Tag: Graphic Novels

Awards season is barreling along now. And here are the nominees for the LA Times Book Prizes, which added a graphic novel category several years back. It's a prestigious literary prize, and the winners over the years—Duncan the Wonder Dog, Finder, Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life among them—have definitely lived up to the billing. This year's five books chosen include what I would almost call the usual suspects for 2014:

  By Brian Hibbs (Originally published February 2015) “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” For the twelfth (!) year in a row, I’m going to try to figure out something that is hard...

30 years in the making, Scott McCloud's new opus is available on February 3rd through First Second. McCloud was kind enough to sit down with us for a lengthy discussion about the new book, critical expectations, his creative process and how he balances his busy speaking schedule with the creation of a 500-plus page graphic novel.

PW's annual Graphic Novel critics poll, which I oversee, is out. This One Summer was the winner, which is hard to argue with. There's also a list of books of the year selected by the graphic novel reviewers. It's a small group, but they usually get it right. I thought it would be fun to look up past winners. The very first one isn't online, but it's a pretty strong list overall, and clicking the links will immediately take you back to whatever people were talking about in comics that year:

Only two comics made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2014 list, the ubiquitous Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast and Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel by Anya Ulinich....

As a kid, Dover Books was just about my favorite publisher, bringing out fine reprints of sheet music, fairy tales, art and all sorts of other goodies (yeah that's the kind of kid I...

The US branch of the international literary organization PEN America is holding an auction of "Firest EDitions/Second Thoughts" tpo help support its mission of freedom of expression. The auction, to be held at Christies,...

LISTS! Michael Cavna—who will be full time at Comics Riffs next year, hoorah—has his top ten, most of which I expect to see over and over as the best lists roll out: BUMPERHEAD By Gilbert Hernandez...

The post-Guardians partnership between Marvel and Jim Starlin continues with the second original graphic novel in a proposed trilogy about Thanos the purple skinned Mad Titan created by Starlin. THANOS: THE INFINITY RELATIVITY OGN comes out in June. While standalone graphic novels were once rare at Marvel they've gotten into the pool with the Starlin books, and some introductory books aimed at beginning (as in not experts in Marvel continuity) readers. The first book in the trilogy, Thanos: The Infinity Revelation, made the NY Times bestseller list, so it probably did all right.

A graphic novel has become Exhibit A in the latest Obamacare controversy. Clear, simple, understandable, useful - those are just a few of the words that recurred in reviews of Health Care Reform: What It...

Just looking over various "Week in review" posts at various sites it strikes me that today is an amazing day in comics history, with new releases by Jules Feiffer, Farel Dalrymple, Carla Speed McNeil, Lucy...

Celebrating it's 14th year, the National Book Festival moves to the Washington Convention Center this Saturday, offering twelve hours of bibliophila!  (The National Park Service says the hordes of eager readers, some 200,000, was...