Drawn & Quarterly

Mystery of the week: Literary comics mainstay D&Q is suddenly getting into prose with 15-year-old Tavi Gevinson’s ‘Rookie Yearbook One’ , a collection of the popular online magazine for teenage girls? With a company-high 40k first printing? Who? How? Why? All this is shocking enough. But here's the stunning drawing room reveal: it was Chris Ware's idea! What th--? Will Ware's unnamed one-legged protagonist suddenly be modeling Fit-Flops?

Once a year, booksellers, librarians, and assorted biblios assemble at Book Expo America, the largest publishing trade show in North America. 2012 marks the tenth anniversary of the graphic novel pavilion at BEA, and while many graphic novel publishers are absent, there are many more "mainstream" publishers offering an amazing multitude of titles, genres, subjects, and audiences! This year, John Hogan of Graphic Novel Reporter hosts The Hottest Graphic Novels of 2012! panel, where a team of five diverse individuals recommend a variety of graphic novels due to be published in 2012! Last year's selections got lots of press and accolades, and quite a few of the titles below seem to be just as interesting and intriguing!

The very very funny Lisa Hanawalt has joined D&Q's cartoonist lineup; they'll publish a collectino of her works called MY DIRTY DUMB EYES in Spring 2013. The book will collect her various comics for Vanity Fair, The Hairpin, and so on. You will laugh and laugh.

I read (almost) every Free Comic Book Day title, and let you know what's the best!

Anders Nilsen's acclaimed BIG QUESTIONS has won the second Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize. The award recognizes the best graphic novel, fiction or non-fiction, by a living American and is sponsored by Penn State University Libraries and administered by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.

The D&Q blog has a tempting preview of a new edition of ED THE HAPPY CLOWN, Chester Brown's early surrealist masterpiece about a man who has Ronald Reagan's head grafted onto the end of his penis.

Oh, man... so much good stuff coming from Macmillan! And they're not even known for publishing graphic novels! Scan this list, and tell us what makes you squeel with joy!

A Finnish girls finds a Moomin figure at the flea market and builds it a cute little house, or "Muumitalot."

With his gorgeous GOLIATH out from D&Q, Tom Gauld is embarking on a two-continent tour. UK dates are above; here's his US schedule.

Here it is, the stunning conclusion of new titles shipping in February! Since this is Oscars weekend, I've included some award winners below! Hugo! Edgar! Carnegie! Stoker! Even Shamus! (No, not that one!) Lots of adaptations! One is a comic based on a movie based on a prose novel!

. Here's the second part of February's preview.  There's some unusual titles here (including a publisher of religious graphic novels), some which don't seem to...

Jason Lutes has been working on BERLIN, his tale of Weimar Germany, for something like...14 years. And although it's been about a year between issues, a new issue has been delivered to the DQ offices and publisher Chris Oliveros marvels at their craft:

Jason is the consummate professional. Did you know that there is not a single use of "white out" on any of these 24 pages? Pen to paper for close to a couple of hundred panels, all done with flawless efficiency.