An extensive tour for Josh Neufeld’s A.D.: After the Deluge has been announced, and it kicks off this Wednesday in Austin, TX, with a continent-spanning trek to ensue. The complete itinerary is below:

• Wednesday, August 19: I commemorate A.D.’s hardcover release with a presentation and signing in Austin, Texas, @ BookPeople. 603 N. Lamar, Austin, 7pm.
• Thursday, August 20: A.D. presentation & signing @ Domy Books in Houston, Texas. 1709 Westheimer, Houston, 7:00 pm. This event will be taped by Book TV!
• Friday, August 21: A.D. hits New Orleans. Release party with me and some of the book’s subjects, live and in person! Plus an art show, music, and refreshments. The Canary Collective, 329 Julia Street, New Orleans, 6pm.
• Saturday, August 22: Signing @ Maple Street Book Shop, 7523 Maple Street, New Orleans. 1pm.
• Saturday, August 22: Signing @ Octavia Books, 513 Octavia Street, New Orleans. 3:30 pm.
• Sunday, August 23: Signing @ Beth’s Books, 2700 Chartres Street, New Orleans, 1pm.
• Tuesday, August 25: A.D.’s New York release party @ Idlewild Books, co-sponsored by SMITH magazine and Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Live music by Mary McBride, refreshments, and an art auction to benefit New Orleans relief organizations. 12 West 19th St., New York City, 7pm.
• Friday, August 28: A.D. presentation and signing @ The Book Cellar, in Chicago. 4736-38 North Lincoln Ave., Chicago, 7pm.
• Saturday, August 29: Katrina’s fourth anniversary. I will be doing an author coffee @ Writers Workspace Chicago. 5443 N. Broadway St., Chicago, 11am.
• Saturday, August 29: Signing @ Chicago Comics, 3244 N Clark Street, Chicago, 3 pm.
• Tuesday, September 8: Presentation & signing @ Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline, Massachusetts, 7pm.
• Wednesday, September 9: Signing @ Million Year Picnic, 99 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, Mass., 1 pm.
• Wednesday, September 16: Pantheon editor Lisa Weinert, SMITH comics editor Jeff Newelt, and I discuss the evolution of A.D. from web to print. McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince Street, New York City, 7pm.
• September 24: Presentation & signing @ Bergen Street Comics, 470 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, 7pm. 
• September 26–27: A.D. hits D.C. for the annual Small Press Expo (SPX). Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Road, North Bethesda, Maryland.
• October 8–11: I will be a guest of Portland’s Wordstock Literary Festival, “the largest celebration of literature and literacy in the Pacific Northwest.” Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon.
• November 14–15: A.D. heads south again for The Miami Book Fair International.

With the line between trade and public book festivals coming under increasing scrutiny, the New York Comic Con is teaming up with New York City’s biggest book festival to include an even bigger graphic novel presence. There’ll be a performance tent, guest presentations, guest autographing sessions and a dedicated marketplace area, all devoted just to graphic novels, and cartoonists including Matt Madden, Guy Delisle, and Danica Novgorodoff, along with prose authors such as Paul Auster, Naomi Klein, Oliver Sacks, and many more. The Brooklyn Book Festival will be held Sunday, September 13th. PR below.

The renowned Brooklyn Book Festival and New York Comic Con (NYCC) announce that the premiere pop culture convention and its stars will have a powerful presence at this year’s Brooklyn Book Festival, which the L.A. Times has called “the center of the literary universe.” NYCC will have its own colorful and exciting programming area at the free Festival, which draws nearly 30,000 visitors to experience readings and panels featuring international literary superstars, buzzworthy newcomers and more than 150 booksellers, publishers, independent presses and literary organizations in a bustling literary marketplace.

“The Brooklyn Book Festival is an awesome gathering and I have had tremendous respect for the festival from the moment it started,” notes Lance Fensterman, Vice President and Show Manager for New York Comic Con. “We are proud to bring an intense graphic lit and pop culture presence to such a great festival. I am sure this will provide our customers with the opportunity to connect directly with lots of new fans. Plus, it’s all for free! This is a win-win in every respect.”

“These days, Brooklyn is a hotbed of pop culture, high-tech culture, literary and blog culture, ethnic culture, indie culture, and has basically become an international hub for in-your-face creativity,” says Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. “It’s only fitting that the Brooklyn Book Festival would form a dynamic duo with New York Comic Con!”

NYCC’s programming area at the Brooklyn Book Festival will include a performance tent, guest presentations, guest autographing sessions and a dedicated marketplace area. NYCC’s participation will be a positive way to spread further awareness of comics and graphic literature while providing free interaction and entertainment for thousands of NYCC fans. The next NYCC will take place October 8 – 10, 2010 at the Jacob K. Javits Center. Ranked by Crain’s New York Business as the second-largest annual event in NYC, it has grown from a convention that attracted 33,000 visitors when it was launched in 2006 to a show that will occupy the entire Javits Center and will attract well over 75,000 fans in 2010. For comics exhibitors and vendors, the NYCC programming area will provide a unique opportunity for them to not only have a home that attracts like-minded customers and fans, but to have a central location where new fans and readers can check out the latest in comics and pop culture entertainment. Comic book writer and editor Denny O’Neil, creator Phil Jimenez, and writer and editor Tom DeFalco are just a few of the many popular guests who will appear in the NYCC programming area. In addition to guest speakers, NYCC’s diverse Brooklyn Book Festival programming includes Hip Hop Hearts Anime, a live-performance featuring local DJs which focuses on the intermixing of American hip hop culture and Japanese anime. Some of the companies who will be participating include Captain Action, Midtown Comics, Moonstone Publishing, and Disney Publishing. An additional announcement with more guest names and participating companies will be made in the near future.

This year’s Brooklyn Book Festival will again feature a literary marketplace with more than 150 booksellers, publishers and literary organizations in Borough Hall Plaza as well as panel discussions and readings, a children’s authors stage and special programming for teens and exhibitors that will include bookstores, publishers and literary organizations. Readings are held at Brooklyn Borough Hall, in Borough Hall Plaza and Columbus Park, at St. Francis College and the Brooklyn Historical Society.

Confirmed authors include Jonathan Ames, Paul Auster, Staceyann Chin, Guy Delisle, Lupe Fiasco, Edwidge Danticat, Rawi Hage, Tao Lin, Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, David Lida, Matt Madden, Thurston Moore, Gary Shteyngart, Melvin Van Peebles, Sherman Alexie, M.T. Anderson, Naomi Klein, Danica Novgorodoff, Esmeralda Santiago, George O’Connor, Raina Telgemeier, Jessica Abel, Nick Bruel, Peter and Randall de Seve, Christopher Myers, Tom Tomorrow, Mo Willems, Russell Banks, Kate DiCamillo, Cynthia Ozick, Anne Carson, A.M. Homes, David Cross, Mary Gaitskill, Oliver Sacks, Nelson George, Amy Sohn, Jeffrey Rotter, Keith Gessen, Greg Milner, Francine Prose, and more.

Programming will include fiction, nonfiction and poetry panels on hot topics such as: “The International Graphic Novel,” featuring Guy Delisle (The Burma Chronicles), Peter Kuper (Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico), and Sarah Glidden (How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less), moderated by Matt Madden; “The Great Recession” (featuring Justin Fox, Naomi Klein, Kai Wright and moderator Errol Louis of the New York Daily News); “The Naked City: Urban Realism and the Global City in Fiction & Non-Fiction” (featuring David Lida, Meera Nair, Hirsh Sawhney and moderator Cheryl Harris Sharman; “Literature in a Digital Age” (John Freeman, Dwight Garner, Sarah Schmelling); “Poetry, Pop and Hip-Hop” (Lupe Fiasco, Thurston Moore, Tracie Morris, Matthew Zapruder and moderator Touré); and “PSA Presents” (a reading by the nation’s oldest poetry organization, featuring some of the country’s best bards, including Anne Carson, Sonia Sanchez, Philip Schultz, Arthur Sze and Alice Quinn).

BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL

The 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival is presented by Brooklyn Tourism and the Brooklyn Literary Council, initiatives of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Sponsors include the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation; the NYC & Company Foundation; New York Comic Con; Astoria Federal Savings; Citi; Boar’s Head Provisions; the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge; and Time Out New York, media sponsor again this year. Cultural partners are BAM; the Brooklyn Historical Society; Brooklyn Public Library; and the National Book Foundation. Programming partners include Housing Works Bookstore Café; PEN American Center; Poetry Society of America; The New York Review of Books; St. Francis College; and The Nation. For more information about the Brooklyn Book Festival, visit www.visitbrooklyn.org or check out the official Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Brooklyn-Book-Festival-Official-Site/20650359836. On Twitter, follow the Brooklyn Book Festival at bkbf.

Just received a galley of this.

The fascinating life, work, and legacy of the reclusive creator behind the beloved Calvin and Hobbes comic strip

For ten years, between 1985 and 1995, Calvin and Hobbes was one of the world’s most beloved comic strips. And then, on the last day of 1995, the strip ended. Its mercurial and reclusive creator, Bill Watterson, not only finished the strip but withdrew entirely from public life. There is no merchandising associated with Calvin and Hobbes: no movie franchise; no plush toys; no coffee mugs; no t-shirts (except a handful of illegal ones). There is only the strip itself, and the books in which it has been compiled - including The Complete Calvin and Hobbes: the heaviest book ever to hit the New York Times bestseller list.

In Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip, writer Nevin Martell traces the life and career of the extraordinary, influential, and intensely private man behind Calvin and Hobbes. With input from a wide range of artists and writers (including Dave Barry, Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Lethem, and Brad Bird) as well as some of Watterson’s closest friends and professional colleagues, this is as close as we’re ever likely to get to one of America’s most ingenious and intriguing figures - and a fascinating detective story, at the same time.

Only 3,160 Calvin & Hobbes strips were ever produced, but Watterson has left behind an impressive legacy. Calvin & Hobbes references litter the pop culture landscape and his fans are as varied as they are numerable. Looking for Calvin and Hobbes is an affectionate and revealing book about uncovering the story behind this most uncommon trio – a man, a boy, and his tiger.

Should be interesting.

Over at her blog, Delia Sherman has listed the World Fantasy Award nominations and not only is Neil Gaiman up for two (For The Graveyard Book and Odd and the Frost Giants but Shaun Tan was nominated for two — one for Best Artist and one for Tales from Outer Suburbia in the Best Collection category. Congrats to all the nominees.

BEST NOVEL
The House of the Stag, Kage Baker (Tor)
The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury)
Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Knopf)

BEST NOVELLA
“Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel”, Peter S. Beagle (Strange Roads)
“If Angels Fight”, Richard Bowes (F&SF 2/08)
“The Overseer”, Albert Cowdrey (F&SF 3/08)
“Odd and the Frost Giants”, Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury; HarperCollins)
“Good Boy”, Nisi Shawl (Filter House)

BEST SHORT STORY
“Caverns of Mystery”, Kage Baker (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy)
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 7/08)
“Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF 1/08)
“Our Man in the Sudan”, Sarah Pinborough (The Second Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories)
“A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica”, Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 5/08)

BEST ANTHOLOGY
The Living Dead, John Joseph Adams, ed. (Night Shade Books)
The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Del Rey)
The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008: Twenty-First Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, & Gavin J. Grant, eds. (St. Martin’s)
Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, Ekaterina Sedia, ed. (Senses Five Press)
Steampunk, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Tachyon Publications)

BEST COLLECTION
Strange Roads, Peter S. Beagle (DreamHaven Books)
The Drowned Life, Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial)
Pretty Monsters, Kelly Link (Viking)
Filter House, Nisi Shawl (Aqueduct Press)
Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun Tan
(Allen & Unwin; Scholastic ‘09)

BEST ARTIST
Kinuko Y. Craft
Janet Chui
Stephan Martinière
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

SPECIAL AWARD, PROFESSIONAL
Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant (for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House)
Farah Mendlesohn (for The Rhetorics of Fantasy)
Stephen H. Segal & Ann VanderMeer (for Weird Tales)
Jerad Walters (for A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft)
Jacob Weisman (for Tachyon Publications)

SPECIAL AWARD, NON-PROFESSIONAL
Edith L. Crowe (for her work with The Mythopoeic Society)
John Klima (for Electric Velocipede)
Elise Matthesen (for setting out to inspire and for serving as inspiration for works of poetry, fantasy, and SF over the last decade through her jewelry-making and her “artist’s challenges.”)
Sean Wallace, Neil Clarke, & Nick Mamatas (for Clarkesworld)
Michael Walsh (for Howard Waldrop collections from Old Earth Books)

The cover to Hope Larson’s next graphic novel is now up at Amazon. We want.

While you can find complete details on Titan Books @ Comic Con here, here’s a short version:

ON TITAN’S BOOTH 5337…
• Roman Dirge signing brand new Lenore comics – Friday 3pm and Saturday 1pm
• The Best of Simon and Kirby and exclusive lithographs, signed by Joe Simon!
• Exclusive samplers of Titan’s huge Fall release Shootin’ the Sh*t With Kevin Smith: The Best of the SModcast!
• Free bookmarks for Kick-Ass, Tank Girl and Nemi!
• Watching the Watchmen signed by Dave Gibbons!
• Ghost Whisperer Spirit Guide signed by cast and crew!
• Copies of Nemi volumes 1 and 2, signed by Lise Myhre!

Book publisher Abrams ComicArts highlights Denis Kitchen, Craig Yoe, Lela Lee, Brom, and others.
 

This year ABRAMS will have a strong presence once again at San Diego Comic-Con, just one year after launching the new Abrams ComicArts imprint. Critically acclaimed books such as Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle’s The Art of Harvey Kurtzman, Craig Yoe’s Secret Identity, Denis Kitchen and James Danky’s Underground Classics, and Brian Fies’s Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? have made this year a resounding success. ABRAMS continues to support its growth in the medium of comic arts.
 
Still to come this fall on the Abrams ComicArts list are The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly; Manga Kamishibai, by Eric P. Nash; Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, by Reinhard Kleist; Dread & Superficiality: Woody Allen as Comic Strip, by Stuart Hample; and, just in time for the release of the Astro Boy movie, The Art of Osamu Tezuka, by Helen McCarthy.  Other ABRAMS books of interest are:  The Art of James Cameron’s Avatar, Alan Moore’s 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, Star Wars 1,000 Collectibles, by Stephen J. Sansweet, and Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel, by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett. These upcoming books will be represented at the ABRAMS booth (#1216).
 
Abrams ComicArts will host several in-booth signings, and has organized panels for this year’s show. Check the attached schedules for dates and times of signings with Denis Kitchen, James Danky, Lela Lee, Craig Yoe, and Brom.  The ComicArts panels will cover the topics of Underground Comix and Harvey Kurtzman/MAD Magazine. Additionally, Craig Yoe will be on a panel about “The (Strange) State of Siegel and Shuster Scholarship” and Abrams ComicArts Executive Editor Charles Kochman will moderate a panel on Will Eisner’s New York.
 
Each day the ComicArts booth will raffle off one copy of Alan Moore’s new book, 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, due out this fall.  This illustrated volume is a look at erotic art through the ages. Other raffles and give-aways include Diary of a Wimpy Kid bookmarks, The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics posters, Manga Kamishibai jacket posters, galleys for Michael Buckley’s NERDS, a raffle for a signed Boilerplate print, and more.
 

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We attended the David Mazzucchelli/Dan Nadel conversation last night at MoCCA and the place was SRO (We mean it, even the book’s editor, Chip Kidd, had to stand in the back of the room) and the audience was chock-a-block full of present and former Mazzucchelli students, aka present and future cartooning stars. We were going to type up a few notes, but INCREDIBLY, Squally Showers has typed up THE WHOLE THING, in record time. [Link via Journalista]

The whole conversation is of great interest, but we were particularly struck by Mazzucchelli’s description of how when he drew something he didn’t like he would draw another one right next to it, and then just Photoshop in the right one.

The at show currently up at MoCCA is probably the best show ever at the museum, and easily one of the finest cartoonist’s retrospectives we’ve ever seen and if you live anywhere near New York and like comics or art or both you owe it to yourself to see it. The show closes at the end of August but may have an extension.

Anyway, looking at the art from POLYP on the walls it was fascinating to see where Mazzucchelli had rejected an element — perhaps just the number 7 or a bit of lettering — and redone them. Why these choices? The originals looked unflawed to our untrained eye, but it’s that level of perfectionism that makes POLYP a book deserving of much study and enjoyment. And the “doubles” flawed and unflawed, consciously or not, also reflect the book’s themes of duality and twins.

How much study is POLYP deserving of? Why…this much. A blogger at Stumptown Notes has gone through the entire book in the following fashion:

As Mazzucchelli does a great job of explaining several points along the way, I am limiting my notes to places where he has not explained what is happening on the page.

Page 3, Panel 1. Exterior of Asterios Polyp’s apartment. It is important to note the symmetry of both the apartment building and the lit windows.

Page 3, Panel 2. Interior of the apartment of Asterios Polyp. This panel will be repeated often throughout the book. It is important to note how this apartment looks now to compare it to the view of the apartment later in the book.

The book is endlessly open to such analysis, but we suggest reading it first, then checking the annotations to see what you missed. The story is too rich to be slowed down by analysis on first reading.

FINALLY, POLYP also comes in second on this week’s GN Bestsellers list at the Times.

Technorati Tags: David Mazzucchelli

Tor has a LOT of stuff going on, and lots of giveaways. You can see their complete press release here. Some highlights:

Tor Books, the largest publisher of science fiction in the world, is pleased to announce its participation at Comic-Con 2009 featuring Brian Herbert as guest of honor! Frank Herbert’s Dune is arguably one of the most influential novels in science fiction. This enduring franchise masterfully reinvents itself through the works of Herbert’s son, Brian Herbert, and fellow New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson. Look for Herbert and Anderson at the following panels:

Thursday, July 23rd

    * 3pm “Spotlight on Brian Herbert” Room 2
    * 4pm Book signing in the autographing area (1 hour)

Friday, July 24th

    * 3pm “Spotlight on Kevin J. Anderson ” Room 2
    * 3:30pm “Care and Feeding of a Series” with Brian Herbert
    * 4:30 pm Book signing in the autographing area (1 hour)

Saturday, July 25th

    * 11am Dune Panel w/ Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson Room 7AB
    * 12pm Book signing in the autographing area (1 hour)

Stop by the Tor Booth (#2649) and pick up a free Winds of Dune slingsack while supplies last!

Free TALISMAN #0 highlights the giveaways at the Del Rey booth

Del Rey Comics debuts with the epic saga of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman, an adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel. Issue 0, a never-before-told prequel to the story, to be published by Del Rey Comics this Fall. The Talisman novel, originally published in 1984, is the story of a young teen named Jack Sawyer, who can save his dying mother only by retrieving a magical talisman. To find it he must cross back and forth between our world and the frightening and dangerous landscape of its “twinner” counterpart. Issue 0 explores the separate lives of Jack’s father—in our world, and the mysterious realm known as the Territories—and how evil scheming will forever change Jack’s peaceful life. The series is being adapted by Robin Furth and illustrated by Tony Shasteen. The Talisman Issue 0 will be available in comic book stores everywhere on October 21, 2009.

A limited, black-and-white convention edition of Issue 0 will be available for free exclusively at this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego, taking place July 22-26. The special issue will be distributed by  Del Rey at Booth #1129.

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The how-to book line will have its usual bevy of activity:

Impact Books, the how-to write and draw comics, graphic novels, manga and fantasy publisher, will once again be at San Diego Comic Con International with the popular Impact University panel, author signings, contests, and giveaways.  The booth number is #1415.

Impact holds its now famous panel, Impact University:  How to Write and Draw Comics, Graphic Novels and Fantasy, on Friday, at 3:00 p.m., in Room 30CDE.  Panelists include Peter David (X-Factor), Andy Schmidt (former Marvel and current IDW editor), Scott Tipton (Comics 101 website editor), Tom Nguyen (Final Crisis), Chris Ryall (IDW publisher), Maggie Thompson (Comics Buyer’s Guide editor) and Brian Miller (owner of Hi-Fi Color studios).  Attendees can get tips from the pros on how to break into the comics field and how to improve their work.  This panel is always filled to capacity, so interested attendees are encouraged to arrive early.

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EW’s new book blog, SHELF LIFE, has the news that TWILIGHT, the insanely popular vampire series, is being adapted into a graphic novel. The book will be published through Yen Press, and Young Kim is the artist — with much input from author Stephanie Meyer.
This week’s EW will have exclusive excerpts of the comic. With Harry Potter author JK Rowling eschewing any spinoff media adaptations (except movies, video games and so on), TWILIGHT was next on the list of giant literary franchises ripe for GN expansion. With the manga style so popular with the target audience, this is a huge get for Yen.

What do you think? Will Twilight fans ruin comics the way they are ruining Comic-con?

Today is a pretty epic Wednesday at the comics shops, not just because of WEDNESDAY COMICS, but because of the debut of one of the most eagerly awaited graphic novels of recent times, David Mazzucchelli’s ASTERIOS POLYP. Over a decade in the making, and crafted with attention to every detail by one of the medium’s most nuanced storytellers, it’s a book that not only invites this level of scrutiny but lives up to it…and delivers more than you expected. Mazzucchelli has decided not to do any press for the book, preferring to let his work speak for itself…and it speaks eloquently. The reviews are already raving; here’s a few to get you started:
Paul Gravett: This is probably the single must-read on the book, with a history of Mazzucchelli’s comics and Gravett’s usual insightful analysis.

From the advance colour photocopies I’ve been privileged to read, Mazzucchelli has really thrown down the gauntlet here and produced something extraordinary, something which he wants readers to come to as fresh and unprepared as possible. 

Eight Page excerpt from Vulture

Timothy Callahan

Dan Kois’ rave in New York Magazine:

What’s best about Asterios Polyp is that it succeeds so wildly at being what it is: a great graphic novel. Mazzucchelli doesn’t seem worried about competing with “real” literature. Nor does the book read, as so many contemporary graphic novels do, like a treatment for a future movie deal. Mazzucchelli is still a cartoonist’s cartoonist, and Asterios Polyp—maybe even more than its predecessor—is a cartoonist’s cartoonist’s masterpiece.

Sean Howe in Entertainment Weekly
Sean T. Collins at The Savage Critic

The other morning, we linked to a Variety report on the option of a yet-unpublished graphic novel called 7th SON. Writer J.C. Hutchins wrote in to explain that is not quite the origin of the source material:

I wanted to let you know that the Variety article you cited was inaccurate in stating that 7th Son was a graphic novel series. It was actually a free “podcast novel” series — free serialized audiobooks that I released in 2006-07. Each week, listeners would receive a new chapter of the audiobook, narrated by me. A pretty cool way to build a fan base, which helped seal the print novel deal for this fall, and the option/development deal with WB.

Hutchins also mentioned that his debut print novel, Personal Effects: Dark Art, has just been published, and he described it as a “transmedia novel:”

Accompanying each copy of the book are more than a dozen tangible “personal effects” items, such as IDs, photos, legal documents and credit cards. These items are referenced in the novel (presented a first-person quasi “case file” presentation) as evidence. When readers combine clues in the novel with clues in these tangible “personal effects,” they are propelled into a story-enhancing narrative told online, via phone and email.

Which certainly sounds immersive if nothing else. We’re not familiar with Hutchins work (yet) but it sounds as if he’s taking advantage of all the media opportunities available to explore new ways of storytelling.

Del Rey has announced that Massimo Carnevale will be the cover artist of THE TALISMAN, their adaptation of the Stephen King/Peter Straub novel. A #0 issue will be released at San Diego.

The epic saga of The Talisman debuts with Issue 0, a never-before-told prequel to the story, to be published by Del Rey Comics this Fall. The Talisman novel, originally published in 1984, is the story of a young teen named Jack Sawyer, who can save his dying mother only by retrieving a magical talisman. To find it he must cross back and forth between our world and the frightening and dangerous landscape of its “twinner” counterpart. Issue 0 explores the separate lives of Jack’s father—in our world, and the mysterious realm known as the Territories—and how evil scheming will forever change Jack’s peaceful life. The series is being adapted by Robin Furth and illustrated by Tony Shasteen. The Talisman Issue 0 will be available in comic book stores everywhere on October 21, 2009.

A limited, black-and-white convention edition of Issue 0 will be available for free exclusively at this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego, taking place July 22-26. The special issue will be distributed by Del Rey at Booth #1129.

Raina Telgemeier reveals the cover for SMILE! her webcomic of dental drama. Deets:

Current street date is the beginning of February, 2010. It’ll clock in at 224 full-color pages. My production schedule takes me through the end of this month, so I’ll have my nose to the grindstone for the next 3 weeks–see you in July!

D&Q’s Peggy Burns posts a different view of BEA while explaining why they DIDN’T attend. The money spent on a booth could be better spent elsewhere (like on an ad in this week’s Fiction issue of The New Yorker.) Burns also seems to be firmly in the “moving towards a consumer show” camp:

A few years ago, my mother met me in Washington DC while I attended BEA. An avid book club devotee and voracious reader, she was floored and even a little bit peeved that here is a huge event with all of the authors she loved, countless new authors she could discover and she had never heard of or known of BEA, and wasn’t even allowed in, as a general customer. Or as she said a book club member. She’s got a point. If BEA did regional consumer book fairs like they are doing with Comicons, they would be reaching the very element left out of BEA…the customer. It may make BEA marketing dollars vital again, in helping publishers not just reach accounts, but actual customers. Similar to the growing strength of regional comic books shows or the crowds who show up to PEN,IFOA and the New Yorker Festival, this may be the future of books shows.

Above: Dan Clowes’s cover for this week’s New Yorker.

While the Norton booth was hyping the fall release of R. Crumb’s adaptation of the Book of Genesis with a big poster, and editor Robert Weil had a copy, he refused to show it to anyone in the press, citing an embargo until today’s New Yorker.

As a long time loyal New Yorker subscriber, we can tell you that there is indeed an 11-page excerpt from GENESIS in this week’s New Yorker. We won’t spoil things (and it’s sure to be scanned soon anyway) but here’s a one-panel teaser. The rest of it is just as fantastically amazing. Based on this excerpt, it’s a fitting capstone to Crumb’s great career.

Meanwhile, you CAN read online a story about Peter Poplaski and the making of the book:

Peter Poplaski lives in the same medieval village in the south of France as Robert Crumb, and when Crumb began work on “The Book of Genesis” (his unabridged illustrated version of the first book of the Bible), Poplaski brought over his copy of D. W. Griffith’s 1916 silent film “Intolerance.” Crumb was so impressed with its colossal Babylonian gates and attack scenes, he wished aloud for film stills he could reference.

“So I offered to help Robert build a photo morgue,” said Poplaski. “When I was eleven, I used to take pictures of Superman on T.V. My father had a camera you could stop at 1/24 of a second, and I would take pictures of George Reeves crashing through windows.”

Technorati Tags: Genesis, R. Crumb

I’m working on a focused BEA wrap-up for PW Comics Week, so I’ll post some of my more random thoughts here.

• I twittered that it was a “good show”, although that’s a hugely subjective analysis, and many would disagree. Most BookExpo vets thought the show was down and slow, with anxiety, layoffs and giant Kindles haunting everyone’s steps. When I said good show, I meant, selfishly, that *I* had a good show, but I think graphic novels had a great show, too. Business — as defined by meetings and enthusiasm, at least– was UP at some publishers, and the mainstreaming of graphic novels is utterly complete. As mentioned several times, David Small’s graphic memoir, STITCHES, was one of THE big books at the show, and no one had to explain or apologize for it being told in “comics’ format.

Of course, a lot of people were still caught up in the general gloom and doom. The meteor of electronic distribution has crash-landed, and the dinosaurs are wandering through a dust-choked world, trying to see their way clear. Part of the problem is that BookExpo itself is a big lumbering dinosaur, like many trade shows in the new business model. The call to make it a consumer show is strong. Richard Nash, formerly of Soft Skull, and now launching Round Table, a new interactive, social media kind of publishing venture, blogged about this — he seems to have left out a word or two, but I made a guess as to what it was:

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Despite all the talk of there being no galleys at BookExpo last week, we still found ourselves dragging big loads of books all over the place. How does that happen? Anyhoo, we’re sort of in recovery today, even whilst girding up for MoCCA Fest later this week. We’re sure to have missed some things we shouldn’t have, so feel free to alert us via the old email link.

Remember to send your MoCCA News if you haven’t already and remember to put MoCCA in the title, because we ARE brain dead.

Not comics: we took time out from BEA shenanigans to check out the last weekend of theJenny Holzer PROTECT PROTECT exhibit at the Whitney and it was amazing. Not that you can actually describe the experience of a room full of 48-foot long LEDs. Like James Turrell, Holzer must be experienced first hand. The show was grimly political with paintings of redacted US government documents revealing all sorts of soul-crushing, violent events from the Iraq War. But there was also great beauty.

Of course, being nerds, we pondered for a moment whether Holzer’s words-as-art has any relationship to comics. Maybe it’s the polar opposite of comics…they resist sequentiality, existing only experientially. Yet, as visually stunning as her installations are, they cannot be fully perceived without the words. Thought provoking, challenging, beautiful, like great art should be.

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!

In writing a story such as the one we just linked to, one always awaits, cringing, the comments and emails on who you left off. One comment left in the section reminds us that Last Gasp, one of the founding fathers, and continued crusaders for GNs, will be at the show. Owner Ron Turner writes:

Last Gasp will be there as well, in two booths. We will show our usually lines of distributed graphic novels and pop surrealist artists. This is our 39th year and we have been attending since 1975 continuously. So, come and see us at booth(s)4651, where we will be able to sell you the titles that are not on the floor as well as our own lovely bunch of coconuts. Maybe someday PW will include us in the categories we helped invent.

Apologies all around.

§ For everyone asking us what is happening in GN-related events at this week’s BookExpo America, Calvin Reid and myself put together a big roundup of who, what, and (sometimes) why not for this week’s PW Comics Week. The show runs from tomorrow, May 28 through Sunday; Thursday is all panels, and the exhibition floor opens Friday. We’ll be on the floor from Friday on.

§ In what is sure to be a hot topic on the show floor, Jim Milliot reports that Borders sales have fallen 12 percent in Q1 2009..

Sales at the superstores, which now includes Borders.com, fell 10.7%, to $536.7 million with comp sales off 13.5%. Sales at the Waldenbooks specialty group fell 19.9%, to $76.9 million, due to a combination of 11 store closures and a 5.5% drop in same store sales. A series of one-time expenses ate into the company’s bottomline resulting in a loss from continuing operations of $86 million compared to a loss of $30.1 million in last year’s first quarter. On an operating basis, the loss was $15.9 million down from $30.5 million in the comparable period in 2008.

The story also mentions continued reductions in inventory (part of what hit publishers, particularly manga publishers, last year) and the need to become “better booksellers.” Space freed up by removing CDs and DVDs wil be be used, partially, to expand the kids’ books section.

Hey kids, next week is BookExpo America, the big book show of the year. As we’ve been reporting, there will be a diminished presence by many former floor-hogs, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still going to be a busy, newsworthy show, and there will be much graphic-novel related activity. If you have some activity to promote, let us know! Please put BEA in subject line, so it gets properly filed.

The very next week is the annual MoCCA Festival. As many of our correspondents have been noting, information on the show at the MoCCA website is somewhat….sparse at the moment, with a list of last year’s exhibitors as a highlight. In fact, most of the public information about the show has been gleaned from the poster we previewed here a few weeks back. However, based on our email and conversations, there will be a ton of folks there, and a ton of books. So let’s get those MoCCA debuts rolling, shall we? Email blast us with art and info, but make sure you put MoCCA in the subject line.

Alt.cartoonist/illustrator M. Wartella kindly sent along a copy of his wraparound cover for FOUND Magazine’s new literary anthology Requiem For A Paper Bag edited by Davy Rothbart and featuring personal essays by Seth Rogen, Miranda July, Sarah Vowell, Devendra Banhart, Andrew Bird, Dave Eggers, and many, many more. If you look closely on the cover (click for a larger version) you’ll find a few cartoon names, as well. The book is on sale this week. More here.