First Second

Take a peek inside this highly anticipated new release

Today, First Second Books releases The Fall of the House of West.  The book is the newest installment in the acclaimed series of graphic novels that includes Battling Boy and The Rise of Aurora West. In it,...

The Beat sneaks in an early NYCC interview with the one and only Maris Wicks to chat about her new educational science comic from First Second: "Human Body Theater"!

Gene Luen Yang, multiple Eisner winner and National Book Award finalist, has released his latest work for younger readers, a collaboration with Adventure Time artist Mike Holmes entitled Secret Coders. This exciting new volume...

As the recent visit to the Small Press Expo showed, there is no shortage of supremely talented cartoonists out there. And the folks at First Second are taking full advantage of this by scooping them up. The latest is Drew Weing whose webcomic The Creepy Casefiles of Margo Maloo will be published next year. Geek Dad has details and an interview. Weing (Set to Sea) has been publishing the comic online since 2014; the print edition comes out in September 2016. It's lovely charming and spooky.

Renowned for his wonderful children's series, Zita the Space Girl and last year's Julia's House for Lost Creatures, Ben Hatke is one of the leading talents in young person's graphic literature. His latest effort,...

"Applied comics" -- using the words and pictures combination for education and non fiction -- is a growing field, especially as comics become more accepted in educational uses. And First Sceond is going all in...

It's been thirteen years since the disappearance of the ogre that attacked the village of Aragon, where a young witch named Lizzy was raised; and thirteen years since her parents, a woodcutter and a...

By Victor Van Scoit A great comic book let’s your brain relax and enjoy as you take in each page of the story. You’re not trying to figure out which panel to read next, or...

By Nick Eskey Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian born artist of mixed Japanese and Jewish descent. In school she studied literature and writing, later on publishing the book “Cover Me,” as well as graphic novels...

By Bryan Hill I met Joseph Illidge in 2002, before I wrote my first comic book. That year was a lot of me listening to his experience as a writer, filmmaker and comic book editor...

These days, rarely do I look at an illustrator's portfolio and outright gasp.  It's not that I'm necessarily jaded-- I recognize and appreciate all the great art that comics illustrators put out every week.  However,...