Kids' comics

Here's what I discovered at the recent American Library Association Mid-Winter conference in Dallas, Texas! Librarians are rocking the graphic novels!

2012 sees Telgemeier's next book, DRAMA, and it's another bullseye to the interests of middle-schoolers, dealing with the ever popular school play. On her blog, she just released the cover and it looks like another winner.

DC and Lego have teamed for an app that offers all-new, all-free comics. This could be significant, for reasons explained below.

In related and interesting news, Dav Pilkey's two Super Diaper Baby spinoff graphic novels will get e-books on January 31 of this year, each with supplemental material for that e-book/DVD extra format. These have the potential to be among the biggest selling e-comics of the year -- or not since every kid has a print version. Worth keeping an eye on.

With all the popularity of High School Musical/Glee/American Idol and other performance-based media these days, comics have been tiptoeing around this genre. There was Siena and Mark Siegel's To Dance; and Raina Telgemeier's upcoming DRAMA!, due this fall. And here's a new one from Papercutz, Dance Class: So You Think You Can Hip-Hop by Béka, aka Bertrand Escaich and Caroline Rogue. Aimed squarely at tween girls, it's another French pick up for the publisher, and it looks pretty charming.

Given that creator Pendleton Ward is a huge comics reader and sometime cartoonist and that half the staff consists of folks you would normally see at Stumptown, AND that the cartoon itself is heavily influenced by generations of alt.comix (Ward says Trondheim's Dungeon comics are a huge influence) ....it's a surprise that up until now there hasn't been an ADVENTURE TIME comic book based on the hugely popular Cartoon Network show. But now BOOM!! is remedying that with a new ongoing monthly series written by Ryan North (DINOSAUR COMICS) with art by Shelli Paroline (ICE AGE: ICED IN and MUPPET SNOW WHITE.) It's part of Boom's KaBOOM! kid line. Also of note: the book is coming out from BOOM! rather than DC, which, like the Cartoon Network, is owned by Warner Bros.

While you may be in full-on holiday panic mode, there's always spring...and Halloween. Next spring's Courtney Crumrin, Volume 1: The Night Things, Special Edition will see the sardonic young monster-hunter in color for the first time. Ted Naifeh's all ages gothic waif is one of the first -- and the best -- of this sub-genre of comics, and it looks great in color by Warren Wucinich.

The Wimpy Kid is the new Twilight. The latest book in the series, Cabin Fever, sold over one million hardcovers in its first week on sale. Sales were 25% higher than last year's November release, The Ugly Truth. RE: the recent sales figure discussions -- with numbers this good, there's no reason not to trumpet them aloud.

Top Shelf has just announced a team-up with comiXology that includes their own iOS app, and a separate app for the Kids Club line. Books from LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN to OWLY will be available across various platforms. Interestingly, Top Shelf is the first "alt.comix" type publisher to go whole hog with digital. D&Q and Fantagraphics and most of the smaller indies have remained remained aloof to the ecomics world. Although most art comics are best suited to the paper medium -- and are, indeed the very type of objects that will keep print books alive for quite some time -- a lot of indie cartoonists read just fine on the screen — we've found some of the "panel grid layout" types even look great on an iPhone. It seems like only a matter of time before everyone has their own app and storefront...but how long?

This is just the news day for comics folks developing their own apps. Former Nickelodeon Magazine comics editor Chris Duffy, and his co-workers Laura Galen, and Carmen Morais all had some free time when the magazine was canceled. And now they've come up with Comixer, an iPad app aimed at kids that allows them to mix and match panels in various genres to make their own stories. The app is on sale for 99¢ at launch. More here:

On her panel at SDCC, Raina Telgemeier announced some info on her next book: it's called

Drama!