Friday, 31 July 2020

ALIA Graphic July 2020 Roundup

July has been a pretty interesting month. Sexual misconduct stories have surfaced in the comics industry. Women have opened up and the stories are pretty shocking. DC’s graphic novels for kids and teens have done really well and Marvel has finally made a move towards kid friendly graphic novels of their properties signing a deal with Scholastic. The move away from the traditional serialised comics and to bookshop friendly graphic novels continues.

In fact, Comichron and ICv2’s yearly report of U.S. sales has come out this month and it shows that for the first time in U.S. history sales of comics and graphic novels in the book channel (that’s bookstores) were higher than in the comics channel (comic stores). The trend is set to continue this year and the Eisner Awards are further evidence of this seismic change. Both Marvel and DC have received no Eisner Awards this year and the winners for the main categories were female creators publishing original graphic novels. The biggest winner was Mariko Tamaki, who won Eisner for Best Teen Publication and Best Writer. Her Supergirl book is published this month which should be pretty popular.

This month we've expanded our roundups with a podcast version. To listen to Iurgi, James and Gabby, talk about some of the news this month and highlight their picks from this month's new releases, please subscribe to the ALIA Graphic podcast; episode 11 ALIA Graphic July Roundup is now live.

News

Collections and PD

Videos and Podcasts

New releases

This months sees the release of two Australian titles. Cameron Davis together with many other collaborators publishes Rose and Dahlia and Pat Grant publishes The Grot with Top Shelf.

  • Junior and YA

    • Act - Kayla Miller (Houghton Mifflin Books)

    • Baby-Sitters Little Sister Vol. 2: Karen's Roller Skates - Ann M. Martin, Katy Farina (Scholastic)

    • Cuphead Volume 1: Comic Capers & Curios - Zack Keller (Dark Horse)

    • Eat and Love Yourself - Sweeney Boo (Boom!)

    • Faith: Taking Flight - Julie Murphy (Balzer + Bray)

    • The Montague Twins : The Witch’s Hand - Nathan Page, Drew Shannon (Alfred A. Knopf)

    • Ms Marvel Volume 2: Stormranger - Saladin Ahmed, Joey Vazquez (Marvel Comics)

    • One Year at Ellsmere - Faith Erin Hicks (First Second)

    • Rose and Dahlia - Various authors (Cameron Davis)

    • Stranger Things: Into the Fire - Jody Houser, Ryan Kelly, Le Beau Underwood (Dark Horse)

    • Supergirl: Being Super - Mariko Tamaki, Joelle Jones (DC Comics)

    • Super Hero Girls: Weird Science - Amanda Deibert, Erich Owen, Yancy Labat (DC Comics)


    General Adult

    • The Adventure Zone: Petals To The Metal (#3) - Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Travis McElroy, Justin McElroy, Carey Pietsch (First Second)

    • The Cloven: Book One - Matthew Southworth, Garth Stein (Fantagraphics)

    • Eight Lane Runaways - Henry McCausland (Fantagraphics)

    • Fire Power Volume 1 - Robert Kirkman, Chris Samnee (Image Comics)

    • From Hell, Master Edition - Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell (Top Shelf Productions)

    • The Grot - Pat Grant (Top Shelf)

    • The Loneliness of the Long Distance Cartoonist - Adrian Tomine (Faber & Faber)

    • Paying The Land - Joe Sacco (Metropolitan Books)

    • Thoreau and Me - Cedric Taling (SelfMadeHero)

    • Wine: A Graphic Story - Benoist Simmat, Daniel Casanave (SelfMadeHero)