Just Jaime tackles the difficult question of how to react when “friends” decide they don’t want to hang around you any more. As with Invisible Emmie and Positively Izzy, the format is unique, with interspersed chapters alternating between the illustrated diary format and full-out comics. (The lead characters from the first two books also appear here, tying the three together into a richer picture of young teen life.) […]
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The eighth book in the imaginative series by Dana Simpson about a girl and her unicorn best friend is also the second original graphic novel (after Phoebe and Her Unicorn in the Magic Storm; the others reprint comic strips), making it a never-before-seen longer story. In Unicorn Theater, Phoebe is headed to drama camp. The unicorn Marigold accompanies her but is distracted by a visit from her sister, making Phoebe jealous and a little lonely. All of her other friends […]
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From 2006-2010, Nancy Springer wrote six YA mysteries about Enola Holmes, the younger sister of Sherlock. The Case of the Missing Marquess by Serena Blasco, from IDW’s EuroComics imprint, adapts the first. Enola has been living with her mother, Lady Eudora, in the country. On her 14th birthday, her mother disappears. Upon notifying her much older brothers Mycroft and Sherlock, who haven’t visited for ten years, she’s told she will be sent to boarding school to become a proper young […]
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Square Enix, best known in the US as the video game company behind Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, Kingdom Hearts, and Space Invaders, has announced that they will be launching “a new line of English-language manga, novels, and art books” this coming fall. Previously, they have licensed their manga titles to existing English-language publishers, including Fullmetal Alchemist (Viz), Soul Eater (Yen Press), and Black Butler (Yen Press). Their first releases will be a Final Fantasy XV novel, The Dawn of the […]
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The show is still going on — I’m taking a short break before my final panel (and the final panel of the show), “History Though Comic Eyes” — but I wanted to take a few minutes to capture TCAF memories so far. First, the workshop went well! I’d been wanting to do a session on how to get publicity for newer comic professionals for a while (based a good amount on my PR: What Not to Do category). I was […]
Read moreIf you’re interested in the comics business beyond just the superhero-focused direct market of dedicated comic shops, Dallas Middaugh’s look back at 2018 graphic novel sales is a must-read. When you combine Diamond’s unit numbers with those of NPD BookScan, which tracks sales in the general book market, the graphic novel market is up by 11.7%. This is a marked difference from the 1.3% increase seen across all print publishing (not just graphic novels) in the U.S…. This double-digit growth […]
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