| Two things! |
[Nov. 30th, 2009|09:55 am] |
SMILE is in the current issue of Diamond's Previews Catalogue, which means you can now reserve a copy of the book through your local comic shop! It will ship on February 3, 2010.
SMILE’s Diamond Preview Order Code:
DEC09 0873
Softcover: $10.99
Hardcover: $21.99
It's also a Diamond STAFF PICK, and you can read the wonderful review here.
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And, because I can't seem to do just one thing at a time: I'm holding a giant ART AUCTION on a bunch of BSC Original Art! Stuff like book covers, unpublished pieces, personal drawings of the characters, and pages I've never made available till now. Prices start at $30! The auction goes until Saturday evening, and I can ship everything in time for the holidays.
(I'm still selling $30 MYSTERY PAGES too--see my website for details!) |
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| King Con! |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|12:10 pm] |
This Sunday, November 8, I'll be appearing on a panel at King Con, at the Lyceum in Brooklyn! Here is the info:
KIDS' COMICS: SUNDAY 11AM-11:50AM
Remember that old cliche, "comics aren’t just for kids anymore?" In the era of grownup graphic novels and gritty anti-heroes, are comics for kids at all anymore? Join a new generation of cartoonists creating work with a youth-centric focus as they discuss the past, present, and future of comics for kids. Moderated by Brian Heater, the panel will feature Matt Loux, Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Sara Varon, and more!
I'm not sure exactly where in the building the panel will be located, but it should be clear when you arrive. I won't have a table, but I might have a few galleys of SMILE in my backpack. If you're a librarian, educator, or journalist, come see me after the panel and I'll hook you up! |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 30th, 2009|01:58 pm] |
Want to bid on my final X-Men drawing, after I sold the others at SPX? Well, at least go to eBay and look! It's Gambit! You know you love Gambit.
This is my first foray into selling on eBay. I've been planning to auction off some of the more recognizable BSC art (covers, etc) there, but I figured I'd try things out with this first. |
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| Whew! |
[Sep. 29th, 2009|12:43 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | combination pizza hut and taco bell remix | ] |
Hey, SPX was a great success!
Here are some photos from my SMILE giveaway, on Sunday afternoon: I gave away two copies of the galley, and a couple of runner-up prizes! Gina Badano won the raffle, and Kathryn Villeux won the Best Dental Horror Story contest! Rob Clough and Yuko Ota got the runner-up mini-comic prizes, as their own horror stories were too good to go unrecognized. As well, I feel the need to mention Dustin Harbin, who didn't want to officially enter the contest, but told me in detail his own dental story, which more closely resembles my own than any other I have heard.
Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who entered, and everyone who came and talked to us over the weekend. You are all too kind! I wish I had time to do a full re-cap of the weekend, but time is short and I gotta go do a bunch of stuff!
With SPX behind us, our con season is officially over. I'll be working hard behind the scenes for the rest of the year, and hope to see a bunch of you in 2010! |
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| Thiiiiis weekend! |
[Sep. 22nd, 2009|03:53 pm] |
It's almost time for my other favorite small press comics show (I have a lot of them): SPX!
Yup, the Small Press Expo is September 26 and 27 in scenic Bethesda, MD! The Comics Bakery will be stationed at tables H7-H8. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) marionv made us a handy info-graphic, to show our table placement:
I'll have a new issue of Outreach available, and Dave and I will have plenty of copies of X-Men on hand. I'll also have an assortment of BSC graphic novels, original art, SMILE postcards, keychains, mini-comics, and other goodies as you have come to expect. Dave is debuting a new (full color!) volume of Life Meter, and Marion will have a zombie mini!
I'm also selling the 7 original X-Men drawings I did (which you can see here) a couple weeks ago. Anything I don't sell at the show, I'll auction off next week. The drawings are all 5" x 7", black and white, ink on Bristol board.
I'm also holding a raffle and a contest! I have a few advance-reader galleys of SMILE available, and I'd like to give them away. There are two ways to win:
--Raffle! Come fill out a raffle ticket at our table, any time before 4:30 PM on Sunday. I will draw a winner at 5 PM.
--Contest! Tell me a horror story about your teeth! You have to come and tell me your story in person, also any time before 4:30 PM on Sunday. I will choose a winner at 5 PM. Most horrific dental story wins.
Looking forward to seeing everyone there! |
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| BangPop! is almost here! |
[Sep. 16th, 2009|04:44 pm] |
This weekend, Dave and I will be at the BangPop! Comic Book & Pop Culture Convention, in Bangor, Maine!
September 19 & 20, 2009
Bangor Civic Center
Bangor, Maine
Admission:
Weekend Pass $15
Day Pass $10
Full-time teachers & librarians are free with current work ID!
Kids 12 & under are free with paying adult!
We will have copies of X-Men: Misfits, and I'll have BSC graphic novels, mini comics, artwork, t-shirts, and SMILE postcards. We'll be on a few panels throughout the weekend:
Saturday, September 19
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Dave and I will be presenting a panel and slideshow for librarians and educators, as part of the show's educators track.
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Dave will be speaking on a webcomics panel!
Sunday, September 20
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Dave and I will be presenting a panel for kids! We'll talk about different drawing styles, show some slides, and do some drawing. All ages welcome.
I've never been to Maine before, so I'm really looking forward to this (especially the Iron Giant geek in me). I hope you'll stop by, if you're in the area! |
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| BBF tomorrow! |
[Sep. 12th, 2009|10:13 am] |
Just a quick reminder: the Brooklyn Book Festival is tomorrow, September 13!
Come see my panel at 3 PM, Love, War and Adventures in Babysitting…Transforming Stories into Comics, (at the Youth Stoop, Borough Hall Plaza), with George O'Connor and Danica Novgorodoff.
Dave is also on a panel at 12 PM: Sci Fi and Fantasy in NYC. He'll be in the NYCC programming area!
The weather's supposed to be nice again tomorrow, so why not come hang out in downtown Brooklyn with me and a few thousand book-minded friends? It's free! |
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| SMILE page 5 |
[Sep. 8th, 2009|10:10 am] |
Color page preview from SMILE? Don't mind if I do!
Click to view larger.
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| Oh, September. You are one busy month. |
[Sep. 2nd, 2009|03:33 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | appearances, bangor, bangpop, bethesda, brooklyn, brooklyn book festival, bsc, conventions, events, outreach, spx, x-men | ] |
Upcoming events!
Sunday, September 13, I will be at the The Brooklyn Book Festival! This will be my first time attending the BBF, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it. It's a huge, free event taking over much of downtown Brooklyn. You can find me at the Youth Stoop in Borough Hall Plaza--the Youth Stoop provides day-long literary activities for youth ages 10-18. This is the panel I'm speaking on:
3:00 p.m. Love, War and Adventures in Babysitting…Transforming Stories into Comics. How does a comic artist take a favorite story and make it new? Three new stars in the literary comics cosmos shine the light on their process, adapting award-winning fiction, found historical materials and one of the most popular teen series of all time into graphic novels. Raina Telgemeier (The Baby-sitters Club graphic novel series), Danica Novgorodoff (Refresh, Refresh) and George O’Connor (Journey into Mohawk Country).
Immediately after, I'll be signing copies of BSC and X-Men: Misfits!
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The following weekend, September 19 and 20, Dave and I will be heading up to Bangor, Maine as special guests of the BangPop! Comic Book & Pop Culture Convention, at the Bangor Civic Center. The programming isn't completely current on the site yet, but we'll be giving one panel for educators and librarians, and another for kids! I'll post an update with specific information when I have it. Note that current full-time educators and librarians will receive free admission to BangPop! with current school ID. I've never been to Maine before, so I'm pretty excited about this trip.
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And then the last weekend in September, look for the entire Comics Bakery at one of our favorite conventions: the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD! I'll have a new issue of Outreach available, and Dave and I will have plenty of copies of X-Men on hand. I'll also have an assortment of original art, SMILE postcards, keychains, mini-comics, and other goodies as you have come to expect. If anyone wants to request that I bring a specific BSC original page, or something else, you can leave a comment here or email me. |
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| New Fans! |
[Aug. 25th, 2009|03:43 pm] |
These were my favorite fans from the NYC Japan Street Fair last weekend. We had a blast at the fair, sold all of our books, saw some friends, and I ate an anpan. Mmmmm!
This weekend, we also found out something that blew us away entirely: X-Men: Misfits landed at #6 on the New York Times Graphic Books Bestsellers list! It's listed there as a paperback, as opposed to a manga...and nobody is really sure why. Still, everyone around here is pretty stoked about it.
As for our live chat yesterday, it went well. I'm new to live chatting, and answering questions in the order they come in is no easy task! So many good questions kept popping up! Deb Aoki organized most of the chat into a more readable fashion, if you'd like to see what we talked about. Thanks, Deb! And thanks to everyone who stopped by and asked us questions.
That's it, I think, until our book party on Friday!
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| Forthcoming |
[Aug. 20th, 2009|09:35 am] |
Just in case I don't have a chance to mention any of this, this weekend:
Dave and I will be at the NYC Japan Fair on Sunday, August 23. We'll be signing copies of X-Men: Misfits at the New York Anime Festival booth from 1-3. I'm excited about it! I want to eat some mochi!
Then the next day, Monday the 24th, we're doing a Live Author Chat at 2 PM. (The link erroneously credits me as the book's artist; pay it no mind.) Hope you'll log on and say hi! I have never done one of these before! If you won't be around Monday, you can send us questions in advance at the link.
Also, I've been working on some X-Men character drawings, in the spirit of self-promotion. I have more in the works, and will be adding to the gallery in the next few days.
Finally, don't forget, we have a book release party comin' up a week from tomorrow at Rocketship. There will be cupcaaaaakes... |
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| It has been QUITE a week. |
[Aug. 16th, 2009|06:28 pm] |
This week was pretty crazy and wonderful.
**Dave and I taught a workshop at Symphony Space, where I was surprised to find that all 20 kids in the program had received a galley of SMILE to read! This is the first group of kids (that I know of) that has read the book in its entirety, so I was stoked to talk to them. Some of them had read it twice. One girl had memorized multiple scenes. Another girl was fascinated that some of my drawings were still in pencil (almost all of the spot illos in the galley are unfinished). Several kids wanted to show me their orthodontic appliances. All of them wanted me to sign their copies. I was elated. They were a fantastic group.
**In keeping with the SMILE theme, I went down to Scholastic one afternoon to look at the color proofs! This was the first time I had seen the entire book laid out and in color, aside from on my monitor. It looks amazing. The very patient design and production people stood with me in a lightroom for over two hours, while I inspected each and every page. I found a handful of changes I wanted to make, but nothing major. The few corrections I made have been sent in, and the book should be off to the printer overseas in a few days!
**X-Men: Misfits came out! But I already mentioned that, so moving right along.
**I had a lovely dinner with my agent, and we talked about next year's plan of action. I am going to be one busy girl. It's going to be so much fun traveling around and talking about comics.
**This was also a serendipitous week of high school friends, many of whom happened to be visiting NYC! I saw my friends Jake and Kristy on Thursday, Pira and Venus on Friday, and talked with Theresa on Wednesday. I love that so many of my oldest, dearest friends are thriving, creative, amazing people.
**We saw PONYO!! I really, really loved it. I'm a weather buff, and that storm scene was one of the most beautifully animated sequences I've ever seen.
**Possibly the most exciting thing that happened this week? We BOUGHT A CAR. We have been talking about getting one for a couple of years, and we finally found a good one and took the plunge! This will help immensely, as I tend to do at least a couple of library and school workshops every month--and I've been paying too much money for cab rides all over New York City. Just to get to and from some of the further libraries in Queens, the borough I live in, costs about $80 in cab fare. I turn down a lot of events that are just across the river in New Jersey, or just a little too far into Long Island for a short day trip. Now I won't have to! And now, if I need to get out of the city just to veg for a little while, it'll be easy! So, so, so excited. It's been exactly 10 years since the last time I had a car...because it was exactly 10 years ago (to the week) that I moved to New York from San Francisco! It's been a great 10 years, and I'm looking forward to taking everything to the next level. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 11th, 2009|11:43 am] |
As yaytime mentioned over on his journal this morning, our new book, X-Men: Misfits is out today!!
You should be able to find it at any large book store, as well as online:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Borders
Or, buy it from your local comic shop--comics retailers should have it tomorrow.
As I mentioned previously, we're throwing a book release party on Friday, August 28, at our favorite Brooklyn comic shop: Rocketship!
Hope to see some of you there. There will be free drinks and cupcakes!
Dave and I are also doing a signing at the NYC Japan Street Fair, Sunday, August 23. We'll be at the New York Anime Festival booth from 1-3 PM with books for sale, and X-Manga swag! Always with the swag. It sounds like it's going to be really fun.
Let us know if you spot the book in a store, or if you enjoyed reading it...we certainly had a blast working on it! |
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| X-Men Misfits at SDCC! |
[Jul. 29th, 2009|11:06 am] |
Even though Dave and I were absent from SDCC this year, our new book made an appearance! That's our editor Tricia showing it off. Photo courtesy of Jon Rosenberg!
The book will be in stores on August 11. We just got this lovely review from Booklist, which was a great thing to wake up to:
X-Men 1: Misfits
Raina Telgemeier Dave Roman and Anzu.
X-Men is renowned for being one of the most girl-friendly super hero comics franchises, so a shojo (girl's) manga “re-boot” of the series is not that far-fetched. The conceit of seeing the X-Men redrawn as supercute boys, or in the case of Beast, redrawn as an adorable human-size badgerlike thing, works without a hitch. 15-year-old Kitty Pryde, who has the mutant ability to slip through walls, enrolls in Xaviar Academy, where she meets classic X-men characters, most still in their teen years. By some unexplained twist of fate that could only happen in shojo, Pryde is the only female student (Storm is a teacher). This makes the formerly insecure girl very popular with her peers, so much so that she is asked to join the Hellfire Club, which is hilariously reimagined as a parody of Ouran High School Host Club rather than a sinister organization of wealthy elites. Telgemeier and Roman deliver a delightful script that will appeal to old fans while being friendly toward new readers or fans of the X-Men films. The art by Anzu (The Reformed) is over-the-top shojo parody, with lots of screentone and flowers. (Aug.)
Yay!!
We're throwing a book release party at the end of August, at Rocketship, which I'll write more about in a separate entry. Everyone is invited!
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| Oh man. |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|01:45 pm] |
My very favorite working comic strip artist, Richard Thompson, creator of the absolutely wonderful Cul De Sac, revealed today that he has Parkinson's disease.
I've met Richard, and he is a sweet guy. He's also going to be a special guest this year at Comic Con, which I won't be attending. I'm currently kicking myself because I'm missing so many, many people I want to see, but I would have especially loved to attend Richard's spotlight panel (Thursday at 4 PM). You should go, if you're around. I'm sure his sly wit and daft sense of humor will make for a great time.
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| Cape May County Library Workshop: SUCCESS! |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|04:29 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | cape may, cape may county library, comics, kids, libraries, mini-comics, new jersey, outreach, photos, teens, workshop | ] |
Last week's 2-day Teen Workshop at the Cape May County Library went off without a hitch.
![](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2652/3719797062_6bd5967171.jpg?v=0")
I can't tell you how proud I am of those kids (I think we had 17 or 18 in total!)--they worked so hard, did such great work, and had a great time talking comics with Dave and I!
Our Flickr set from the workshop...
...and the Library's Flickr set.
And if you still don't believe girls read (and really, really want to make) comics, look no further than these photos.
Neat: here's a short YouTube video of me, helping one of our students come up with story ideas! I die of embarrassment when I hear the sound of my own voice, but this is a good snapshot of how the whole thing went.
Related: Another of our students talks about the mini-comic she wrote and drew. Like everyone else, she did an AMAZING job.
My utmost thanks to Librarian Justin Hoenke, who spearheaded this event and worked with us to make sure we'd be well-taken care of while we were in town. He and his wife Haley were fantastic hosts (and they let me play with their fantastic baby, Finn), who made sure we had lots of suggestions for fun things to do with our evenings!
Some of the fun we got up to can be evidenced in this Flickr set: cute shops, boardwalk, a visit to a small waterpark, and looooads of ice cream!
I came home about as optimistic as one could be about the future of this medium I love so much. I won't be at Comic-Con in San Diego next week, but I'll be working on comics the whole time! Hooray! |
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| SMILE: done! |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|04:41 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | amazon, cape may, done, libraries, nj, pre-order, smile, summertime, sva, workshops, x-men | ] |
It's been an important couple of days around here. First of all, I turned in SMILE this morning! The whole thing is colored and ready to print, and I couldn't be more pleased with the way it turned out.
I also discovered yesterday that you can pre-order a copy on Amazon! (Book's not out till February, but if you order now it'll ship when it's in stock.)
Paperback
Hardcover
And now that I'm done, I can focus on a couple of other things at hand: I'm speaking at an SVA class tomorrow night, and then next week Dave and I are teaching a 2-day teen comic workshop in Cape May, NJ! I don't know if anyone lives in that area and wants to come, but you need to sign up in advance if you do. The number to call is in the link! I'm looking forward to a few days of being on the shore, too...it'll almost be like a little vacation.
And of course, this weekend is the fourth, which means swimming and barbecue and raspberries off the bush and hanging out with friends, in the backyard which was the model for Stacey's family's yard in BSC#4--if you remember the scene with the kids chasing Louie the collie around and giving him a bath, you've got an idea of where I'll be!
After all of that, it's time to shift gears and work on my next couple of projects. I've got two things I'm excited to work on, although I won't really be able to talk about them for a little while. To tide you over, though, our X-Men manga comes out on August 11. We're hoping to throw a book release party the following week; stay tuned for details!
Hope everyone's having a great summer so far. It finally warmed up around here, and me and my tomato plant are both pretty happy about it. |
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illin'
![spotlight panel](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3_P7eJQLZ54/SlfYh7FTAyI/AAAAAAAABx8/e1WU4SOycH8/s1600-h/Picture+3.png"){kind=link}