The creative team behind Dear Justice League, a forthcoming graphic novel on the DC Zoom imprint, has unveiled their book’s cover, a cute piece with kids writing to the League as the superheros gather around a smartphone to read the correspondence.
Writer Michael Northtrop (TombQuest) took to Twitter today to post the cover, which is by his collaborator Gustavo Duarte (Bizarro, Monsters and Other Stories). Dear Justice League is due out in August, making it one of the first titles on the DC Zoom imprint. DC Zoom is a new line of middle grade graphic novels starring familiar DC superheroes.
The story in Dear Justice League is as simple as it is endearing, featuring members of the Justice League—Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the usuals—taking time away from fisticuffs and cosmic dramatics to answer mail from kids. Questions include things like “Does Superman ever make mistakes?” or “What was Wonder Woman’s eleventh birthday like?” or, perhaps most pressingly, “Does Aquaman smell like fish?”
This book, and the rest of DC Zoom, is part of a larger effort by DC Comics to reach younger readers, thereby cultivating a new generation of fans for their decades-old properties while also fostering literacy. DC Zoom will officially launch in April with the release of Super Sons: The PolarShield Project by writer Ridley Pearson and artist Ile Gonzalez.
More info from the publisher’s full press release about Dear Justice League can be found below:
How do you get kids to read? Give them something they want to read about, like superheroes.
This spring, DC is launching an all-new middle grade graphic novel line, DC Zoom, that will star Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and many more of young fans’ favorite DC Super Heroes.
One of the first titles to debut under DC Zoom is Dear Justice League by New York Times bestselling author Michael Northrop (TombQuest) with art by Gustavo Duarte. This is Northrop’s first graphic novel and today, he and Duarte shared a first-look at the cover.
“In Dear Justice League, I wanted to explore who these DC Super Heroes are behind the masks and answer the kinds of questions kids would have for these larger than life figures,” explained Northrop. “On a personal note, comics helped me become a better reader, a better storyteller and helped me fit in as a kid. Writing about these same characters is a dream come true and feels like coming full circle to where things began for me as a reader. I hope kids enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it and I hope it helps young fans see that everyone is going through something. Even when it seems like someone is perfect or has it made, they’re probably trying to figure it out just like the rest of us.”
“I remember discovering DC characters when I was a kid, watching the Super Friends TV show and reading the comics that my dad used to buy me on Sundays,” recalled Duarte. “To know that a new generation will discover these Super Heroes and Super-Villains with our book, makes me really happy and proud.”
In Dear Justice League, the greatest heroes in the DC universe, the Justice League, find time in between saving the world to answer mail from their biggest fans—kids! Hot button questions like, “Does Superman ever make mistakes?” “What was Wonder Woman’s eleventh birthday like?” “Does Aquaman smell like fish?” will be answered, giving readers the inside scoop into everyday heroics. The Justice League’s honest and humorous answers will surprise and delight fans of any age, as it turns out that being a superhero is not too different from being a kid.
Dear Justice League is now available for pre-order and will hit stores everywhere books are sold on August 6, 2019.
About Michael Northrop:
Michael Northrop is the New York Times bestselling author of Scholastic’s new multi-platform series, TombQuest. His first young adult novel, Gentlemen, earned him a Publishers Weekly Flying Start citation, and his second, Trapped, was an Indie Next List selection. His first middle-grade novel, Plunked, was named one of the best children’s books of the year by the New York Public Library and was selected for NPR’s Backseat Book Club. He is originally from Salisbury, Connecticut, a small town in the foothills of the Berkshire mountains, where he mastered the arts of BB gun shooting, tree climbing, and field goal kicking with only moderate injuries. After graduating from NYU, he worked at Sports Illustrated Kids magazine for 12 years, the last five of those as baseball editor.
About Gustavo Duarte:
Gustavo Duarte is a Brazilian cartoonist, graphic designer and a comics creator and currently resides in São Paulo. For the last 20 years, Duarte’s cartoons and illustrations have been published in some of the most popular publications in Brazil. In 2009, Duarte began publishing his own comics like Monsters!, Có!, Birds and others. In addition to his own works, he has also written and illustrated comics for major publishers including DC (Bizarro) and Marvel (Guardians of the Galaxy and Lockjaw), among others.
About DC Zoom:
DC Zoom is a new middle grade graphic novel line from DC. The line will introduce DC’s most iconic Super Heroes to a new generation of fans with stories told by some of most successful authors from the middle grade publishing space. DC Zoom titles will be standalone stories, not part of DC’s ongoing continuity, and completely accessible to new readers who have no previous knowledge of DC characters. The line will launch in April 2019 with the release of Super Sons: The PolarShield Project by Ridley Pearson with art by Ile Gonzalez.
