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Jarrett J. Krosoczka has unveiled the book trailer for Comics Squad: Lunch!. This book serves as a follow-up to the 2014 book, Comics Squad: Recess!.

The video embedded above features appearances from the contributors of this comics collection. This group includes Krosoczka, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Jeffrey Brown, Cece Bell, Nathan Hale, Jason Shiga, Cecil Castellucci, Sara Varon, and Peanuts.

Krosoczka and the Holm siblings served as the editors of this project. Random House Books for Young Readers has scheduled the release date for Jan. 26.

We sit down for a chat with Jason Shiga about his existential mindbender, DEMON, and reveal the cover to First Second's collected edition of the series.

Jason Shiga, known for his multi-path comics such as Meanwhile, is scheduled to publish his next title, Demon, with First Second in October 2016. It say’s “Book 1” in the catalog, and given the description below, looks like it will run about six volumes. What’s the comic about? Well, from his patreon website: I’m currently creating […]

§ MUST READ: Laura Hudson enters the world of Jason Shiga, who is probably one of the world’s greatest living cartoonists. If you don’t believe me, go read Demon, or Fleep. He’s surely one of the great visionary thinkers about the possibilities of comics storytelling, his comics unfolding like tesseracts in real time and space, with codes, traps, mysteries and more.

The first time Shiga blew my mind was with an interactive graphic novel called Hello World. The story is simple enough: You’re a little boy sent to the store by his mother with a grocery list of items and a suitcase to carry them home. But the moment you open the cover, it’s obvious this is unlike any comic you’ve ever seen before. Every page is sliced in half, separating the comic into two parts. The top half is where the story unfolds, while the bottom half displays the contents of your suitcase. The two sides are connected by an intricate system of page-turning: When you see a number inside a square, you flip to a page in the top half of the comic, advancing the story; when you see a number inside a circle, you flip to a page on the bottom, adding and removing items from your suitcase. That’s when you realize that this isn’t just a choose-your-own-adventure story: It’s a comic with a functional inventory system.

§ A very nice story by Margo Dabaie about a class she taught for aspiring cartoonists:

I loved hearing the stories they had in mind because they were always really ornate and involved (I definitely had to drop some gentle reminders that there’s only one page to work with!). It was clear the students were fans of comics and were excited to make work.

§ Another cool story about how comics worpshops are being used in the Mumbai district of Dharavi to educate and improve, as reported by Ryan Holberg.

Usually, World Comics India, wherever it goes, collaborates with local activist groups. A trained “comics tutor” will be sent to conduct a workshop, the composition of which, in terms of age and sex, differing widely according to locale. The tutor first gets workshop participants to speak about social and political issues important to their daily lives. The participants are then instructed in the basics of how to make short four panel comics, from step one of conceiving a story idea, to breaking the story down in panels, and finally inking the drawings. The finished comic is then photocopied and pasted onto walls. Other formats like eight-page booklets are also produced. The range of topics depends on the locality, and the nature of the collaborating NGO: from concerns with water shortages in states like Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, to illegal deforestation in Mizoram. Political corruption, male alcoholism, discrimination against women, and health problems due to bad sanitation have been treated in workshops in many states, giving you a sense of how extensive these problems are in India.

§ Speaking of improving, the once great state of Indiana has passed an odious law that allows discrimination, and it’s sad to think we live in an era where this is playing to the basest of bases. Anyway, the large gaming show Gen Con is threatening to leave the state because the law may allow attendees to be discriminated against:

The so-called “religious freedom” bill, passed in the Indiana House of Representatives Tuesday, would give business owners free rein to refuse to provide services to anyone if they claim doing so would go against their religion. That could mean a baker could refuse to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding, for example. Gen Con CEO and owner Adrian Swartout sent a letter to Pence on Monday in which she said the state will stand to lose the $50 million the convention brings to the city of Indianapolis each year if the bill becomes law.

She wrote:   Legislation that could allow for refusal of service or discrimination against our attendees will have a direct negative impact on the state’s economy, and will factor into our decision-making on hosting the convention in the state of Indiana in future years. We ask that you please reconsider your support of SB 101.

I grew up loving comic books. Back in the day, I was pretty into Conan the Barbarian and Spiderman. Anyone who reads comics can tell you, every main character has an origin story — the fateful and usually unexpected sequence of events that made them who they are.

§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM8sfznqoFk
Here is a video of Dan DiDio talking about Convergence which I understand imparts important information about this event. Perhaps someone can explain it to me.

A lot of cartoonists—and many blogs, ahem—have taken to PAtreon as a means to finance the creation of comics. There are quite a few (a round up post is called for, maybe later this week) and Patreon doesn’t make it clear who makes the most, the way Kickstarter does, but Jason Shiga recently hit $1000 a month for his Ignatz winning webcomic Demon. Given his analytic background, there’s much of that in the post, but here’s an excerpt:

I know it’s an arbitrary number, but the $1000 mark is significant for a couple reasons. First, it amounts to the opportunity cost of not going with a larger publisher for this project. Second, someone could theoretically live on $1000. They’d have to be childless, live in a hovel in Detroit with 4 other dudes eating beans and rice 3 times a day. But man, if you were to describe that life to my 20 year old self, I’d tell you that sounds pretty nice. I know a lot of my readers here are cartoonists so maybe you can relate to that feeling of knowing so clearly in your bones that you were meant to do this one thing. But then there you are screwing in widgets all day, waiting for that whistle to blow so you can bike home and draw again. When I started out making comics, I didn’t want to be rich or famous. I just wanted to make more comics. I still do.

The lifestyle that $100 a month affords you is not a very appealing one, but, as he says, it makes the project officially a success. As he explains, he started out with usual business model of selling print editions, art and digital subs. This level of income for a regular webcomic would thrill many cartoonists, but given Shiga’s 15 year career, and the success of Meanwhile (which led me to coin the term The Shiga Index when analyzing sales charts.)

My own Patreon is nearing $700, which is a pretty good number all things considered. I’m very fortunate to have this level of success and appreciate each and every patron. Obviously it isn’t enough to live on, but it had taken care of paying for the backend, investing in the site more, and yes, paying some of those New York City bills. Patreon still doesn’t have the “excitement” level of Kickstarter, but it is beginning to afford a bunch of people at least some return on their work.

PS: Demon is totally dope. It’s a cross between Unbreakable, Groundhog Day and Shiga’s own classic Fleep. READ IT.

A lot of cartoonists—and many blogs, ahem—have taken to PAtreon as a means to finance the creation of comics. There are quite a few (a round up post is called for, maybe later this week) and Patreon doesn’t make it clear who makes the most, the way Kickstarter does, but Jason Shiga recently hit $1000 a month for his Ignatz winning webcomic Demon. Given his analytic background, there’s much of that in the post, but here’s an excerpt:

Jason Shiga’s Patreon for Demon reaches $1000 a month was originally published on The Beat

When we last spoke with graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, his advice for writers is to “give up TV.” Since then, he has been hard at work on a collaborative project with artist Sonny Liew reviving the story of an Asian American superhero called The Green Turtle. First Second, an imprint of the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, released the print edition of The Shadow Hero earlier this week. We spoke with Yang (pictured, via) to learn his insights on diversity, collaboration, and mapping out a career in publishing. Here are the highlights…

Q: How did you land your first official book deal?
A: My very first book deal was for a two-issue comic book miniseries called Duncan’s Kingdom. It was written by me and drawn by the amazingly talented Derek Kirk Kim. It was published by Image Comics in the late 90’s. The story is now a part of The Eternal Smile, published by First Second Books.

A friend of ours named Jimmie Robinson was already published by Image. Jimmie has done several comics through the years, including Bomb Queen, Evil & Malice, and Five Weapons. He sent our submission directly to his editor. Throughout my cartooning career, friends have played key roles.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Pick Any Path. 3,856 Possibilities  by Jason Shiga  Amulet / Abrams 2010   2010 Cybils Winner for Middle Grade Graphic Novels  It seems like such a small decision – chocolate or vanilla ice cream? – but whichever one the reader chooses for Jimmy will send them down one of 3,856 paths.  Some paths lead to death and the end of the world as we know it, some lead to a parallel dimension, some

It’s one of The Beat’s favorite times of year: Brian Hibbs’ annual Bookscan analyses

* Kids/YA material is the fastest growing segment in comics.

* Creator owned material KILLED IT in 2010.

* Manga is way down, but still the dominant genre in bookstores.

* There is a title glut at all levels of the graphic novel industry (number of releases up but sales down)

Although we urge you to read the whole thing, we have broken out some of the charts for our own analysis. Here’s the 20 bestselling GNS of the year in bookstores, with commentary. In my Creator Owned category I’m including books where the author is listed as copyright holder with no other partner — granted, in the book field copyright doesn’t mean exactly what it does in comics, but it’s a useful benchmark.

Also, remember these numbers are only a metric and do not represent many many sales channels like book fairs, certain library sales and so on. The numbers are NOT the be all and end all. But the placements and magnitudes do tell a story.

1. 168,330 — DORK DIARIES — #2 seller last year. If you have never heard of this series you probably don’t have children. YA and CREATOR OWNED.

2. 126,558 — TWILIGHT GRAPHIC NOVEL V1 — Looks like a big number, but industry scuttlebutt is that the book didn’t sell as well as hoped. Still, a solid number. Although this is licensed from Hachette, the overall property is CREATOR OWNED.

3. 124,808 — ADVENTURES OF OOK & GLUK KUNG FU CAVEMEN — Dav Pilkey is a superstar children’s book author, and this book sells in superstar numbers. YA and CREATOR OWNED

4. 90,664 — SCOTT PILGRIM V 1
5. 72,703 — SCOTT PILGRIM V 2
6. 70,393 — SCOTT PILGRIM V 6
7. 64,

The Webster Branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL) tested the old saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

The library wrapped  several books with plain brown paper with a short description pasted on top. If the description intrigued the patron, they were required to check out the book before unwrapping it. The point is to try to withhold judgment until the content is examined.

Here’s more from the NYPL blog post: “One of the first books to go out, and one that sparked a lot of discussion, was labeled ’3,856 stories. One book.’ … The secret book in question is Meanwhile by Jason Shiga. It’s an old school ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ story, in graphic novel format, with about five thousand more twists and turns.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.