Comics Publishers Turn to Discounted Single Issues

DC Comics and Dynamite Entertainment are two publishers that are using the comics shop specialty market to offer specially discounted promotional periodical issues that they hope will appeal to consumers looking for a bit more value for their comics dollar.

A New Century; A New Publisher for Alan Moore’s LOEG

The first two volumes of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, chronicled a world in which characters out of 19th century fiction are real people. In the third volume, they turn to the 20th century.

Panelmania: Far Arden

In his search for the mythic artic paradise Far Arden, Army Shanks fights off numerous obstacles such as the half polar bear man in this preview of Far Arden by Kevin Cannon. The book will be released Top Shelf on May 29th.

Papercutz to Publish Disney Fairies Graphic Novels

Papercutz, a New York City-based graphic novel publisher focused on teen readers, has reached an agreement to produce a series of graphic novels based on Disney Fairies, a series of bestselling prose chapter books drawn from the novels of Gail Carson Levine and constructed around the well-known Disney fairy character Tinker Bell.

The 'Other' Interlink Launches Two Imprints

Interlink Publishing Group is alive, well and expanding, said publicity director Moira Megargee. The highly publicized financial problems of the magazine and book distributor Source Interlink has caused confusion among some accounts of the Northampton, Mass.-based publisher, but while Source Interlink is reorganizing, Interlink Publishing—with no ties at all to the wholesaler—is add...

Fiction Book Reviews: Week of 5/18/2009

Reviewed this week, new novels by Michelle Huneven, Jonathan Tropper, David Liss, Michael Muhammad Knight, Jed Mercurio, Jaqueline Sheehan and more. Mother-son duo Iris and Roy Johansen deliver an action-packed romantic thriller, and a star for Jeremy Duns's debut.

Children's Book Reviews: Week of 5/18/2009

This week's reviews include novels by Robert B. Parker, James Rollins, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, and Jake Wizner, along with round-ups of new pop-up books and picture book sequels.

NEA Selects Copper Canyon to Publish Chinese Anthology

The National Endowment for the Arts has chosen Copper Canyon Press to be the U.S. publisher for its International Literary Exchange with China. The exchanges are designed to help American houses publish and promote contemporary anthologies in translation. Copper Canyon will receive $117,000 to support the translation, publication and promotion of a bilingual anthology of work by about 35 Chinese poets born after 1945.

Q & A with Robert B. Parker

Robert B. Parker’s bestselling novels about his iconic Boston private investigator Spenser have sold millions of copies worldwide. The author moves back in time in Chasing the Bear: A Young Spenser Novel, which stars this character as a 14-year-old living in a small western town with his father and two uncles, due this month from Philomel with a 150,000-copy first printing.

Webcomics, Storytelling and Books from 'Smith' Online Magazine

Launched as a website specializing in “personal passionate storytelling,” the online magazine Smith has managed to become a platform for a series of webcomics based on eccentric and personal narratives.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival Emphasizes the Arts

Cartooning legends from around the world mingled with enthusiastic readers at the fourth Toronto Comics Arts Festival, held May 9-10 at the Toronto Reference Library. The biannual show drew crowds estimated to be in excess of the previous year’s 6,000 attendees, though official numbers will not be available until the end of the week.

A World of Japanese Pop Culture at Japan Society

An exhiibition transforms the Japan Society gallery halls into something like an impromptu Japanese manga café.

McNally Jackson Books: Turn, Turn, Turn

Despite its somewhat old-fashioned imagery—quill pens forming the store logo, a manual Olivetti typewriter on the store’s Web site that links to its blog—McNally Jackson Books in the Nolita section of New York City is hip to the latest bookstore trends.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Rosen Publishing Team to Form New Publishing Initiative

Rosen Publishing Group and Encyclopaedia Britannica have formed Britannica Educational Publishing to develop materials for the K-12 market.

Simon & Schuster Prepares for Last Book in Pendragon Series

S&S's children's division is gearing up for a multi-platform publicity and marketing campaign to coincide with the release of the 10th and final book in D.J. MacHale’s bestselling Pendragon series, The Soldiers of Halla, which goes on sale today.

Episcopal Publisher Halts Trade Acquisitions

Church Publishing is suspending title acquisitions for its Seabury Books trade imprint and cutting staff by 30%.

Comics Briefly

Children's Book Reviews: Week of 5/11/2009

Appearing in this week's reviews: dinosaur/truck hybrids, a magical box, musically-inclined swamp animals, aliens with an appetite for people, a teen trying to hide his superpowers, re-imagined classic Greek myths, a round-up of concept books and more.

Fiction Book Reviews: Week of 5/11/2009

Book reviews of new Fiction, Poetry, Mystery, Science Fiction and Comics. This week, we review the latest from Stephen L. Carter, John Lescroat, Mike Lawson, Louise Dean, Maryann McFadden and others. Get a double dose of Southern charm from Dorothea Benton Frank and Mary Kay Andrews, or a shot of Irish coming-of-age with Irish rock critic Peter Murphy's debut.

Combat Poetry: Swords into Ploughshares—and Paper

Complicity is a theme that runs through all my poems,” says Greg Delanty, an Irish-born poet, recent Guggenheim Fellow and professor at St. Michael's College in Burlington, Vt. “We're involved in things we don't want to be—killing people, hurting people.” So when he saw an exhibit of the Combat Paper Project—a collective of American war veterans— earlier this...