Books

Novelist Max Allan Collins is no stranger to the comics, with his ROAD TO PERDITION graphic novel being turned into an actual prestige movie, and his long-running Ms. Tree comic. His new novel is actually set in the world of comics with a comics section by long-time collaborator Terry Beatty.

Once again, I peruse the Barnes & Noble website, taking a look at what is selling. There are quite a few surprises this month, including some kids books!

We're done at BEA and BlogWorld and so on, and getting back up to speed on posting. Huge thanks to Torsten, Todd, Vanguard Steve, and Jessica for keeping the show running while we were away from the computer. We'll have more BEA thoughts tomorrow but in the meantime, not to make anyone jealous or anything, but here's the promo item of the show...and maybe the year, a travel themed giveaway for Lemony Snicket's new series, "ALL THE WRONG QUESTIONS", which has art by Seth...everything from a pen with an octopus to a bar of soap. The first book will have a 1 million copy laydown October 23rd.

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!

Only a few minutes to post a few tidbits...as usual, compared to even a few years ago, everyone in the book biz knows what graphic novels are, and even if they aren't publishing them outright, nearly everyone has a book that's "sort of" like a GN with words and pictures.

We'll be at BookExpo America for BlogWorld for the next three days, so sporadic posting alert! On Wednesday we'll appear on this panel:

Gentleman, start your crunchers! It's a big change at Publishers Weekly this week, as they initiate a new way of running the bestsellers lists. As Sr. Editor Digital Media Jonathan Segura explains:

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.

Tweets and blog posts made it clear over the weekend, but Pantheon Books has spelled out what Chris Ware told attendees of the CPAP meeting in Chicago. BUILDING STORIES, his highly anticipated new book, will be a boxed set of small volumes. Or as tweeter Kathleen Dunley put it:

Naughty, naughty Charles Burns has left us hanging for over a year and a half with the first volume of X'ed Out, the surreal reverse TinTin tale of a young man named Nitnit with severe memory problems and a hole in his wall that goes to a deformed world of talking worms which came out late in 2010.

...or at least doing well on Amazon. As we know, these things are ephemeral and easily rigged, but as of last night it was in the Top 100 for books. Jeffrey Brown's gently humorous look at Darth Vader as a father to a young Luke Skywalker has gotten a lot of positive attention.

by Casey Burchby

-- One of the only fistfights I’ve ever been in was over Garbage Pail Kids – proof they were a dangerous influence, no? I was eight and a kid named Chad lived down the street. Chad was bad. His family was shady. Their house was overgrown; the lawn was a small parking lot. Chad was the kid I’d play with – maybe – if no one else was around. But Chad had had Garbage Pail Kids. So with some hesitation, I decided to do a little business with Chad. I had a card he was dying for. He promised me several cards in return for just that one. I jumped at the offer, which I knew was foolish. Little did I know Chad planned to welsh.