David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp took the first graphic-novel prize in the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes this weekend. It's a well-deserved honor, of course, and made even more important because it's the very first time a major book prize has recognized a category for graphic novels. Asterios Polyp is such a wonderful piece of art, and a novel that will resonate with readers for so many years to come, that I'm glad it's getting this major attention. What a fitting recognition for this book.

Read more »

The week of April 5, 2010, marks the two-year anniversary of Toon Books, the little company that could. It’s the brainchild of Francoise Mouly, art editor for The New Yorker and the wife of comics legend Art Spiegelman. The past few months have seen a significant leap forward for the publisher, with their Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! winning the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award from the American Library Association this past January, and Jeff Smith’s Little Mouse Gets Ready earning an Honor mention.

Read more »

The annual Texas Library Association conference will be held April 14–17 in San Antonio. This year also marks the first that the TLA has completed its Maverick (actually announced at the end of 2009). Given both events, we wanted to address how TLA is promoting comics and graphic novels. Three librarians associated with TLA’s Maverick committee banded together to answer our questions: Alicia Holston (Farmers Branch Manske Public Library), WyLaina Hildreth (Denton Public Library), and Tuan Nguyen (Mackin Library Media).

Read more »

Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 (the first appearances of Superman and Batman, respectively) have been in the news a lot the past few months. Both are rare comics, with only a relative handful still in existence and even fewer in close to pristine quality. And both have sold at auction for record prices. Last month, a copy of Action sold for $1 million. But an even better looking copy of the issue has just gone for $1.5 million on the auction site comicconnect.com. It goes without saying that it's a record.

Read more »

I was sitting in a beautiful hotel conference room when I heard the news that comics legend Dick Giordano had passed away today at the age of 77. Dick was a wonderful artist, creator, and leader at DC Comics and elsewhere throughout the industry, and he was, by all accounts, a truly gracious and wonderful man. I’m in San Diego taking part in the Eisner Award judging process, along with some really amazing comics fans.

Read more »

Carol’s a huge fan of the Wimpy Kid books, so I was hoping she and I would both be able to attend the special preview of the movie held last Thursday night in Times Square in New York. Unfortunately, she’s traveling to the West Coast on business, so I was on my own for the movie. It might have been a good thing, because I ended up enjoying myself immensely and laughing hysterically.

Read more »

As comics reach an ever-growing audience—and as styles from around the world, like manga and manhua, permeate the American marketplace and help shatter cultural boundaries—it seemed like an important time to look at where comics have come from and where they’re going, in terms of diversity. It seemed a perfect time to open a dialogue, even a small one, dealing with issues related to race in comics, specifically how comics appealed, portrayed, and were created by the black community.

Read more »

It’s been 30 years since the Los Angeles Times began hosting their own set of awards, and 14 since the advent of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. This year, both take an important step forward in terms of comics and graphic-novel coverage.

Read more »

Our good friend Peter Gutierrez, writer and reviewer and graphic novel columnist, is putting on a great new panel this coming Tuesday, March 9, for the New York Center for Independent Publishing. The panel, "New York, the Super City," will focus on how New York City inspired some of the greatest comics writers and artists in their efforts to create some of the best comics characters of all time. That includes Batman's hometown of Gotham City, Superman's Metropolis, Will Eisner's take on The Spirit, the web-swinging adventures of Spider-Man.

Read more »

Nonprofit group Reading With Pictures is going to be raising some funds for its charitable endeavours through the release of an exciting new comics anthology. The anthology will feature stories from 50 top comics creators (some of the names involved include Jim Gownley, Eric Wight, Fred Van Lente, and Jill Thompson, who drew the cover) and all the stories will be education-themed. Reading With Pictures uses comics as educational tools and partners with educational facilities to accomplish their mission.

Read more »