August has been an excellent month for comics in general and for Australian comics in particular. We started the month at the Perth Comic Arts Festival, where a bunch of our ALIA Graphic team members gathered. The Academy Day on Saturday had lots of great panel talks and workshops. Sunday was the Market Day with more than 80 different creators and publishers presenting and selling their comics.
On Saturday, as part of PCAF, the Comic Arts Awards of Australia were also presented. We congratulate all the winners and we also encourage everyone to check out the shortlist. It was a wonderful event and we look forward to see how both PCAF and the CAAA continue to grow.
On top of all this, Still Alive by Safdar Ahmed which won the Gold Award at the Comic Arts Awards of Australia, also won the CBCA’s Eve Pownall Award for non-fiction.
This month we also have two graphic novels by Australian creators that are a must and we predict they’ll be very successful at libraries. Neverlanders by Tom Taylor and Sommariva, and Sunny the Shark by Remy Lai, the third book in the Surviving the Wild series.
We also recommend listening to the Graphic Nature Podcast. This month they’ve published two new episodes, a chat with Dillon Naylor and a chat with Queenie Chan. Both highly recommended.
For those who follow our podcast, the roundup episode will be out in the next day or two and watch out for a creator chat with Jon Sommariva, where we talk about how he got into comics, his favourite characters and, of course, Neverlanders.
Without further ado, here’s our roundup of news and new titles.
News
The Comic Arts Awards of Australia held their award ceremony at the start of August. We had some team members there and we were so excited that we were live tweeting all through the event. We congratulate all the winners which you can find on the CAAA website here, and we also encourage everyone to check out the shortlisted titles that were announced earlier in the year.
Safdar Ahmed’s Still Alive continues to win awards. This time it’s the CBCA’s Eve Pownall Award for non-fiction. A timely recognition in the lead to its publication in the US by Fantagraphics. The Comics Beat had a nice feature covering the news.
Neverlanders is a reimagining of Peter Pan in more modern times written by Tom Taylor with Art by Jon Sommariva. It’s officially for ages 12+ but unofficially for anyone that is “young at heart”. It’s out August 30 and Screen Rant has the lowdown. Our creator chat with Jon Sommariva will be out soon!
A comic made during World War I by a German prisoner while detained in an Australian internment camp has been rediscovered and is also being considered the first autobiographical graphic novel. Read all about it here.
The Harvey Awards nominees have been announced. You can find the whole list in the Harvey Awards website here.
DC has announced a Wildstorm revival. The line of comics created by Jim Lee in the early Image Comics era is coming back. Popverse has all the details.
Dragon Ball continues to be a very popular franchise and just in case you get asked where and how the new movie fits in the overall story, Popverse has a great feature article that covers all the basics without spoiling the movie.
Popverse has also published a very interesting article written by Graeme McMillan about the Comics Code Authority, the comics panic of the 1950s in the U.S. and how it contributed to relaunching superhero comics.
Collections
The ever awesome Ashley Hawkins, otherwise known as @Manga_Librarian has put together an excellent list of All Ages Manga perfect for Primary School libraries and Junior collections.
Podcasts
Graphic Nature Podcast published two great episodes this month, one with Dillon Naylor and the other with Queenie Chan. You can find the episodes on the Graphic Nature Podcast site here or through your favourite podcast service.
PW’s More To Come podcast published a great episode with Rachel Smythe of Lore Olympus and comics creator, professor and comics scholar John Jennings. You can listen to the episode here. There’s also a great interview with Rachel Smythe on The Beat, which you can find here.
NEW RELEASE TITLES
Junior & YA
Batman’s Mystery Casebook by Sholly Fisch, Christopher A. Uminga (DC Comics)
Bunnicula: The Graphic Novel by James Howe, Andrew Donkin, Stephen Gilpin (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
A Diary in the Life of A Caveman, A Queen, and Everything In Between: History As You’ve Never Seen It Before by Mike Barfield, Jess Bradley (Buster Books)
Frankie’s World: A Graphic Novel by Aoife Dooley (Scholastic - Graphix)
Invisible by Christina Diaz Gonzalez, Gabriela Epstein (Scholastic - Graphix)
In the Shadow of the Throne by Kate Sheridan, Gaia Cardinalli (Mad Cave Studios)
Mamo by Sas Milledge (Boom! Studios)
Neverlanders by Tom Taylor, Jon Sommariva (Penguin Young Readers) [Australian creators]
Nico Bravo and the Trial of Vulcan by Mike Cavallaro (First Second)
Order of the Nightjay: The Forest Beckons by Jonathan Schnapp (Top Shelf)
Over My Dead Body by Sweeney Boo (HarperAlley)
The Pathfinder’s Society: The Legend of the Lost Boy by Francesco Sedita, Prescott Seraydarian, Steve Hamaker (Viking Books for Young Readers)
Ride On by Faith Erin Hicks (First Second)
Step by Bloody Step by Simon Spurrier, Matias Bergara, Matheus Lopes (Image Comics)
Surviving the Wild Book 3: Sunny the Shark by Remy Lai (Allen & Unwin)
Wynd: Book 2: The Secret of the Wings by James Tynion IV, Michael Dyalinas (Boom! Box)
Adult
Acting Class by Nick Drnaso (Drawn & Quarterly)
Always Never by Jordi Lafebre (Dark Horse)
Bolero by Wyatt Kennedy, Luana Vecchio (Image Comics)
Cold Bodies by Magdalene Visaggio, Andrea Mutti (Dark Horse)
Dune Book 2: Muad’Dib by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Raul Allen, Patricia Martin (Abrams ComicArts)
Last Annihilation by Al Ewing and Various Artists (Marvel Comics)
Robin and Batman by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen (DC Comics)
Shifting Earth by Cecil Castellucci, Flavia Biondi, Fabiana Mascolo (Dark Horse)
Tiki: A Very Ruff Year by David Azencot, Frederic Leclerc (Humanoids - Life Drawn)
The Vertical Sea by Brian Freschi, Ilaria Urbinati (Dark Horse)
World Record Holders by Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)
