Kids' comics

Whether you call it comics inspired or a comics hybrid, Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid series is one of the most successful book series being published with more than 75 million copies in print. Details on the seventh book have just been announced: it will be called "The Third Wheel" and will find Greg Heffley having even more adventures in middle school—adventures perhaps of a romantic nature as the title might suggest.

Torsten gave a fantastic review of things to do this weekend but I'll focus on two fun events for the Maine and Washington people, who desperately should enjoy themselves while the sun is still out!

Also this weekend, The Maine Comics Art Festival, one of our favorite shows. Topline guests include Kate Beaton and Kazu Kibuishi. The Portland Press Herald has a preview:

Brooklyn Comics is near two primary schools and reportedly when school lets out, the shop is flooded with kids. We'd love to see that!

We've been fans of TEEN BOAT since we saw the first mini comics, and the fact that they're having a book launch ON a boat is entirely fitting.

Garen Ewing has been working on his three volume graphic novel The Adventures of Julius Chancer: The Rainbow Orchid for over a decade. The final volume was recently released by Egmont in the UK, and it seemed a good time to talk to him about his influences, his process, and his future plans.

As any parents out there know, the iPhone/tablet as babysitter is a rapidly growing tradition among harried moms and dads. And as reported in Variety, DC is launching a DC Nation app to take advantage of this market—and grow future readers.

Although the video is not embeddable (that we can see), Scholastic sponsored this chat with Jeff Smith, Kazu Kibuishi, and Raina Telgemeier which was streamed to classrooms across the nation. If I was a kid in school, cartoonists drawing pictures is what I would definitely like seeing in class.

Remember how we keep telling you that kids' graphic novels are the fastest growing segment of the US GN market? One of the reason for the spurt is that the books keep getting better. For example, GIANTS BEWARE! from First Second by writer Jorge Aguirre and artist Rafael Rosado. It's a pretty simple tale:

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.