First Second – the ground breaking, award, shaking graphic novel imprint at Macmillan – is expanding with a sister imprint, 23rd Street Books, it was announced this week.
23rd Street will launch next fall as a home for graphic novels aimed at adults, with First Second founder Mark Siegel serving as Vice President, Executive Editorial & Creative Director for both lines. The list will be about 10-12 titles, joining the 45-50 books First Second puts out annually
First Second has become known for its best selling books aimed at kids, middle grades and YA – the Investigators series alone has sold more than 1.5 million copies. So separating books for adults into their own line is a smart move.
The debut line includes work by First Second regulars Gene Luen Yang and Ben Hatke and a diverse slate: actor/comedian Damon Wayans, Jr.; poet/performer Saul Williams; cartoonists Jesse Lonergan, Anna Meyer, and Laurel and Mia Boulton.
First Second Editorial Director Calista Brill and Creative Director Kirk Benshoff will both work with the new imprint; editor Tess Banta is the first of several new hires. Siegel, Brill, and Benshoff will continue to report to Allison Verost, SVP and publisher of Roaring Brook Press, Farrar Straus & Giroux Books for Young Readers, and First Second Books.
Siegel explained more about the line in an interview with Publishers Weekly, including news that First Second backlist of adult graphic novels like the best selling Adventure Zone series, will move over to 23rd Street.
The move, Siegel said, is less a strategic repositioning of First Second in the marketplace as it is “a flowering of First Second. It’s a sign of success,” he explained. “First Second is adding more specialized attention and expertise and support to its adult program, and distinguishing it—it will become very much its own entity, but they’re still two sides of the same coin.”
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As part of that evolution, First Second will shift its stylistically eclectic, creator-driven program into exclusively publishing graphic novels aimed at children and teenagers. That move too, Siegel explained, was natural.
“First Second’s reputation has really grown its strongest around young readers and YA,” he said. And in pulling the adult backlist from First Second to 23rd Street, “the magic here,” Siegel added, “is that we’re not starting from scratch.”
In her own statement, Verost said “Far more than a publishing catalog, this new imprint is a creative lab, an incubator for the future of the medium. Beyond capitalizing on an existing market, 23rd Street aims to lead it, shape it, and champion its most visionary minds. I’m incredibly excited to launch 23rd Street as a place for creators to take risks and to build upon Macmillan and First Second’s history of publishing groundbreaking and best selling graphic novels.”
Although some of the best selling GNs of all times are books for adults – Persepolis, Maus, Watchmen – they are still sometimes a tough nut to crack in the book publishing world, where kids comics basically sell themselves. The First Second crew helped make the world safe for kids graphic novels…it will be intriguing to see what they do with the resources to put out a line specifically aimed at adults.
