Live From BEA:
Peter Straub Goes Graphic
By Douglas Wolk -- Publishers Weekly, 6/1/2007 2:32:00 PM
At the Graphic Novel Buzz panel Friday afternoon, moderated by PW Comics Week’s Calvin Reid, several publishers announced upcoming projects for this year and next. Yen Press’s copublishing director (and former Borders manga buyer) Kurt Hassler revealed two of Yen’s first books: With the Light, a Japanese book about a family raising an autistic child, and World of Quest, a children’s graphic novel that will also be an animated series on Kids’ WB this fall. Drawn & Quarterly’s Chris Oliveros announced three new Chris Ware projects: Acme Novelty Datebook, volume 2, and two new self-published Acme Novelty Library books that D&Q will distribute. D&Q will also publish Raymond Briggs’s 1980 graphic novel Gentleman Jim and, eventually, an 800-page autobiographical graphic novel by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Karen Berger of Vertigo and Minx made the first public mention of two newly signed original graphic novels: The Green Woman, written by Peter Straub and Michael Easton, and Aaron and Ahmed, written by novelist Jay Kantor. (In response to an audience question, she let it slip that Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg’s Minx title "The Plain Janes will see a sequel, Janes in Love.
The panel’s manga publishers noted that now that Japanese comics are thoroughly entrenched in the American market, they’re starting to experiment with new formats and trim sizes—"I think the category’s matured to the point where the content can dictate the format," said Tokyopop’s Mike Kiley. Tokyopop will also be publishing an English-language edition of the popular Japanese Gothic Lolita Bible in early 2008, in a "hybrid format."
