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All old blog content will stay here, on the good old typepad blog. All new blog content will be delivered to you at the awesome new blog site going forward.

ALA 2012, Artists Alley: graphic novel folks

Lovely recap from ALA 2012 in Anaheim, filmed by author Derek Kirk Kim! Graphic Novel authors discuss the differences between ALA and comics conventions, and more—here's a great way to get a few flavors from a memorable and exceptional ALA:

 

 

MARATHON sprints out the door!

MARATHON is now out in stores! This extraordinary epic takes you back to Ancient Greece in the footsteps of Eucles, the man who ran hundreds of miles, and eventually from the city of Marathon to Athens, warning of the impending attack of the Persian fleet. The run saved democracy and was at the origin of the Olympic games. History comes alive in a huge, sweeping tale from two great talents: Joe Infurnari on the art, and author Boaz Yakin. A feat at every level and a graphic novel event to celebrate.

And the Spartans aren't really the good guys this time.

(See more here.)

An 'Imprint'? What's That?

(tree ganked from The Field Museum Library)

Sometimes when I tell people that First Second is an imprint of Macmillan USA, I get blank looks -- and that's about the time that I remember that not everyone spends all of their time decoding publishing family trees (that's right!  That tree at the top of the page?  It's a metaphor). 

So there are some publishers that are publishers, right?  Like Oni Press -- pretty much everything they do (edit, market, and design books, but also permissions, subsidiary rights, some sales, etc.) is done by people they have in house.  And all their books are published as Oni Press books.

But then you've got larger publishers, like Harper Collins.  They publish a whole lot of books -- and many of them are markedly different from each other in audience age, subject, tone, format, presentation, etc.  (Here's a list of Harper imprints, fyi.)  So instead of just being like, 'well, all the books we're publishing are by Harper anyways, we'll just give everyone editing things for us one single person to be editorial director in charge of them all,' they said, 'hey, probably the people who want to spend all their time editing bibles will have something different going on than the people who are editing romance novels.  Maybe we should make those two different sub-companies!'  And they did -- Harper Bibles and Avon (I'll leave to you guess which is which.) 

Another reason to make a distinction like this is the history.  Big companies frequently acquire smaller companies.  But the reason that they've acquired the smaller company isn't just that they want to work with people on the staff, or the authors -- it's the ideology.  So keeping that infrastructure in place within the smaller company maintains the sensibility that was initially attractive to them.

So if you look at the structure of a large publishing company, it really does end up looking a whole lot like the tree up top -- companies and sub-companies all around. 

That's what an imprint is -- one of the smaller companies that's under the umbrella of a larger one. 

Practically, what does this mean for First Second? 

We're part of one of the large NY publishing companies called Macmillan.  There are a number of other companies that are part of them, too -- like Tor, St. Martin's, FSG, Henry Holt, Scientific American, Palgrave, Picador, Nature, etc. etc. etc.  Macmillan is responsible for:

The rent on our building.  We work in the flatiron building; it's entirely populated by Macmillan staff.  No one at First Second is responsible for paying the rent every month, making the lights go on, making sure there's toilet paper in the bathrooms, etc.  That's all handled centrally. 

Mail!  We've got a mailroom in the building, and our mail guy comes by three times a day to pick up any mail I've got to send out straight from my desk.  This is a godsend.  Think about doing a 200-copy book mailing and then having to drag it to the post office.  In New York City.  And I don't have a car. 

(Also our computers and our website and our tech support!  Which is extremely helpful.)

More than that, Macmillan is responsible for a number of things that help us to be able to spend our time focusing on publishing books.  There are people at Macmillan who handle (in consultation with us):

Permissions -- dealing with people who want to use pages of our books in articles or textbooks.

Subsidiary Rights -- like selling chapters of our books to magazines or anythologies, or the foreign-language rights, or the film rights.

The Budget -- we've got people to: pay royalties to our authors, handle taxes on our convention sales, project how much money we'll have to acquire new books and spend on marketing in the current year, pay website or ad or book designers, pay our actual taxes every April, etc.

Contracts -- once we've figured out the parameters of a book deal, our contracts people step in make sure that we've got all the appropriate legal language.

Managing Editorial -- our parent company is kind enough to lend us their Managing Editor to deal with our copy-editing and to make sure books get to the right place at the right time -- thanks, Jill!  We couldn't do it without you.

Production -- once we've figured out how we want our books to look, the production group prices out the paper and the cover we want to use, figures out the best printer for the book, and handles the whole process of liasing with them to get the book printed perfectly.

Sales -- we've got in-house and out-of-house sales teams that have personal relationships with the bookstores (and other stores that sell books, like museum stores) all around the country.  They're responsible for getting all of our books into those stores. 

And Macmillan is also a resource if we get a crazy-awesome opportunity and we can't necessarily figure out how to make it happen on our allocated budget.  If we can convince them it'll definitely pay off, they can back our crazy-awesome opportunities.

And that's what it means to be an imprint. 

BABY'S IN BLACK IN ROLLING STONE

Have you seen this? How fitting for the Beatles and the Stones to get together again—

 

THE ULTIMATE BOOTCAMP FOR COMICS CREATORS

Now available everywhere! In their sequel to the groundbreaking textbook Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden pave the way for comics authors to master the medium, as well as the business of publishing comics. 

An invaluable reference for seasoned and aspiring writers, artists, teachers and readers of graphic novel, MASTERING COMICS deepens and expands on Abel and Madden's seminal course, brimming with techniques, insights, expert tips and superb demonstrations.

Explore a whopping treasure trove of goodies and further resources at dw-wp.com.

First Second is very proud to offer MASTERING COMICS for the future of the graphic novel, and for present and future generations of comics creators. 

Feynman - now available as e-book!

Hey guys! As of yesterday, you can buy Feynman at the iTunes book store, to read on your iPad!

Technology! It marches along.

MoCCA Festival 2012

We're there, at table F1, with lots of amazing authors and copies of our new books from our winter season (also pretty amazing, I have to tell you).  How about you?

Here's what we're doing:
(all signings are at our table)

Saturday:
(exhibits 11am - 6pm)

11:15: PANEL: Kids Comics -- with Jorge Aguirre, Giants Beware!
1:15: WORKSHOP: Checklist for a New Comic -- with Matt Madden and Jessica Abel, Mastering Comics
2pm: SIGNING: Jorge Aguirre, Giants Beware!
4pm: SIGNING: Joe Infurnari, Mush!
5pm: SIGNING: Derek Kirk Kim, Same Difference

Sunday:
(exhibits 11am - 6pm)

11am: SIGNING: Dave Roman, Astronaut Academy
11:15: PANEL: Young Adult Graphic Novels -- with Derek Kirk Kim, Same Difference, and sister-company guest-star Kevin Pyle, Take What You Can Carry
1pm: SIGNING: George O'Connor, Hades: Lord of the Dead
3pm: SIGNING: MK Reed, Americus

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Spacegirl Limericks

There once was a girl who had to save the world
After to a strange outerspace planet she was hurled
She tried her best
Her friends did the rest
At the end, the planet still peacefully whirled.

I love this book!  It's just super.  We're publishing a sequel in September, Legends of Zita the Spacegirl.  If you liked the first book, we recommend you check out #2 -- it has a giant cat friend for the giant mouse!  (Also there is a plot, which I will not reveal.)

First Second at TLA

Where in the world is First Second?

We're currently in Houston, setting up for the Texas Library Association show. 

It's my first time at TLA, so I'm very excited to be there, having heard nothing but good things about it.  Now I shall see for myself!

For all you attending TLA, we're bringing author Ben Hatke -- who wrote and illustrated Zita the Spacegirl, and its sequel Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, which (if the gods-of-mailing smile upon us) we shall have a limited number of advance copies of at the show.  Ben is excellent, and he may even do flips upon request!  Also he draws things.

Ben will be speaking at the Friday 8am Texas Maverick program, signing in the autographing area at 10am, and then talking to Texas teenagers after that!

Zita the Spacegirl is a candidate for the very prestigious Texas Bluebonnet Award this year.

We hope to see you in Texas!  We're at booth 1700, exhibiting with our parent company Macmillan.