Tag: Books

Okay not really. It's just that Stephen King has just announcedthe looooong awaited sequel to The Shining and it's called Doctor Sleep. It follows the grown-up adventures of Danny Torrance, the "redrum" lad of the original, who is now a middle-aged cat man.

New Yorkers who are are still in withdrawal from the amazing SPX just concluded, rejoice—this weekend's Brooklyn Book Festival features a full line-up of comics programming, and some comics-focused programs during the week that will keep you in comics nirvana. The festival takes place all day Sunday, September 23rd, but there are satellite events listed below.

Via PR, Penguin, which has been dabbling in the graphic novel field for quite a while, has finally announced its own Ink Lit line, to be headed by former DC and Yen publishing exec (and Beat contributor) Rich Johnson. In line with what has generally sold best in recent bookstore sales, the line will focus on adaptations of existing work by established SF and genre authors. The line launches next month with Alpha and Omega: Volume 1 by Patricia Briggs and Todd Herman, adapting the first book in Briggs' Alpha and Omega series. Future contributors include Charlaine Harris, Chris Golden, Don Kramer, Laurell K. Hamilton, Karin Slaughter and Sage Stossel, who will be writing an original graphic novel.

The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia a Dark Horse-published compilation of notes, artwork and even a comic about the Nintendo classic, which hasn't even been released yet has, for the moment anyway, displaced the juggernaut 50 Shades of Grey atop Amazon's bestseller list.

A trio of stories on digital from Publishers Weekly that illuminate book demographics and strategies: § Jim Milliot surveys a recent report from Bowker and notes that digital book prices are falling, but Gen Y has overtaken the Boomers as the biggest book consumers:

Yes, there is. And Power Man is on the cover.

Disclosure: Author Sean Howe interviewed me for this; and he interviewed everyone else. Coming from Harper in October:

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.

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.

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: