It was a fantastic day for artful, intelligent comics when the New York Review of Books added comics to its publishing line. The focus so far is on making obscure graphic novels available again, and the March 22 release of Mark Beyer’s riotous Agony sets an interesting tone for the line. Beyer’s work, which is about the size […]
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Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Reviews, Graphic Novels, Comics, Raw, Art Comix, Indie Comics, Literary Comics, blutch, glen baxter, mark beyer, New York Review of Books Comics, NYRB Comics, Add a tag
Blog: How To Be A Children's Book Illustrator (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: News, American Library Association, David Sedaris, Jules Feiffer, Raw, Toon Books, Pictures worth a thousand words, Art Spiegelman, Eleanor Davis, Françoise Mouly, Geoffrey Hayes, Benny and Penny, "Maus", "Seven IMpossible Things Before Breakfast, "Stinky", Gahan Wilson, Maurice Sendark, Savannah College of Art and Design, Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book, Classics Illustrated Comic Books, Add a tag
“Graphic novels” for little bitty kids?
Comics for children age four and up?
Not such a preposterous idea. The intuitive narrative form of comics is a whole another kind of reading.
Searching words, pictures and panels for clues to events big and small in a story is a more active experience than watching video on a screen.
My “great books” education came from Classics Illustrated comics, which I loved. Did they ruin my appetite for dinner?
Heck no, I read plenty of real classics later. My readings of the actual Men Against the Sea, The Dark Frigate, King Solomon’s Mines, Frankenstein, David Copperfield, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and so many more were only enhanced by my first reading their comic book counterparts.
(In many cases the comics reading was a richer experience than plowing through the actual classic texts. Maybe that says more about me than any literary works. However that’s a story for another post.)
Thank you, Albert Kanter for the great contribution you made to kid culture with the Classic Illustrated series that ran for 30 years beginning in 1941.
On that note, Toon Books, produced by Raw Junior, LLC , endeavors to make comics readers of toddlers and tots.
And who better to tease little ones with artful pictures and graphics into an early habit of reading than, well, another comic book publisher.
And, in this case, someone who is also a New Yorker magazine art director.
Françoise Mouly is a veteran of more than 800 New Yorker covers, a mom, and the co-founder and co-editor, with her husband cartoonist Art Spiegelman, of the avant garde comics anthology Raw Graphics. That’s where Spiegelman’s family account of the Holocaust, Maus, A Survivor’s Tale, that later won the Pulitzer Prize, first appeared. It was the first comic book to call itself a graphic novel .
Mouly also designed and edited books for Pantheon and Penguin in the late 1980’s and early 1990s. She was helping her first grade son with his reading. she discovered — to her dismay — “beginner reader” texts.
She substituted for their home reading sessions her giant collection of French comic books, and that worked like a charm. It got her thinking, and in 2000 she launched the RAW Junior division to publish “literary comics” for kids of all ages.
She enlisted star writers, artists and cartoonists such as Maurice Sendak, David Sedaris, Jules Feiffer and Gahan Wilson.
In 2008 she started the Toon Books imprint. These were 6″ by 9″ hard cover “comics” that very young children could read on their own.
“Comics have always had a unique ability to draw young readers into a story through the drawings,” Mouly told an interviewer. “Visual narrative helps kids crack the code that allows literacy to flourish, teaching them how to read from left to right, from top to bottom.”
“Comics use a broad range of sophisticated devices for communication,” the Toon Books website quotes Barbara Tversky, professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a Toon Books advisor.
“They are similar to face-to-face interactions, in which meaning is derived not solely from words, but also from gestures, intonation, facial expressions and props,” Tversky says. “Comics are more than just illustrated books, but rather make use of a multi-modal language that blends words, pictures, facial expressions, panel-to-panel progression, color, sound effects and more to engage readers in a compelling narrative.”
I like the Benny and Penny series by author illustrator Geoffrey Hayes, about sibling mice — a big brother and his little sister and do they ever ring true! In the latest title, The Big No-No, released this Spring, Benny and Penny confront the “new kid” next door.
In Just Pretend, Penny threatens to disrupt Benny’s make believe pirate game (because she needs a hug). But they somehow manage to play together. When Penny momentarily disappears in a game of hide and seek, Benny decides that pretending is better with his sister around than not.
Hayes has written and illustrated about 40 books, including early readers and a Margaret Wise Brown title, When the Wind Blew.
The Big No-No and Just Pretend are gently rendered in colored pencil and beautifully orchestrated and paced. The pages are a joy to experience. The little dialogue balloons are so natural and unobtrusive. The books give you the feeling that you’re eavesdropping on the real conversations of real children.
You can read a fascinating interview with Hayes on the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog.
I haven’t yet seen Stinky about a polka-dotted swamp monster whose turf gets invaded by a little boy. It’s creator is a 25 year old rising comics star Eleanor Davis, a recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. The American Library Association named Stinky its Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book for this year.
* * * * *
Mark Mitchell hosts “How To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator.” To sample some free lessons from his online course on children’s book illustration, go here.
Blog: The Excelsior File (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: graphic novel, comic books, mouly, toon, RAW, spiegelman, 07, 07, RAW, spiegelman, comic books, mouly, toon, Add a tag
Benny and Penny in Just Pretend by Geoffrey Hayes Otto's Orange Day written by Jay Lynch illustrated by Frank Cammuso Toon Books/RAW Junior 2007 In a word: Disappointing. The first releases in a new imprint from he editorial team of Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman are probably best described as comic books packaged as graphic novels for the younger set. If they didn't have such a high
Blog: A Fuse #8 Production (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: neil gaiman, Brothers On a Hotel Bed, Coe Booth, Fat Guys in Candy Stores (it's bound to come up again), Helena Montana, Add a tag
It's not Video Sunday, but this marks a convergence of two of my favorite things. Neil Gaiman and Brotherhood 2.0. Everyone has their favorite Brotherhood video. Mine was the one where they sang Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone From Your Pants, but this one may upset the balance. Check it out.
Not only do we get to hear Neil Gaiman talk about sex (gurgle). Not only is there a shout-out to Coe Booth. But there is a SONG! I love the songs! And the "fat guy in a candy store line" will now undoubtedly be the last thing I randomly think about before I expire on my deathbed at the crusty old age of 102.
Blog: Eric Luper's Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: tyrell, book award, ya, young adult, meg rosoff, john green, m.t. anderson, l.a. times, nancy werlin, coe booth, Add a tag
The winners of the 2006 L.A. Times Book Awards were announced last night. They went though all of this boring stuff before they got to the young adult winner. In fact, young adult was the absolute last category listed. That blows. I mean isn't YA lit more important that Biography or Current Events? Okay, maybe I'm biased. Anyway, here were the finalists:
Young Adult Fiction:
M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party (Candlewick Press)
Coe Booth, Tyrell (Push / Scholastic)
John Green, An Abundance of Katherines (Dutton Books / Penguin Young Readers Group)
Meg Rosoff, Just in Case (Wendy Lamb Books / Random House Children's Books)
Nancy Werlin, The Rules of Survival (Dial Books / Penguin Young Readers Group)
And the winner is........
COE BOOTH for Tyrell. I don't know Ms. Booth, but I do know Lisa Graff, author of The Thing About Georgie (here's my blog review) and one of the other Longstocking authors. This bunch of female blogging MG/YA writers has found tons of success these past few years. You can read all about their thoughts, ideas, and accomplishments here. This is one of the blogs I follow and I enjoy it a whole heck of a lot.
Congratulations Ms. Booth (may I call you Coe?) and all of the other fabulous authors who were recognized!
Drool
Well written article too
More of this please
I agree.
Heidi, you know how you used to ask your readers what they wanted more of?
This.
Coverage of amazing comics that you might not easily find on other comic/pop-culture sites that are well written, and not the cut-and-paste pr releases we’re used to.
[…] The Beat – New York Review of Books’ new comics line is off to an amazing start […]
How come Blutch is not a better known artist in the states right now? I think his only translated books are Peplum and So long silverscreen. But the man’s a prodigy with a large number of published works in Europe.