Day Two: Small’s STITCHES sews up buzz
We have only a few moments to blog before jaunting off to the Javits…yesterday we got to the show late, had some meetings, roamed the floor a little bit, wrote some stuff, the usual. While the New York Times write up Declining Book Sales Cast Gloom at an Expo does sum up a smaller floor with fewer galleys and so on, there are still tons of great books and people who want to read them. Books aren’t dead yet; they’ve just gone away for a while to figure thing out.
One of the definite buzz books among all segments (not just graphic novels) is David Small’s STITCHES (Norton). Small is a Caldecott Award winning children’s book illustrator, but this graphic memoir reveals a strange childhood in which his radiologist father experimented on him, leading to even more medical problems. There was a long line for Small’s signing at the Norton booth, and everyone who hears about the book wants to read it. Or as GalleyCat raved:
If you haven’t read a graphic novel before, let this be your first. I cannot say enough about this book, which will be released in September and is something to look out for. Highly Recommended. I reluctantly give this novel 5 stars; reluctantly, only because there aren’t 6 stars to give out.
More later!
05/30/09 at 9:07 pm
Read the first chapter while waiting in line (which moved quickly). An interesting story. A bit of a zeitgeist, with Raina Tegelmeier’s Smile and Jeffrey Koterba mining similar veins, but in different decades.
Friday was interesting, although the Marvel signings were disappointing (free comics, no graphic novels). I seduced a children’s librarian, showing her myriad titles in the Diamond aisle (including Toon Books), and introducing her to John S. of Diamond Bookshelf fame.
Huge line for Berke Breathed’s picture book, others quite manageable. First Second had one table signing (their how to draw book…sorry, can’t look it up while on my Palm), DC should have done the same.
Missed Diana Gabaldon (early signing not publicized), disappointed that Neil Gaiman did not publicize his appearance with Jon Sciezca on his blog. Oh well, at least HarperCollins has a PDF galley of his next book.
Also, a bit concerned about publishers having meeting rooms/displays off the floor. I understand the benefits, but it seems a bit egalitarian.
05/31/09 at 9:49 am
“Also, a bit concerned about publishers having meeting rooms/displays off the floor. I understand the benefits, but it seems a bit egalitarian.”
Publishers have *always* had meeting rooms apart from the Book Expo America exhibit hall, recognizing that there’s a lot of nuts-and-bolts business to be done at the show that can’t always be hospitably done alongside everything else going on at an exhibitor booth.
Which makes sense. It’s often awkward to have a substantive and productive meeting with, say, an international bookseller arguing for better terms due to new conditions imposed by his freight forwarder in the same booth space where dozens of people are congregating to get some author’s autograph. If a publisher moves those business meetings to a different (and more private) area, then that actually benefit everybody.
That publishers have off-the-exhibit-floor presence may be more conspicuous now as economic realities impel more publishers decide to minimize their floor presence. But that doesn’t usually mean that they’re moving exciting-stuff-that-used-to-happen-at-the-booth to some restricted, private meeting room. It’s more that publishers are doing fewer exciting booth things at all.
This phenomenon strikes me as many things, but “egalitarian” isn’t quite one of ‘em.
That’s my two cents only, of course, speaking only for me and not any of my publisher employers (past or present)…
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But, as a more general Comics at BEA comment, I’ll mention that I managed to pick of a galley of the upcoming graphic novel LOGICOMIX about mathematician/philosopher Betrand Russell by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie DiDonna, and published by Bloomsbury. It’s a great read thus far, and promises to be a great addition to the comparatively small body of work that is science-themed graphic novels!