« July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
Worth a look! A totally different take on the BLACK DIAMOND DETECTIVE AGENCY project, in this early pitch based on the same script, from James Sturm and Nick Bertozzi . . . BLACK DIAMOND as you know ended up in Eddie Campbell's hands. And at the moment, both James and Nick are working on other First Second projects too.
Spread the word: the TORONTO COMICS FESTIVAL is the best! Of all the shows we've attended, this has been the friendliest, mellowest and most appealing. The concentration of genuine talent, quality readers and a setting that promotes all kinds of happy encounters make this a must among comics festivals. And we actually sold out our ENTIRE stock on hand. Anyone publishing graphic novels owes it to themselves to put this on their rounds.
Special thanks to Chris Butcher and Peter Birkemoe and Jason Azzopardi of THE BEGUILING — for such a happening happening.
For those of us betting that Grady Klein will be recognized as a major force in graphic novels -- these are days of early confirmation. The first reviews are coming in for The Lost Colony Book 2: THE RED MENACE.
BOOKLIST gave the first round of praise with Francisca Goldsmith's review, and I quote:
[...] Despite the pastel scenery, sometimes blotted with blood or crude song lyrics, this is neither children’s story nor adolescent fantasy. Its ideal reader should have a solid grasp of nineteenth-century American history, including the mythology that inspired double-crossing native peoples and fostered bland naïveté in politically weak frontier towns. Willingness to suspend PC tsk-tsking comes in handy, too, for both enjoying and being horrified by Klein’s skewering reenactment of the bad old days by figures who could have walked out of Saturday-morning TV cartoons.
Then NEWSARAMA kicked in, with Michael May's excellent and thoughtful review of which here is an excerpt:
In the “Snodgrass Conspiracy” review, I briefly compared Klein to Mark Twain. I can’t predict where he’s going with The Lost Colony (though from the “Forthcoming” blurb, it isn’t going to be pretty), but as stylistically different as Klein is from Twain, The Lost Colony has the potential to approach Huckleberry Finn in importance. God, that sounds bold to say, but as I try to get my mind around how The Lost Colony makes me think and feel, I can’t convince myself that it’s an exaggeration.
You know it's true, if you picked up a copy of your own -- but the mighty Elizabeth Bird says it best in a whopping review of Nick Abadzis' LAIKA (in stores this fall) at SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, posted online here...
Here's the first paragraph:
Dead dog books used to be a dime a dozen. Time was a kid couldn’t walk into a bookstore without getting whacked over the head with “Old Yeller”, creamed in the kisser by “Sounder”, and roughed up royally by “Where the Red Fern Grows”. Recently, however, dogs don’t die as often as all that. You could probably concoct some magnificent sociological explanation for this, citing changes in the political and emotional landscape of our great nation leading to the decrease in deceased literary pups, but as I see it, a good dead dog story is as hard to write as an original paper on Moby Dick. What else is there to say? Man’s best friend dies and everyone feels bad. In this jaded culture it would take a pretty steady hand to find a way to write a dead dog tale that touches us deeply. Not a dog person myself, I direct your attention today to Nick Abadzis. I don’t know how he did it. Laika, the world’s most famous real dead dog (a close second: the dead pooch of Pompeii), is now presented to us in a graphic novel format. Though I prefer cats through and through, “Laika” the novel grabs your heart from your chest and proceeds to dance a tarantella on the remains. The best graphic novels are those books whose stories couldn’t have been told any other way. “Laika” has that honor.
Join Sara Varon, Nick Bertozzi, and Doug Wolk for a comics discussion and signing at the Chelsea Barnes & Noble (675 6th Avenue @ 22nd St., NYC) tonight at 7:00pm! Buyers of Robot Dreams will receive cookies in the likeness of the characters in the book, made by Sara Varon herself:
