Reviews of graphic novels and illustrated non-fiction, manga, anime, comics.
2008 Graphic Novel Sales Up 5%; Manga Off 17% by Calvin Reid - 02/06/2009
Total graphic novel sales rose 5% in 2008, its slowest growth since 2001, hurt by a 17% decline in manga sales. Overall graphic novels sales in the U.S. and Canada for 2008 were $395 million. More
Back To The Future: Tor.com Buys Book-Size Webcomics to Serialize By Calvin Reid - 11/02/2009
In an unusual acquisition deal, Tor.com, an experimental Macmillan website/publishing venture focused on launching original science fiction, fantasy and comics, has acquired web-only publishing rights to two full-length 192 page graphic novels and will serialize them over 6 months through the Tor.com website.
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Marvel Makes Theirs iPhone by Heidi MacDonald - 11/02/2009 The growing array of comics available for iPhones got a Hulk-sized addition last week when Marvel Comics, the leading US comics publisher, announced deals with four iPhone applications. Comics both recent and classic are now available for download from Comixology, iVerse and Panelfly. Scrollmotion, another leading app for iPhones that distributes books, will also have Marvel Comics available. More
Boom! Studios’ Mark Waid is Unstoppable! By Brigid Alverson - 11/02/2009
Mark Waid started out in the superhero camp, as an editor at DC and then as a freelance writer, shaping such iconic series as The Flash and Captain Marvel. Now, as editor-in-chief of independent comics publisher Boom! Studios, Waid is transforming the paradigm of monthly comics publishing.
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Life in Comics: The End of Adolescence? by Jennifer de Guzman - 11/02/2009
In 2004, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Michael Chabon gave the keynote speech at the Eisner Awards. Speaking about the maturation of the industry, he referred to some of the excesses of the 1990s as comics "adolescence": "An excess of desire to appear grown up is one of the defining characteristics of adolescence. But these follies were the inevitable missteps and overreachings in the course of a campaign that was, in the end, successful."
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Children's Book Reviews: 11/2/2009 11/02/2009
This week's reviews include picture books from Alexandra Day, Peter H. Reynolds, and Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney; starred reviews for new fiction from Katherine Sturtevant and Jean-Claude Mourlevat; comics from Lark Pien and Holly Black; and books to invigorate minds and imaginations.
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Editing R. Crumb’s ‘Genesis Illustrated’ By Calvin Reid - 10/26/2009
W. W. Norton executive editor Robert Weil is best described as an editor’s editor. Which is to say that he publishes books of great intellectual depth and literary substance that also manage to sell quite well. Weil has overseen the publication of Crumb’s new work, The Book of Genesis Illustrated, a dazzling effort by Crumb to transform the words of Genesis into comics.
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