The Fanatic by PW newsletters

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La Borinqueña: A Puerto Rican Superhero for Our Time Five years ago Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez created La Borinqueña, a Puerto Rican superhero who would entertain and boost awareness of the island’s problems. more Review: All Of The Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told by Douglas Wolk In this improbable effort, Wolk read the 27,000 comics issues Marvel has published since 1961, examining the succession of social and political events referenced in the comics, and the writers, artists, and narratives driving the popularity of such series as X-Men and Black Panther. more BOOM! Studios' Exciting New Graphic Novels Discover BOOM! Studios’ brand new original graphic novels this Fall from Emmy Award-winning writer Jeff Jensen, 2016 Prism Comics Grant winner A.C. Esguerra & Lambda Literary Award nominee Jeremy Sorese, featuring queer pilots in a historical fantasy, America’s first woman detective Kate Warne, and a love story between two men in futuristic world.(Sponsored) more Review: Ex Libris by Matt Madden The graphic novel’s protagonist awakens with amnesia in a room full of comics that reference the situation. In this dazzling narrative puzzle Madden, a sly formalist cartoonist, brings humor and wit to a stream of cleverly rendered genres and styles in a story-lesson on the foundational elements of comics storytelling. Review: The Trees by Percival Everett Weilding an absurdist combination of sophomoric humor and dark social satire, Everett’s new novel is a whodunit used to examine a succession of racist stereotypes. More Review: How to Wrestle a Girl: Stories by Venita Blackburn Blackburn’s short story collection offers a series of wrought narratives showcasing young black and queer women coming to terms with their bodies and sexuality. Review: Blood Legacy: Reckoning with a Family’s Story of Slavery by Alex Renton Descended from a family that includes 18th century slave owners, British journalist Renton traces his family’s legacy in this unflinching personal examination of the history of slavery in Britain and familial culpability for the slave trade. To Age as a Woman: The Millions’s Alexander Sammartino interviews novelist Dana Spiotta about her new novel Wayward: “In the chaos of the recent past, at the time of Donald Trump’s election, through the particulars of a family in Syracuse, Spiotta confronts readers with the unseen terrain of menopause.” The State of Black Books: Troy Johnson, founder of the African American Literature Book Club, a pioneering online site for Black books, Black authors and Black readers, is a guest on State of Play, a public affairs TV show broadcast by the Black News Channel, cohosted by Sharon Pratt, former Mayor of Washington DC, and Karen Tramontano, a former deputy chief of staff to President Clinton. Johnson is among a group of panelists that includes Dr. Brenda M. Greene, professor Joshua Clark Davis, and Ramunda and Derrick Young, that assess the state of Black books and reading from their individual and professional points of view. Latinx Heroes Assemble!: In October Marvel Comics will debut Marvel Voices: Comunidades!, a new Marvel one-shot comics anthology that will celebrate the Latinx heroes (and their creators) from the Marvel Universe. The anthology will feature the adventures of such heroes as White Tiger, Miles Morales, Ghost Rider, and America Chavez, as well as such creators as Karla Pacheco, Alex Segura and Edgar Delgado, and it includes an introduction by noted Latinx comics scholar Frederick Luis Aldama that examines the history of Latinx creators and heroes in the U.S. comics industry. A Native American Military Hero: In a continuing series of graphic biographies documenting recipients of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor awarded to U.S. military service members, the nonprofit Association of the United States Army has released a new graphic biography of Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., a Ho-Chunk Native American who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 1951. While serving during the Korean War, Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., stymied a Chinese attack and prevented his company from being overrun. Despite being wounded, he refused assistance, propped himself against a tree, and continued to fight until he was killed in action. The graphic biography was written by Chuck Dixon with art by Peter Pantazis. Charlamagne On Comedy Central: Fellow South Carolinians Charlamagne Tha God (aka Lenard McKelvey), cohost of the wildly popular morning radio show The Breakfast Club, and, CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert, are teaming up to launch a new show on Comedy Central. Tha God’s Honest Truth with Lenard ‘Charlamagne’ McKelvey will debut on September 17. The show will be executive produced by Aaron McGruder, creator of the acclaimed Black comics strip and Cartoon Network show, The Boondocks. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week on More to Come, Calvin interviews Senegalese cartoonist Juni Ba about his new graphic novel Djeliya: A West African Fantasy Epic, a dazzling display of contemporary African cartooning. Ba’s tale of two humbled royal elites from a now-destroyed kingdom is rich in African folklore, history and mythology; it’s a fresh work of Africa-focused speculative fiction animated by a sense of cultural legacy, visionary technology, and a manic African sense of humor. Djeliya is out now from TKO Studio More A Revolution In Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge by noted pop culture journalist David Hajdu (The Ten-Cent Plague) and artist John Carey profiles four visionary performers whose careers began in the 19th century era of the blackface minstrel show and eventually influenced the character of vaudeville, a new form and venue for mass entertainment in early 20th century America. The book examines the lives and careers of the brilliant Black comedic duo of Bert Williams and George Walker, who appropriated and challenged racist stereotypes from the blackface minstrel tradition; Julian Eltinge, a wildly popular white female impersonator and early exemplar of gender fluidity; and, the outrageous Eva Tanguay, a white woman and proto-feminist whose performances defied every Victorian-era standard of female propriety. This three-page excerpt introduces Williams and Walker and the beginnings of their performing careers. The book will be published in September by Columbia University Press. Excerpted from A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge by John Carey and David Hajdu.  Copyright (c) 2021 Columbia University Press.  Used by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 49 West 23rd Street Ninth Floor New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

San Diego Comic-Con: The Show Must Go On(line) San Diego Comic-Con and other pop culture conventions juggle online and in-person events as they adapt to the new new normal. more PW Talks with Dave McKean PW talks with McKean about his new graphic work, which is an irresistibly mysterious tale featuring a 19th century Welsh writer seeking a way to contact his dead wife via Spiritualism, and a mystic monster hunter, in a story about a character trapped between fantasy and reality. more All-New Graphic Novel by Serena Valentino In this first graphic novel adaptation of the New York Times bestselling Villains series, Arielle Jovellanos brings Serena Valentino’s darkly captivating world to life with beautiful and haunting illustrations in a stunning new visual format. (Sponsored) more Review: Unbound by Tarana Burke A moving and powerful memoir by Burke, who is a survivor of sexual assault, a longtime social activist focused on supporting young women, and the founder of the original Me Too movement in 2006, which was launched to support sexual abuse survivors about a decade before the recent hashtag #MeToo movement began. Review: We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020 Edited by C.L. Clark and Charles Payseur A diverse and well-crafted collection of short queer speculative fiction highlighting themes of transformation and movement by established and new authors. More Review: When The Cheering Stops: Life After the NFL by Gay Culverhouse A relentless advocate for former NFL players, Culverhouse died in 2020 but she left behind a powerful and disturbing account of the National Football League’s abandonment of former players, even as they suffer from depression, poor financial decisions, or the long term effects of concussions suffered while playing a violent game. Review: Speculative Fiction for Dreamers Edited by Alex Hernandez, Sarah Rafael García, and Matthew David Goodwin A stellar anthology showcasing contemporary Latinx authors exploring the diversity of Latinx identity and experience using the conventions of sci-fi, fantasy, and magical realism. Diaristic Flow: The Millions’s Joanna Chen interviews poet Marcela Sulak about her new book of poetry City of Skypapers, which she describes as a testament “to the microscopic vicissitudes that are both particular to her and yet familiar to readers, wherever they live.” Disabled Creative Visions: Produced by the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and U.S. Artists, the Disability Futures virtual festival, is a two-day online event celebrating the art, performance, and concepts of disabled creative practitioners, with a virtual dance party thrown in for good measure. The online event will be held July 19-21 and feature a full slate of programming presenting such artists and writers as choreographer Alice Shepard, journalist Alice Wong, dancer Jerron Herman, filmmaker Rodney Evans, playwright Ryan J, Haddad, writer Jen Deerinwater, and many others. Believe In Comics!: The literature, art, and culture magazine The Believer, has published a new batch of inventive and wonderfully eccentric online comics by a new bunch of thoughtful cartoonists, among them Margaret Kimball (The Party), Jia Sung (Bad Protestors), and Keiler Roberts (Imaginary Friends). The publication also features an interview with acclaimed cartoonist Alison Bechdel by Kristen Radtke (Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness), The Believer art director and associate publisher, about Bechdel’s new graphic memoir The Secret to Superhuman Strength. Free Books on Diverse Communities!: Little Free Library, a nonprofit that offers free books through a network of sharing-boxes, has launched Read In Color, a new initiative to distribute diverse books on racism and social justice as well as works celebrating BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized writers and communities. RIC has established 21 new Little Free Library book-sharing boxes throughout Washington DC that will distribute more than 4,600 books on diverse communities. The program is also being established in nine additional cities, including Tulsa, Boston, New York, and more. Head Coach: Chris Staros, editor-in-chief of the notable comics publisher Top Shelf (an imprint of IDW Publishing), and publisher of such acclaimed graphic novels as Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, and the late Rep. John Lewis’s celebrated graphic memoir, The March Trilogy, has launched a coaching and mentoring program from aspiring cartoonists. Staros is offering a one-on-one portfolio review that includes detailed feedback, advice on publishing, contracts, crowdfunding, and the comics business in general. The review is done via phone or video and costs $99 for about an hour of consultation. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week on More to Come’s Stargazing feature, Calvin talks with PW graphic novels reviews editor Meg Lemke about Alison Bechdel’s The Secret to Superhuman Strength, a new graphic memoir that focuses on her lifelong search for transcendence in tandem with a compulsive need for physical exercise. More Chef and author Hugh Amano and artist Sarah Becan followup to their 2019 comic book cookbook, Let’s Make Ramen!, with an equally delightful and useful comics guide to the global popularity of dumplings of all kinds (“tasty fillings encased in chewy wrappers”)—in this case, Asian dumplings. Asia offers one the largest selections of dumplings, and Amano and Becan seem to cover them all via brisk detailed instructions and charming drawings that present ingredients, equipment, wrappers, folding, recipes, and cooking techniques. In this six-page excerpt our comic book cohosts introduce and define the delicious category while offering a bit of the folklore around the origin of Asian dumplings in China during the Han dynasty in the second century AD. Let’s Make Dumplings!: A Comic Book Cookbook by Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan is out now from Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 49 West 23rd Street Ninth Floor New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC   Growing Up Through Comics: PW Talks with Tillie Walden Tillie Walden's Alone in Space is a chronicle of her earliest published work. more Libraries Embrace Graphic Novel Surge Librarians like Alea Perez, president of the ALA's Graphic Novel and Comics Roundtable, are looking to sustain and satisfy the surge in demand for graphic novels as lockdowns are lifted and patrons begin to return to their reopened branches. more Learn the History of Black Wall Street One hundred years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, Across the Tracks is a celebration and memorial of Greenwood, Oklahoma. With a detailed preface and historical essay, this illustrated history of Black Wall Street highlights a town that flourished during an unprecedented time of prosperity for Black Americans and the tragedy which nearly erased it. (Sponsored) more Wole Soyinka Returns Nigerian playwright, essayist, poet, novelist and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka’s first novel in nearly half a century is a sensuous and scathing satire of contemporary Nigeria more Review: Sisters in Arms by Kaia Alderson An impressive debut novel based on the exploits of the “Six Triple Eight,” the legendary 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-Black female battalion sent overseas in WWII; it follows two Black women soldiers—former concert pianist and former society reporter—serving their country while fighting military Jim Crow and misogyny. More Interview: A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete by Geo Maher Well-researched and provocative, Maher’s new book examines the debate over police accountability, looking beyond defunding to abolition of the police, and the need for “life-affirming” alternatives. Review: Let's Make Dumplings by Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan A delightful follow-up to the chef/comics artist duo’s 2019 ramen comics cookbook, their new graphic cookbook is a playful and solid primer on how to make a wide range of Asian dumpling treats. Rereading Toni Morrison: Over at The Millions, Matthew James Seidel rereads Toni Morrison’s first three novels—The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Song of Solomon—in chronological order looking for connections to her later works. But he found that “these early works do not merely anticipate masterpieces to come; they are masterpieces in their own right. Examining just how each novel expands on what came before is an inspiring and, frankly, humbling experience.” Asian American Writers Assemble!: The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, devoted to the support and dissemination of writing by Asian Americans, announced the revival of Page Turner, the AAWW publishing conference, to be held June 26. Page Turner will feature more than 40 experts and authors. Author Matthew Salesses will give a keynote lecture and Indian classical pianist Utsav Lal will give an exclusive performance. Images of Black Life: The Nicola Vassell Gallery in New York City has mounted Ming Smith: Evidence, an exhibition of photographs by Smith, a long acclaimed African American photographer, and the first female member of Kamoinge, the celebrated 1960s Black photographers collective. Her work was first published in the Black Photographers Annual in 1973 and she is the first Black woman photographer to be collected by the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition will be up through July 3. The First Medal of Honor: The Association of the United States Army, a nonprofit organization devoted to the support of the Army and its soldiers, has just released Medal of Honor: Jacob Parrott, the latest in its ongoing series of graphic biographies of the heroic soldiers that have received the Medal of Honor, the highest honor that can be awarded to a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. Parrot, a Union soldier during the Civil War, was the first recipient of the Medal of Honor. He was among 22 U.S. Army soldiers and two civilians who volunteered to infiltrate deep into Confederate territory to steal a train and destroy bridges and railroad track between Atlanta and Chattanooga. The new graphic biography can be read online and is also free to download. Tarot Book Card: The nonprofit Brink Literacy Project has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Literary Tarot, an ambitious effort to create innovative collaborations between great authors and great cartoonists, who pair a tarot card with a classic literary work that embodies the meaning of the tarot card arcana. The project has raised more than $464,000 (the goal was $80,000) with 13 days to go in the campaign. Participating authors and cartoonists include K-Ming Chang, Lev Grossman, Amal El-Mohtar, G. Willow Wilson, Margaret Atwood, Emil Ferris, Roxane Gay, Stephen Graham Jones, Marjorie Liu, and many others. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast In Part 2 of More to Come's Rose of Versailles interview special, Kate talks with Kitty of the Takarazuka Fan Podcast, a Rose of Versailles expert, in a deep dive into the history of this classic 1970s manga and its impact as a massive pop culture and theatrical phenomenon in Japan and into its influence on other artistic works. Rose of Versailles has just come out from Udon Press in its first full English translation, nearly 50 years after its creation. More Juni Ba’s new graphic novel Djeliya: A West African Fantasy Epic is a dazzling display of contemporary African cartooning and Africanfuturistic storytelling. Djeliya is the story of two humbled royal elites—Awa Kouyaté, a female Djeli, or griot/counseler to the king, and Mansour Keita, disgraced son of Kouyaté’s deposed sovereign—on a desperate mission to restore their kingdom, which was destroyed by a mysterious wizard in a tower. Irresistibly complex and funny, Ba’s vividly illustrated tale combines African folklore, history, and mythology (including spirits and talking animals), with western sci-fi, visionary technology, and a crazy Africanized sense of humor straight out of Mad magazine (or maybe Evan Dorkin). In this seven-page excerpt we meet Kouyaté and Keita as they begin their unlikely quest with a meeting with a corrupt anthropomorphic wild pig warlord. Djeliya: A West African Fantasy Epic by Juni Ba will be published by TKO Studios in July. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 49 West 23rd Street Ninth Floor New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC   Self Service: PW Talks with Alison Bechdel Bechdel tells her life story once again, this time focusing on her lifelong search for transcendence in tandem with a compulsive need for physical exercise. more Review: Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki Aoki has written a dark queer sci-fi fantasy and “love letter to immigrant culture” about a violin teacher with a contract to deliver the souls of brilliant musicians to hell—that is until she meets third-generation violin restorer Lucy Matìa and has second thoughts. more Experience the Zany World of Super Mario! Features stories based on the hit Super Mario games. From crazy to classic, Mario and his friends star in adventures that find them traveling through the many worlds of one of the biggest video game series ever! (Sponsored) more Interview: PW Talks with Dan Nadel Nadel has curated an exhibition and edited this catalog companion anthology collecting the works of a long overlooked group of talented Black Chicago-based cartoonists; and in an essay he also chronicles the historic role of the Chicago Black press in support of their comics. more Review: Center Center: A Funny, Sexy, Sad Almost-Memoir of a Boy in Ballet by James B. Whiteside In an entertaining and often moving memoir, Whiteside tells the story of his family life, drag misadventures, and coming out as a young gay ballet performer and eventually principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater. More Interview: PW Talks with L. Penelope Penelope talks about the final volume of her Earthsinger Chroncles and the story of the Elsira kingdom and young Queen Jasminda, a series “chock full of magic, politics, and well-shaded female characters who take no prisoners.” more Review: I Have Always Been Me: A Memoir by Precious Brady-Davis Honored as one of the country’s foremost trans organizers, Brady-Davis is an activist and former drag showgirl whose new memoir “strikes at the heart of what it means to be trans in America.” Draft King: Over at The Millions, novelist Yang Huang, author of three novels including My Good Son, published this year by The University of New Orleans Press, ruminates on the nature of rewriting, revising, and, surviving the meticulous and necessary deconstruction of a manuscript by an editor. Indeed his editor for My Good Son compiled “extensive editorial feedback: 5,500-plus comments via track changes and 13 pages of global comments. To be fair, two pages were praise. But there were also 11 pages of single-spaced constructive criticism. Some of the notes were line edits, but others were mini essays. It was overwhelming.” Comic Book Pride: New York Times senior editor and all-in comics fan George Gene Gustines has compiled a list of eight comics and graphic novels that feature LGBTQ characters, chosen in celebration of Pride Month, among them, Lee Lai’s Stone Fruit and James Tynion IV and Michael Dialynas’s Wynd Book One: Flight of the Prince. WinC Pro Comics Conference : The Women in Comics Collective announced plans for “WinC Creative,” aka WCC, a new one-day virtual professional conference to be held on July 22 that will offer programming and workshops to support the needs of the professional comic book community. Admission is free for WinC members and $3-$6 for nonmembers. LGBTQ+ Art Festival: Queer|Art|Pride, an annual summer festival featuring the work of the organization's community of LGBTQ+ artists, will be held online from June 1 through July 30. The festival also includes the Queer|Art|Pride Book & Print Fair, an online marketplace offering works for sale. The Nebula Awards : The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced plans for the 56th annual Nebula Awards Ceremony to be held June 5 and hosted by writer and comedian Aydrea Walden. The Nebula Awards honor the best speculative fiction writing of the year. The event is part of the Nebula Conference and will be livestreamed for the public on Facebook and on YouTube. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast In Part 1 of More to Come's Rose of Versailles interview special, Kate talks with manga scholar Erica Friedman of the Okazu blog about Riyoko Ikeda's groundbreaking 1970's classic manga Rose of Versailles, and its translation for the first time into English. The fifth and final volume of this landmark work has just come out from Udon Entertainment. Also included is a bonus interview from 2016 with Mitsuya Nao, who played Girodelle in a Takarazuka musical production of Rose of Versailles: Fersen. More Written by Marc Bernadin with art by Ariela Kristantina, Adora and the Distance is the story of young girl named Adora who takes off on a fantastic journey with a mysterious force called the Distance in relentless pursuit. But Adora is as mysterious as the force pursuing her and only she can define, or perhaps overcome, whatever its ultimate nature turns out to be. In fact, this is an allegorical tale written by Bernadin about his daughter, who was diagnosed with autism when she was two years old. In an afterword he writes that Adora was conceived to be an epic fantasy quest, but it’s really a story about “what it’s like inside the mind of child who can’t tell you what she is thinking, what she is feeling,” adding “I imagined a quest, in which she chooses to brave the unknown and journey from her world to ours.” Adora and the Distance by Marc Bernadin with art by Ariela Kristantina will be published by Comixology Originals as a digital comic on Father’s Day June 15. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 49 West 23rd Street Ninth Floor New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC   Honest and Emotional: Lee Lai’s Graphic Novel Debut Lee Lai's Stone Fruit digs deep into its characters' lives offering subtle moments, sharp dialogue and sweeping watercolor washes. more Streaming Anime Lifts Manga Sales A combination of streaming anime tied to popular manga titles and binge-reading fans trapped at home by the pandemic is driving record increases in manga sales. more World Expanding Fiction Aconyte presents the latest from their exciting range of novels based in the Marvel universe. (Sponsored) more Say It Loud: A Poet and Proud: The Life and Books of Al Young Poet Al Young, who was also a novelist, memoirist, educator, and a former poet laureate of California, died April 17 from the complications of a stroke. He was 81. more Interview: PW Talks with Dr. Rebecca Hall A riveting combination of graphic memoir and inspirational scholarship. An attorney frustrated with racism and sexism in the U.S. legal system, Hall returns to school for a PhD in history and her dogged research documenting women-led slave revolts takes her on a quest to 18th century slave trade archives in New York, London and Liverpool. More Interview: PW Talks with Colson Whitehead PW talks to Whitehead about his new novel; set in a richly depicted Harlem in 1959, it’s the story of a Black husband and father caught up in a scheme to rob the historic Hotel Theresa. more Review: The 2000s Made Me Gay: Essays on Pop Culture by Grace Perry In this hilarious collection of essays on 2000s-era media, Perry takes a look at the TV shows and movies of the period to dissect the influence of the shows, artists and actors on a generation of LGBTQ pop culture fans. LGBTQ Issues Go To School: The Millions’ Kurt Ostrow writes about creating an LGBTQ Studies class at a high school in one of the poorest public school districts in Massachusetts. “The inaugural class was small, only a dozen or so students, nearly all of them self-identifying with some letter in the acronym. We started with a bar riot (Stonewall, 1969) and ended with a nightclub massacre (Pulse, 2016). As the semester went on, I loved to see which figures and flash points in queer history resonated with my students.” 25 Years of Girl Power on the L.E.S.: Celebrated actor Rosario Dawson, a board member of the Lower East Side Girls Club, is hosting a virtual gala event on May 20 to mark 25 years of the LESGC, a community based organization devoted to girls and gender expansive young people, based on the Lower East Side of New York City. The event will honor voting rights advocate and bestselling author Stacey Abrams, and will feature even more celebrities in an evening in celebration of the past while looking to the future of the youth-focused organization. Asian Super Heroes in the House!: In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Marvel is launching Marvel Voices: Identity #1, a giant one shot comic collecting stories about Asian superheroes written and drawn by a new generation of Asian American comics creators. Among the creators are Gene Luen Yang, Marcus To, Christina Strain, Jason Loo, Grag Pak and Maureene Goo, who offer stories on such Marvel heroes as Shang-Chi, Jubilee, and Jimmy Woo, in addition to other creators and stories on such Asian characters as Silk and the new Ms. Marvel. The issue will be released in August 2021. Euro-Comics and the Women Who Make Them: Europe Comics, an online consortium of European comics publishers offering information, translations and digital rights licensing for European graphic novels, has organized a webinar panel to be held on May 21 that is devoted to female comics creators who will discuss the importance of the comics medium as well as the challenges they face as women in the European comics industry. Catching Up with Alitha Martinez : Women In Comics Collective International is teaming with the Comic Con Museum in San Diego to host an online interview with the pioneering Marvel and DC cartoonist (and WinC board member) Alitha E. Martinez, who will discuss her groundbreaking career in superhero comics with WinC editor-in-chief Dr. Shamika Mitchell on May 19. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week the More to Come crew—Calvin Reid, Heidi “The Beat” MacDonald, and Kate Fitzsimons—discuss the PRH video update on its distribution deal with Marvel, and puzzle over Diamond’s plans; report on dramatic sales increases for manga and other graphic novels; and survey digital news on Webtoon, Tapas Media, OverDrive, Black Sands, and Madefire. More WAKE: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez is a riveting combination of graphic memoir and inspirational scholarship. An attorney frustrated by repeated encounters with sexism and racism in the criminal justice system, Hall returned to school to study for a PhD in history in a personal search for women warriors lost to history, as well as a larger scholarly goal to document women-led slave revolts during the colonial slave trade. In this eight-page excerpt Hall’s dogged efforts to research a slave revolt in 1712 in New York City sends her on a passionate academic quest that will take her to vast and sometimes restricted 18th century slave trade archives in New York City, London, and Liverpool. WAKE: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez will be published by S&S in June. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 49 West 23rd Street Ninth Floor New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC   Sympathy for the Devil: PW Talks with Ed Brubaker Eisner-winning comics writer Ed Brubaker looks back on a career in indie and superhero comics and talks about Friend of the Devil, a new book in his and artist Sean Philips’ series of standalone crime graphic novels. more When Publishers (and Authors) Try Their Hands at Cards Move over, Scrabble and Words with Friends: Papercuts and Stet!, new card games by Electric Literature and Clarkson Potter, are here to bring fun to literary culture. more Your Next Favorite Graphic Novel Series Is Here Barb is the last of the Berzerkers, and it’s up to her (and her trusty yeti pal, Porkchop) to rescue her fellow warriors from the evil villain Witch Head before he destroys the world! Gear up for a side-splitting new graphic novel series that will have kids counting down until the next installment hits shelves. (Sponsored) more Religion Publishers Are Opening Doors and Minds Religion and spirituality publishers are looking for BIPOC authors, and they’re aware that means opening their lists to new—and often rightfully angry—voices from outside their own life experiences. more The Things We Carry: 9/11 Anniversary Books 20 year after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., a wave of new titles delve into the complexities of America’s post-9/11 national identity. More Drawn This Way: LGBTQ Books 2021 Publishers are beginning to offer a range of new graphic novels showcasing the spectrum of sexuality, the complexity of queerness, and the history of trans joy and resistance. more Interview: PW Talks with Xueting Christine Ni PW talks with Xueting about curating this “masterful” anthology of Chinese sci-fi, which offers 13 new stories (translated for the first time) that explore, time travel, artificial intelligence, technology, and more. more “The Enormity Of a Book”: Over at The Millions, David Grandouiller interviews Elissa Washuta, a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and an assistant professor at The Ohio State University, about her new book of essays, White Magic: “She writes well about the difficult and sometimes fruitless struggle to shape narrative out of the mess of experience—from romantic entanglements to searches for the supernatural to our place in the troubling histories of our nations and peoples—and enacts that struggle on the page.” Lit Women Apply Here: We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit advocate for books honoring the lives of all young people, is partnering with a number of organizations in support of LitUp, a women’s writer’s fellowship for unpublished, underrepresented literary voices, offering an all-expenses-paid writer's retreat, a three month mentorship with a published author, and marketing support from Reese's Book Club to five selected writers. The call for applications is open until May 31. An Asian American Story: The American Writers Museum has launched Hisaye Yamamoto: An American Story, an online exhibit devoted to the life and works of the late and acclaimed Asian American female author. Yamamoto (1921-2011), like other Japanese-Americans of the period, was interned during World War II, and after leaving the camp became a journalist in Los Angeles. She grew to be acutely interested in the social conditions of African Americans and is noted for her writings on racial injustice. She is the author of the acclaimed fiction collection Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories. AWM president Carey Cranston says, “Hisaye Yamamoto’s writing fundamentally changed our understanding of the Asian American experience and continues to influence people from all walks of life.” Black Lit Matters: The New York Society Library has organized Black Literature Matters, an exhibition that traces the history of Black writers from the 18th century until today. The exhibition was produced in collaboration with guest curator Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin and features rare editions of works by Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley, and Zora Neale Hurston. The exhibition displays novels, essays, poems, and scholarship and pays homage to such librarians as Howard University’s Dorothy Porter Wesley and the Schomberg Center’s Jean Blackwell Hutson, who worked tirelessy to publicize the works of generations of Black writers to the reading public. Comic Books and Comics Fans: Tom Breevort, longtime senior v-p of publishing at Marvel, has posted a link to page of wonderful antique photos of comic books stacked and shelved, as well as comic book fans of all ages, reading, buying, discussing, and completely focused on whatever comics they may have in hand. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week on the More to Come Stargazing special Calvin talks with PW graphic novels reviews editor Meg Lemke about their personal Staff Picks: Keiler Robert’s irresistibly droll collection of autobiographical vignettes My Begging Chart, and Bill Campbell and Bizhan Khodabandeh’s The Day the Klan Came to Town, a fictionalized version of a real event in 1923 that pitted a town of immigrants against white supremacists. Plus graphic novel recommendations on PW’s Summer Reads listing. More Young adult novelist Justin A. Reynolds and artist Pablo Leon’s Miles Morales Shockwaves have created a middle grade graphic novel starring the young Afro-Latino Spidey in a lively adventure showcasing his mother’s Puerto Rican heritage. An earthquate hits the island and Miles, along with the help of Kyle, a new female classmate, organizes a disaster benefit with the help of her dad, who gets the corporation he works for to act as sponsor. But when Kyle’s dad goes missing, she is forced to join forces with Spider-Man (Miles, unbeknownst to her) to try find out what’s going on. In this 12-page excerpt Miles gets some advice from Peter Parker about the responsibilities of being a superhero and a son, before taking on this new mystery. The book also includes a preview story of a forthcoming middle grade novel starring Kamala Khan, the Pakistani-American Ms. Marvel. Miles Morales Shockwaves by Justin A. Reynolds and Pablo Leon will be published by Graphix (under a partnership between Marvel and Scholastic) in June. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 49 West 23rd Street Ninth Floor New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

Streaming TV, Films Drive Surge In Graphic Novel Sales Many of the biggest hits on such streaming services as Netflix and Disney+ have been adapted from comics and graphic novels and publishers are scrambling to make sure the books are available when demand spikes. more From the Sidelines to the Spotlight: LGBTQ Books 2021 Publishers pass the mic to LGBTQ authors who survey a wide range of fiction and nonfiction works, highlighting overlapping experiences and their intersecting identities. more YA’s Like It Too! A NYT YA Bestseller "It manages to make astrophysics accessible and interesting — even if you weren't a science major." —AARP (Sponsored) more Profile: The Evolution of Morgan Parker PW talks with Parker, a Cave Canem graduate fellow, 2019 National Book Critics Circle award-winner, and National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, about the reissue of her acclaimed debut poetry collection. more Interview: PW Talks with Will McPhail Popular 'New Yorker' cartoonist Will McPhail branches out with his first long form graphic novel 'In', to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in May. More Interview: Fictional Father by Joe Ollmann PW talks with Ollman about his new graphic novel, which is the story of Caleb, the frustrated son of a popular cartoonist whose daily comics strip depicted a loving relationship that the two of them never had. more Summer Reads and Staff Picks PW’s editors have compiled a stellar mix of titles for our annual summer reading recommendations along with a listing of personal picks that our staff think should be on your own reading list in the months ahead. A Bridge Between Then and Now: The Millions’s is featuring an excerpt from Casandra Lane’s memoir We Are Bridges, winner of the 2020 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, which “explores Lane’s ancestral history in order to give her future child a family history. Weaving the story of her great-grandparent’s lives in the rural South and her life in current-day Los Angeles, Lane explores the ways the past informs the present—and how to beautifully reclaim it.” Animation Nation: When PW news and digital editor John Maher isn’t reporting on the book world, he’s a great source of information and insight on the world of animation. Maher was a guest on two episodes of The Next Picture, a biweekly podcast that discusses how classic films inspire and inform modern movies, and offers his perspective on The Last Unicorn (#269), a classic 1982 animated feature based on Peter Beagle’s 1968 novel; and on Raya and the Last Dragon (#270), a Disney produced Asia-inspired fantasy animated feature released in 2021. The podcast is hosted by the former editorial team behind The Dissolve, a now defunct online source for reviews, news and commentary on film. Graphic Insurrection : Global news site Insider.com has commissioned comics writer Anthony Del Col and artist Josh Adams to create the webcomic Make The World Glow: How Two Radicalized Men Almost Kidnapped Michigan’s Governor, the story of how the FBI stopped an organized conspiracy by far right-wing extremists to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, in October 2020. Black Book Publishing In Britain: The Bookseller, which covers book publishing in the U.K., recently published The Black Issue, a Bookseller issue totally focused on the Black presence (and challenges to it) in the British book industry. Edited by Marianne Tatepo, founder of the Black Agents and Editors’ Group (BAE), the special issue is an extraordinary resource. It includes an overview and listing of members of BAE, a profile of Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, founder of Casava Republic press, which publishes African writing (including the dazzling graphic novel On Ajayi Crowther Street by Elnathon John and Olaba Onajin); as well as articles on children’s books, marketing, Black speculative fiction, and much more. South Asian Films In L.A.: The 19th Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles will be held online from May 20-27 and features over 40 films by South Asian filmmakers, including 16 women directors. The IFFLA will open on May 20 with Fire in the Mountains, directed by Ajitpal Singh, a film immersed in the splendor of the Himalayan mountains. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week on More to Come Calvin talks with Kuo-Yu Liang, a 30 year publishing veteran who has worked as an executive at ReedPop, Diamond Book Distributors, and Random House, about the blockbuster distribution deal between Marvel and PRH Publisher Services, the future of the Direct Market, and in the wake of the pandemic looks ahead at the status of pop culture conventions in 2021. More Save It for Later: Promises, Parenthood, and the Urgency of Protest by Nate Powell, artist for John Lewis’s acclaimed Civil Rights graphic memoir the March trilogy, is a deeply felt collection of comics essays exploring the conflicts and emotional scars of living through the Trump era while raising two young daughters; it is also an exploration off the need to embrace some form of activist resistance that makes sense, and, he hopes, also makes a difference. In this eight-page excerpt Powell surveys life in a liberal college town surrounded by white supremacist activity, sundown towns, and local fascists. Save It for Later: Promises, Parenthood, and the Urgency of Protest by Nate Powell is out now from Abrams ComicArts. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 49 West 23rd Street Ninth Floor New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

Nipsey Hussle’s Hip-hop Marathon: PW Talks to Rob Kenner Rob Kenner, author of The Marathon Don’t Stop: The Life and Times of Nipsey Hussle, chronicles the life and music of the late and beloved rapper and visionary entrepreneur. more 2020 Was a Tough Year for Comics Shops The pandemic wreaked havoc on the comics shop market and the broader bookselling landscape in 2020. The Fanatic spoke with retailers who discussed what they’ve learning about selling comics and graphic novels in a pandemic. more Broke Young Man + Chainsaw Demon = Chainsaw Man! Denji’s a poor young man who’ll do anything for money, even hunting down devils with his pet devil-dog Pochita. But his sad life gets turned upside down one day when he’s betrayed by someone he trusts. Now with the power of a devil inside him, Denji’s become a whole new man—Chainsaw Man! (Sponsored) more The 'Hilda' Series Catapulted Luke Pearson's Comics Creation to Stardom Cartoonist Luke Pearson, creator of the Hilda comics series and the animated Netflix adaptation, and his publisher Sam Arthur, managing director at Nobrow, discuss adapting comics and graphic novels to the screen and its impact on a publisher's list. more Profile: Stacey Abrams's First Legal Thriller A voting rights activist and politician when she isn’t writing novels, Stacey Abrams has written eight romantic suspense novels (under the pen name Selena Montgomery) and two page-turning nonfiction books. Her new novel—her first legal thriller—is set in the Supreme Court. More Review: Echo Tree by Henry Dumas, edited by Eugene B. Richmond A timely collection of the short fiction of Henry Dumas, who was shot and killed by a police officer in New York City in 1968, that includes critical essays that cite his influence on the Black Arts Movement and outline the author’s stylistic range. Review: Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez Mendez’s dazzling debut novel offers an unflinching portrait of Britain’s Windrush generation—the wave of African-Carribeans arriving in the U.K. in the 1950s—told through the lives of a Jamaican couple who arrive in 1956, and later, the life of their gay grandson, an aspiring writer struggling to survive in London. Navigating Redemption: The Millions’s Nick Ripatrazone interviews novelist Kirstin Valdez Quade about her new novel The Five Wounds, based on a short story from her 2015 collection Night at the Fiestas. Set in a small New Mexico town, it’s the story of Amadeo Padilla who is preparing for the town procession during Holy Week when his 15 year-old daughter arrives at his house pregnant, dramatically interrupting his introspective efforts to face his own personal failures. Quade says her book, “is about healing from the wounds of the past, and part of that healing requires looking closely at oneself and one’s place in the world and the hurts we have caused.” The Black Major Leagues: In an essay marking the death of the great Atlanta Braves slugger and former Negro League baseball player Henry Aaron, and Major League Baseball’s announcement that it will now include the playing statistics of Negro League players in its official records, Rowan Ricardo Phillips tries to define the mythic power of Aaron and the Negro Leagues, created out of the vicious legacy of American racism, and their powerful role in American sports and popular culture. While MLB plans to “elevate” the Negro Leagues by combining statistics, Phillips’ essay makes the case that the Negro Leagues, full of great players banned from MLB because of their race, were always equal anyway—the stats were just a part of those players’ enduring legacy of transcendence. Comics Strip NFT Bought At Auction : In late March cartoonist Matt Kindt created MIND MFMT: The Artifact, a comics strip based on his eponymous 2013 graphic novel series, as an NFT (non-fungible token), or a unique digital comic that exists only on blockchain technology. Kindt put the NFT strip up for auction with proceeds to go to an environmental charity. The comics strip has now been purchased for 2.68 Etherium, a cryptocurrency estimated to be worth about $5,660, by an anonymous buyer (“I don’t want to deal with the whole hatred on the internet thing”) who has posted the comic on reddit. “I’m trying to make sure it’s out there and not being used to promote a single thing.” Streaming Flannery O’Connor: PBS’s American Masters is a long-running and award-winning series of documentaries about the lives and creative careers of many of the most transcendent America artists across the full range of creative disciplines. The series has profiled Nina Simone, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Twyla Tharp, Oliver Sacks, Tony Bennett, and Carole King, just to name a few. Its most recent release is Flannery, a new documentary on the life and works of the renowned Southern author Flannery O’Connor that features interviews with such literary figures as Mary Karr, Hilton Als, and Tobias Wolf, among others, in addition to archival footage. Honoring Anti-Racism and Diversity: The 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, established in 1935 to honor books that contribute to the understanding of racism and offer an appreciation of the diversity of human cultures, have been awarded to Vincent Brown for Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of An Atlantic Slave War (co-winner, nonfiction), Victoria Chang for Obit (poetry), Samuel R. Delany (Lifetime Achievement), James McBride for Deacon King Kong (Fiction), and Natasha Trethewey for Memorial Drive (co-winner, Nonfiction). VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week on More to Come Calvin interviews Oriana Leckert, Kickstarter’s director of publishing and comics outreach, about the challenges of the 2020 pandemic, Kickstarter’s new union, graphic novel projects, setting up on Bookshop.org, and the scope and continued growth of the publishing and comics crowdfunding sectors on Kickstarter. More Although The Fanatic is publishing a selection from Embodied to mark National Poetry Month, this anthology of comics poetry is being published to coincide with International Women’s Health Month in May, and a portion of the proceeds from its sale will go to the International Women’s Health Coalition. Edited by the book’s publishers Wendy and Tyler Chin-Tanner, Embodied offers 23 poems focused on gender, identity and the body by an impressive selection of contemporary cis female, trans and non-binary poets, adapted into comics narratives drawn, colored and lettered by non-cis male artists. From the book’s introduction: “Our vision with this book is to provide a platform for poets and artists of marginalized genders and identities to tell their own stories, at a time when they are most under siege.” The comics poem featured in this excerpt is “Tapestry” by Khaty Xiong with art by Morgan Beem. Embodied: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology edited by Wendy and Tyler Chin-Tanner will be published by A Wave Blue World in May. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 49 West 23rd Street Ninth Floor New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

Women and Monsters: PW Talks with Aminder Dhaliwal Dhaliwal’s new graphic novel Cyclopedia Exotica takes place in a comical fantasy world where one-eyed cyclopes are a minority group in a world of two-eyed people. more Review: While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams A veteran romance and suspense writer as well as a Democratic political superstar, Stacey Abrams has written a new novel, a debut legal thriller about a Supreme Court law clerk thrust into controversy when her justice goes into a coma and she is designated as his legal guardian. more The Boys Return with Dear Becky! Twelve years after the events of The Boys, Hughie finds himself back home in Scotland where he intends to finally marry Annie in the company of friends and family. But the sudden appearance of a peculiar document sends our hero into a tailspin and threatens to bring the events of his nightmarish past crashing down on him in the worst possible way. There was one story about The Boys that Hughie never knew. Now, whether he likes it or not, he's going to. (Sponsored) more Comics Formats Go Younger Sales of middle grade graphic novels continue to grow as publishers (pioneered by Françoise Mouly’s Toon Books) bring the format to a younger audience with a new wave of graphic novels for early readers designed for ages four to eight. more Review: The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris PW’s review described Harris’s debut novel as “dazzling” and “spellbinding” and said the book is a “darkly humorous story about the publishing industry and the challenges faced by a Black employee.” More Review: The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel The celebrated comics author returns with a deep autobiographical dive into her lifelong obsession with physical exercise and its impact on mental and spiritual transcendence as well as physical development. Twisted Sisterhoods: Mysteries & Thrillers 2021 There’s no shortage of female characters in modern crime fiction, and lately, authors are finding inspiration not just in the women themselves, but in the complex relationships they have with one another. more Motherlode: Over at The Millions novelist Emily Adrian talks about her plans to write a book about her mother: “My mother interests me not because she is exceptional—though she may be—but because she is mine. And also not mine. Prying into the details of her life feels both natural and threatening. When I asked if I could write a book about her, I hoped she would say no as much as I hoped she would say yes.” Dark Laughter: Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art & Art History at Duke University (as well as a distinguished artist), has organized two online panels focused on Black Visual Satire. On March 22 at 1 p.m. EST, Powell will be part of a panel discussing his new book, Going There: Black Visual Satire (Yale University Press), a deeply researched study of African American visual satire in the 20th and 21st century. And on April 9, Powell will hold an online conversation with art collector Walter O. Evans about the life and work of Ollie Harrington (1912-1965), a brilliant African American editorial cartoonist and anti-racist political satirist, who rose to prominence in the 1930s publishing cartoons in the Black press. Black To the Future: WNET’s All Arts, an arts and cultural hub, has organized Afrofuturism: Blackness Revisualized, an Afrofuturist film festival that will present films by ten Black filmmakers that focus on “unique interpretations of Black futures from a multitude of talented Black directors across the globe.” The ten films will be streamed for free beginning March 26 via the All Arts app and All Arts TV. The festival has been organized and curated by self-described Black futurist Celia C. Peters. Reconstruction Era New Orleans: Nick Weldon, editor at the museum/publishing house Historic New Orleans Collection, is featured in a video presentation about the academic research, archival documents, and production that went into the making of Monumental: Oscar Dunn and his Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana by historian Brian K. Mitchell, artist Barrington S. Edwards and Weldon, an innovative serious graphic nonfiction work on the remarkable life of Oscar J. Dunn, a former slave who would eventually become the first Black lieutenant governor and acting governor in U.S. history. Yes, Comics in The New Yorker: The New Yorker magazine has published an excerpt from Heaven No Hell, a new graphic novel by acclaimed cartoonist Michael DeForge that will be published this month by Drawn & Quarterly. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week More to Come's Calvin Reid interviews historian Brian K. Mitchell, and his co-creators, artist Barrington S. Edwards, and editor Nick Weldon, about the creation and publication of Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana, a serious graphic nonfiction account of the nearly forgotten but remarkable life of Oscar J. Dunn, a New Orleans-born former slave, who eventually became the first African American lieutenant governor and acting governor in U.S. history. More A celebrated young adult author as well as an advocate for inclusivity and equality in publishing (she originated the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag), L.L. McKinney is the author of Nubia: Real One, an endearing tale that updates the origin story of Nubia, the Black twin sister of Wonder Woman. In this new graphic novel Nubia is a high school student navigating all the usual issues of being a teenager—crushes and dating, school, friends, and dealing with strict parents—as well as a few unusual issues (such as having super strength and the ability to fly) that she’s been trying to keep on the down-low. But when a friend is threatened by an obnoxious dude from her school, Nubia discovers she has a heroic legacy that has been kept secret from her. In this eight-page excerpt Nubia confronts the boy threatening her friend and in the process reveals the powers she’s been trying to hide as well as her destiny as a superhero. Nubia: Real One by L.L. McKinney and Robyn Smith is out now and is published by DC. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 71 West 23 St. #1608 New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

Navigating Loneliness: PW Talks with Kristen Radtke In her new graphic nonfiction book, 'Seek You,' Radtke takes a multifaceted look at how alone we are. more Review: Our Work Is Everywhere Edited by Syan Rose Rose has brought together a wonderful group of LGBTQ artists and activists to have their experiences as queer and trans people transformed into inspirational comics stories focused on building a better world that is open and supportive of all people. more New! Hilda’s Book of Beasts and Spirits For fans of Netflix's hit animated Hilda series, this behind-the-scenes bestiary teaches Hilda fans everything they'll want to know about the colorful creatures of Trolberg. Fly with the cuddly Woffs, discover the elusive Deerfox habitat, and learn all about the rest of Hilda’s colorful woodland companions! (Sponsored) more Interview: Ali’s ‘Rumble In Jungle’ Told with Photos and Comics PW talks with writer JD Morvan about Muhammad Ali, Kinshasa 1974, a new graphic work using photographs and comics to retell the story of The Rumble in the Jungle, Ali's 1974 title bout with George Foreman. more Archie Comics Any Way You Want Them Archie Comics’ fictional teenagers continue to be among the most popular and universally recognized characters in popular culture—and continue to branch out into new mediums. More Interview: PW Talks with Andy Weir PW talks with Weir about his new novel, a suspenseful sci-fi tale focused on an astronaut who awakens from a coma on space ship with no memories and must reckon with an impending catastrophe facing planet earth. more Review: I Am a Man: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1960–1970 by William R. Ferris A powerful and inspirational collection of photographs from the years of the Civil Rights Movement that includes timeless images of the March on Washington, the funeral of Martin Luther King, and the heroic efforts of untold Black men and women who faced violent racist reprisals in order to assert to their rights as Americans. A Moose in Maine: At The Millions, novelist Richard Russo talks with professional oboist, novelist, and documentary filmmaker Marcia Butler about her new novel, Oslo, Maine. Remembering Wojnarowicz: The film distributor Kino Lorber has acquired the North American rights to Chris McKim’s documentary film on the late David Wojnarowicz; it is a powerful examination of the life and work of the East Village artist and activist who died of AIDS in 1992. The film’s controversial title is Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F*cker and will be released to theaters on March 19 followed by video streaming release. The link will take the reader to the film’s trailer. Stories to Tell: Cartoonist Sandy Jeminez, best known for his comics stories about life in the South Bronx and key contributor to the longrunning political comics anthology World War III, talks about his comics for Soundboard, the Steinway & Sons podcast. Filming Mike Mignola : Director and produced by Jim Demonakos and Kevin Hanna, Mike Mignola Drawing Monsters, is a new documentary on the acclaimed cartoonist and creator of the Hellboy comics character and comics series. A Kickstarter campaign has been launched to fund the project and it’s already raised nearly $220,000 (the goal was $58,000). The film will tell the story of Mignola’s career and feature interviews with such artists as Neil Gaiman, Rebecca Sugar, Victor LaValle, Joe Quesada, and many others. Colson Whitehead Speaks: Two-time Pulitzer-winning novelist Colson Whitehead is interviewed on CBS’s 60 Minutes news show about his writing career, and writing the novels The Underground Railroad, The Nickel Boys, and much more. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week the More to Come crew—Calvin Reid, Heidi “The Beat” MacDonald and Kate Fitzsimons—report on the ComicsPRO retailers conference, plans from (and rumors about) DC Comics’ publishing program; plus the Snyder Cut, a forthcoming graphic novel from Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki; and comics stars help save a Black-owned comics store. More Told with an endearing combination of empathy and humor, Mikael Ross’s The Thud is the story of Noel, a young boy with development disabilities, who hears a sound—the thud of the title—and discovers his mother has fallen in the bathroom, hit her head and is in a coma. After his mother’s terrible injury, Noel’s secure and loving life with her is upended; he must leave his home and is sent to live in a group house that offers him new opportunities for friendship, relationships and personal growth. In this 7-page excerpt, Noel is comforted by a kindly nurse at the hospital. The Thud by Mikael Ross will be published by Fantagraphics in March. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 71 West 23 St. #1608 New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

Music Is Life: PW Talks with Victor L. Wooten Victor Wooten’s new book The Spirit of Music: The Lesson Continues is an idiosyncratic, sometimes contradictory, lament about the decline of live music in contemporary life. more Milestone Media's Black Comics Heroes Return Milestone Media, the African American–owned comics publishing venture that created the celebrated Black superhero comics universe, will relaunch its publishing program later this month. more Solo Leveling, Vol. 1 Known as the the Weakest Hunter of All Mankind, Jinwoo Sung’s contribution to raids amount to trying not to get killed. Unfortunately, between hospital bills, his sister’s tuition, and his own lack of job prospects he has no choice but to continue to risk his life. So when an opportunity arises for a bigger payout, he takes it… only to come face-to-face with a being whose power outranks anything he’s ever seen! (Sponsored) more Interview: PW Talks with Shira Spector PW talks with Spector about her relentlessly inventive debut graphic memoir—a powerful personal narrative driven by beautiful and eccentric drawing—her queerness, her years of infertility, and dealing with her father’s cancer diagnosis. more Review: Love In Color by Bolu Babalola Combining romance with female empowerment, Bababola’s debut short story collection offers 13 Black-focused and “effortlessly readable” love stories, all inspired by African mythology and folktales. More Review: Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry by Soyica Diggs Colbert Colbert offers a deeply researched re-examination of the life of the late Hansberry, author of the celebrated 1959 play (and acclaimed 1961 film) A Raisin in the Sun, in an effort to showcase the radical political and philosophical foundations of Hansberry’s work as a playwright, short story writer, journalist and activist. Review: Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York by Sarah Schulman Schulman has written a valuable and detailed first-hand history of the New York Chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (aka ACT UP New York), a courageous and transformative movement that raised awareness about AIDs and related issues in gender, medical equity and more at a critical time. Hungry for Love: The Millions’s Hannah Lamb-Vines reviews Melissa Broder’s new novel Milk Fed, the story of two distinctively drawn Jewish women: Rachel, standup comic, secular, obsessed with her weight and going to the gym, and desperate for approval; and Miriam, orthodox and religious, obese, easygoing and indulgent. Their attraction, Lamb-Vines writes, is immediate, “it does not take long for Rachel to fall in love. And love, in this case, is transformative.” No Love Lost: The American Writers Museum has added a new show to its podcast network, the Dead Writer Drama, a monthly series of discussions about the grudges, literary feuds, sex scandals, messy public conflicts, and controversial disputes between legendary writers, an how these feuds are relevant to the contemporary cultural discussion. The new show is cohosted by Zakiya Dalila-Harris (her forthcoming novel The Other Black Girl, will be published in June 21), and nonfiction author Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (whose latest book, When Women Invented Television, will be published in Martch 2021). Their first guest will be Yuval Taylor, author of Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal. Black Panther at the Library: The New York Public Library is partnering with Serial Box, the digital storytelling platform that creates original content in e-book and audiobook formats, to offer patrons access to Marvel’s Black Panther: Sins of the King, a new work based on the Marvel Comics Black superhero. The NYPL is also offering a free virtual event featuring acclaimed novelists Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes, and screenwriter Geoffrey Thorne, in conversation with moderator Nic Stone, about creating a new chapter in the world of The Black Panther. The event will be held on February 25. Black Art, Black Artists: Directed by Sam Pollard and inspired by the late art historian David Driskell’s 1976 exhibition, “Two Centuries of Black American Art,” Black Art: In the Absence of Light, is a new documentary on the work of many of the most acclaimed African American contemporary artists working. The documentary is available on demand on HBO and features such artists as Theaster Gates, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Amy Sherald and Carrie Mae Weems. Talking Music and Much More: Podcaster/designer Tom Cridland’s ongoing Greatest Music of All Time podcast has produced more than 300 shows (podcasts and on YouTube) featuring interviews such guests as David Crosby, Annie Lennox, Smokey Robinson, Chance the Rapper, and many others, talking about their favorite music, in addition to offering candid comments on contemporary politics, current events, and how they achieved success. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week on More to Come's February Stargazing segment, Calvin Reid talks with PW graphic novel reviews editor Meg Lemke about David Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson’s immersive nonfiction work The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History (Ten Speed Press); and Shira Spector’s relentlessly inventive graphic memoir Red Rock Baby Candy (Fantagraphics). More In The Other History of The DC Universe by John Ridley, acclaimed novelist, screenwriter (12 Years a Slave), and a longtime comics writer (The American Way), has created an alternative narrative about the iconic superheroes of the DC universe, told from the point of view of DC’s Black and other superheroes of color, among them John Stewart, Vixen, Cyborg, Katana, Renee Montoya, and others. Ridley tells this alternative history via the character Jefferson Pierce, who becomes Black Lightning, a Black hero with electrical superpowers manifested, Ridley suggests, by Pierce’s mounting internalized rage at American racism. In this 11-page excerpt, Pierce, a former track star and later a high school teacher in Suicide Slum, Metropolis’ blighted urban neighborhood, tells his story and ultimately the history of other heroes of color in the DC universe, outlining their problematic racial relationships with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and DC’s other white superheroes. The Other History of The DC Universe by John Ridley, Giuseppe Camuncoli and Andrea Cucchi is being serialized now and will be collected into a hardcover collection by DC in November 2021. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 71 West 23 St. #1608 New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

Books On Race and Social Justice 2020-2021 Near the end of last year, PW spoke with publishers about books on race and social justice and compiled a listing of new titles more Graphic Novel Cover Reveal: Friends Forever Written by Shannon Hale with art by LeUyen Pham, Friends Forever is the third book in the Hale’s bestselling middle grade graphic novel trilogy and it will be published by First Second in August 2021 with an announced first printing of one million copies. more Request an ARC: Save It For Later From Nate Powell, National Book Award-winning artist of March, comes a timely anthology of comics essays where he addresses living in an era of what he calls “necessary protest.” Save It for Later is Powell’s reflection on witnessing the collapse of discourse in real time as he explores how to equip young people to shape the future of the country. (Sponsored) Request an ARC A New Guide to the Black Comic Book Community The Access Guide to the Black Comic Book Community 2020-2021, is the first in a series of reference works that will showcase creators of color, featuring creators who released books in 2020 as well as industry institutions and events that spotlight their works. more Review: Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal Partially crafted as a reference on the history of the Cyclops, the one-eyed monster of mythology, Dhaliwal’s delightful graphic novel also offers a fictional world populated by one-eyed and two eyed people—though one-eyed folks have been marginalized by two-eyed cultural supremacy—that also serves as a creative and witty metaphor for issues around race, class, sexuality, and disability. More Interview: PW Talks with Karla FC Holloway PW talks with Holloway about her new novel, a probing work about the kidnapping of a Black child in Harlem in 1932, told in parallel and in contrast to the notorious kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby that happened at the same time; offering comparisons and lamentations over the stark difference in treatment given to a child of color. more Review: Crossroads: I Live Where I Like: A Graphic History by Koni Benson A thoroughly researched (it’s based on Benson’s PhD thesis), stylishly illustrated graphic history of the courageous South African women who fought the apartheid government’s destruction of informal housing settlements such as Crossroads in 1970s Cape Town. Craft Brew: The Millions’s Neelanjana Banerjee takes a deep dive into the culture and challenges surrounding creative writing workshops and the practice, mythology, and literature of the practice of teaching people how to write; she examines Matthew Salesses’s Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping, deconstructs the meaning of the term “craft,” and surveys the views of such writers as Toni Morrison and Junot Diaz on the nature and nuance behind teaching creative writing. Radical GRLSKATE: CNN surveys the work of photographer Jordana Bermúdez who has documented a lively, regular gathering of radical female and nonbinary skateboarders at their skatepark hangout on New York City’s Lower East Side in a series of distinctive photographs capturing them on the move. Spain Lives!: Directed by Susan Stern, wife of the late and beloved 1960s underground cartoonist Spain Rodriquez, Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriquez, examines the life, art, activism, and contemporaries of the legendary comix artist, and features commentary by such celebrated comics figures as R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, and Aline Kominsky-Crumb. The film also features animation by Spain’s daughter, Nora Rodriguez. College Radio Comics : Former Vertigo and Black Crown editor Shelly Bond (who is also a former 1980s college radio DJ), has organized a Kickstarter campaign to publish Heavy Rotation, a 48-page anthology of short comics, prose, illustrations, essays and interviews that look back fondly on the golden era of student run FCC-licensed radio (and the music that drove it) in the 1980s, created by such stellar comics artists as Philip Bond, Mark Stafford, Rachael Smith, and Kitty Curan. Sandman Audio Theater: Audible Originals announced plans to produce the second and third installments of the original audio drama adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s wildly popular Sandman graphic novel series. The initial release of the Sandman audio drama in 2020 was equally popular. The new episodes will again be directed by Dirk Maggs featuring narration by Gaiman, as well as a full ensemble cast of actors led by James McAvoy, who portrays Lord Morpheus, King of Dreams. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week on More to Come, Calvin Reid interviews Tim Fielder about the publication of his new graphic novel Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale, an epic adventure and meta-fictional tale of survival that celebrates the presence of the Black man and Black woman in genre storytelling from the beginning of time until the end of the universe. More Written by historian Brian K. Mitchell (who is also a descendant of Dunn), Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana is a deeply researched graphic account of the remarkable life of Dunn, a New Orleans-born former slave, musician, carpenter, and grandmaster freemason, who rose to become the first African American state lieutenant governor and acting governor in the U.S. Respected for his integrity and deep roots in the New Orleans Black community, Dunn joined the post-Civil War Republican Party working tirelessly in support of Black suffrage, integrated public schools and police, fair labor for freed slaves, and equal rights, in the face of violent white militias determined to defy the newly enacted Reconstruction Act and Black civil rights of any kind. Running as a progressive Radical Republican, Dunn was elected lieutenant governor of Louisiana in 1868 under governor Henry Clay Warmoth, who ultimately betrayed Dunn and the Radical Republican vision of political and racial equity when he vetoed key state Civil Rights legislation and allied with local white supremacists. In this 14-page excerpt, Dunn solemnly accepts the political nomination and takes on the growing and violent white opposition to Black political enfranchisement. Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana by Brian K. Mitchell, with art by Barrington S. Edwards, and edited by Nick Weldon, will be published by The Historic New Orleans Collection in March. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 71 West 23 St. #1608 New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

Tapas Sees Big Gains for Digital Comics Tapas, a small U.S.-based mobile comics startup, reported impressive recent growth, and also has plans for print. more PW’s Most-Read Comics Stories of 2020 An Anti-racist graphic novel reading list, the impact of the pandemic on comics retail, the loss of comics conventions and festivals, and the rise in popularity of digital comics for the mobile generation, are among the topics covered in PW's most-read comics stories of 2020. more Welcome to the Worlds of Graphic Mundi Through its fiction and nonfiction graphic novels, Graphic Mundi brings a broad range of voices and experiences to issues vital to the present day, including health and human rights, politics, race, the environment, science, and technology. Graphic Mundi launches on February 15 with Covid Chronicles: A Comic Anthology. (Sponsored) more Review: Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé Set in the Washington DC neighborhood of Anacostia in 1977, Yejidé’s richly textured novel is the story of Nephthys Kinwell, a grieving taxi-driver whose cab is haunted by the ghost of a girl murdered decades ago that resides in the cab’s trunk. A beautifully written work focused on loss, grief, guilt and justice. Review: Thirsty Mermaids by Kat Leyh Leyh’s first original graphic novel for adults is smart and funny. Looking to snag some booze on dry land, three fun-loving deepsea mermaids transform themselves into two-legged party babes for a night of drunken fun on the boardwalk—only to find that they can’t change back. As they work to reverse the spell, the mer-chicks bond with a trans woman of color in a work that examines social alienation and the found family. More Review: The Tangleroot Palace: Stories by Marjorie Liu Liu’s collection of fantasy short fiction features an impressive array of subgenres, among them a steampunk western, paranormal romance, and even Amish vampires, in beautifully crafted prose that shows off a talent for characterizations and an ear for language. Review: Gifting Fire by Alina Boyden In this lively sequel to Boyden’s Stealing Thunder, scrappy trans heroine Princess Razia Khanum, appointed governor in the South Asia-inspired fantasy world of Daryastan, must deal with a political rebellion in the province, and an arranged marriage to her rapist, orchestrated by her father. Word: The Millions’s Alex Dueben interviews poet, essayist and professor Joshua Bennett about his new book Owed, a collection of new poems, cultural criticism, and personal reflections, and about Bennett’s beginnings as spoken word poet performing in slam events, the influence and power of Hip-hop, becoming a father, and, the writers and Hip Hop performers that have influenced his work and his life. Inauguration Versification: Poet, activist and the first National Youth Poet Laureate, 22 year-old Amanda Gorman will also be the youngest poet to write and recite a work of poetry at a presidential inauguration when she reads her new work during the Biden and Harris Inauguration. Cool Black Comics In Virtual Harlem: The Schomburg Center's annual Black Comic Book Festival went virtual this year (Jan.13-16) and became the SchomCom Black Comic Book Festival, with four days of online panels and discussions with an extraordinary range of black comic book creators and publishers that showcase black superheroes, WOC creators, LGBTQ artists and more. All the panels have been recorded and archived so you didn't miss a thing. Go and Check out the SchomCom Black Comic Book Festival. NPR Offers Pandemic Webcomics : NPR highlights 11 webcomics published by the network about living through and dealing with the pandemic, from how to wear a mask, sheer personal resilency, and dealing with death by, among others, such comics artists as Malaka Gharib, Grace Farris, and Sarah Mirk. DC Universe: From Here to Infinity: WarnerMedia’s DC Universe, formerly a streaming media platform for DC superhero films, TV shows, and other DC content, will transition into a new service on January 21, after moving all of its TV and film properties to HBO Max, another WarnerMedia platform. The service will then become DC Universe Infinite, a digital comics subscription service offering access to 25,000 back issues of DC comics series and graphic novels for a monthly fee. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week the More to Come crew—Calvin Reid, Heidi “The Beat” MacDonald and Kate Fitzsimons—take a look at The Comic Book Shopping Experience, a new comics retail platform; celebrate Gene Yang, named Comic Book Industry Person of the Year by The Beat; recap Rob Salkowitz’s examination of DC Comics; and new staff and growth at indie publishers Z2 Comics and TKO Studios. More Tim Fielder’s new graphic novel Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale is ambitious in the extreme. It is an epic adventure and a meta-fictional tale of survival that celebrates the presence of the Black man and Black woman in genre storytelling from the beginning of time until the end of the universe. It’s the story of Aja Oba, an ancient African warlord, who is cursed with immortality after he betrays a vengeful lover who is also a powerful witch. Oba comes to realize he has been transformed into an undying Black storytelling presence and as the millennia accumulate he inserts himself into every great historical narrative from the ancient barbarian wars to the slave trade and Civil Rights Movement to new technological advances, space travel, and the colonization of planets far from earth. In this five-page excerpt, the reader is introduced to Aja Oba and to the beginning of his endless journey through time and storytelling. Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale by Tim Fielder will be published Amistad Press this month. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 71 West 23 St. #1608 New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC

 

DC Comics Leaves Its Legacy Behind The world’s #2 superhero comics publisher is undergoing a stress test. more Interview: PW Talks with David Walker PW Talks with comics writer David Walker about The Black Panther Party, a new work of graphic nonfiction that examines the history of the Black Panther Party and the complex legacy of the civil rights era. more Introducing Little Simon Graphic Novels! Little Simon Graphic Novels are fully illustrated stories for young readers ages 5-9 who are not yet ready for middle-grade graphic novels. Each book has the action, adventure, and humor kids love with the perfectly paced storytelling tailored for emerging readers. Little Simon Graphic Novels is launching on 2.2.21 with three exciting series! (Sponsored) more TKO Studios Expands to the Book Trade, Movies TKO Studios, a new independent comics publisher based in Los Angeles designed around an unusual business model, is expanding its program into the book trade and TV and film development. more Review: The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader edited by Jordana Moore Saggese Saggese has compiled a comprehensive survey on the life and work of the late Basquiat, an acclaimed African American contemporary painter, whose work “probed the boundaries of blackness.” The book brings together Saggesse’s critical essays on his works, interviews with the artist, and commentary from a range of writers and art critics. More Review: Future Feeling by Joss Lake In this quirky debut novel, Lake tells the story Penfield Henderson, a self-destructive trans man and dog walker, who is obsessed with Aiden Chase, a trans social media infuencer, in a paranormal tale that combines an LGBTQ coming-of-age story with an examination of the surreal impact of gender and race. Review: Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter by John McWhorter McWhorter, a noted linguistics academic, offers a deep and lively examination of the origins of some of the most inflammatory and offensive words in the English language, including the usual selection of four-letter words, and, of course, the “N-word,” which is in a class by itself when it comes to social complexity and sowing discomfort and hate. Writing the Pandemic: Over at The Millions’s, novelist Sonya Chung writes about living the last year under a pandemic. “Mask up. Take a breath, or two, or five. Check in with your single friends. Check in with your partnered friends. Spend your stimulus money on restaurants if you can. Don’t give away or let out your clothes yet: we’ll all find our better selves and our energy again on the other side.” Did Someone Say Free Master Work?: In honor of famed Harlem Renaissance novelist Zora Neal Hurston’s birthday on January 7 and the publication of Hitting A Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick, a new collection of her previously unpublished short stories, Amistad Press is hosting a free giveaway of an audiobook download of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston’s 1937 novel (considered a master work of the Harlem Renaissance), which is narrated by the great Black actress Ruby Dee. Cyber Screwup 2077: Vox takes a good long look at the disastrous release of the Cyberpunk 2077 videogame in an effort to figure out exactly what went wrong; which turns out to be pretty much everything. The Beat Looks Back Over 2020: Over at The Beat, the blog of comics culture, our More To Come colleague and editor-in-chief of The Beat Heidi MacDonald, offers her annual survey of comics creators and professionals about how they handled the previous year, what they believe is the biggest story of 2020 and what they plan for 2021. You’re Welcome: Don’t thank me, thank Glamour.com, which has ranked and provided thoughtful and snarky commentary on every sex scene in Shonda Rhime’s runaway hit Netflix show Bridgerton. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week the More to Come crew—Calvin Reid, Heidi “The Beat” MacDonald and Kate Fitzsimons—look back on a year like no other: from pre-pandemic travels abroad in early 2020 to the lockdown in early March; the shutdown of in-store retail and distribution; the cancellation of comics conventions and festivals, the impact of the Black Lives Matter protests; layoffs at DC; and a few of the books that we loved. More Sharon Lee De La Cruz’s I’m a Wild Seed is a playfully illustrated and thoughtfully conceived graphic memoir that explores her personal experiences accepting life as an intersectional Puerto-Rican/Dominican queer Afro-Latina. In this engaging account, De La Cruz offers a brisk history of the LGBTQ community and the struggle for queer rights, touching on the Stone Wall riots, the nature of toxic masculinity and the history of violent suppression of queer people as she guides the reader through a combination of personal (and often funny) anecdotes that methodically examine the nature of race, gender and sexuality. In this ten-page excerpt De La Cruz begins to tell the story of “how I came into my queerness as an adult.” I’m a Wild Seed by Sharon Lee De La Cruz will be published in February by Street Noise Books. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 71 West 23 St. #1608 New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2020, PWxyz LLC