October Roundup

We’re coming close to the end of the year. In a way we’re starting to wrap up, but on the other hand we’ve just announced our second webinar and we’re thrilled!

For this webinar we have managed to gather four really amazing speakers who will be discussing how comics and manga nurture and inspire reading and creativity. It may be wrong for us to say it, but this is definitely a webinar you don’t want to miss. All the information about the webinar and the free registration details are here. Make sure you register and we look forward to seeing you there.

November will also be the last session for this year’s Graphic Novel Club. We invite you all to attend with some tasty food at hand, after all, we’re discussing graphic novels that centre on food. As always, we have three suggested graphic novels to read but we look forward to hear what other graphic novels that centre on food you recommend. All the Graphic Novel Club information and the free registration details are here.

News

• The Harvey Awards were announced at New York Comic Con. You can check out all the winners and watch the whole ceremony here. Two Australian creators were among the nominees, Lee Lai for Stone Fruit and Simon Hanselmann for Crisis Zone.

• Popverse has been covering the NYCC quite extensively. Here’s an article on how comics are under attack in the US presented by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and a great interview with Denis Kitchen discussing comics history and censorship.

• Mobile webcomics are exploding in growth. Publishers Weekly looks into it and libraries should stay up to date as a lot of these titles also find their way to digital comics platforms and print.

• Miracleman is a legendary comic but one with a very troubled history. If you’re excited about Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham finally returning to finish what they and Alan Moore before them started, Popverse has published a great article that explains the troubled history and why this is such a big deal that has many comic fans excited. 

• Peach Momoko is publishing Demon Wars a manga that expands the Marvel Universe, mixed with Japanese folklore. This looks like a really interesting proposition. Read the news on CBR.

Collections

• Librarian Sara Smith has published a really handy blog post compiling all the major awards of 2022 in the U.S., with nominees and winners.

• Star Wars comics and books continue to be popular and the High Republic books that are being published are no exception. The problem is that they’re being churned out pretty rapidly and it’s easy to get lost. The good news is that The Beat has published a handy guide to what’s being published so if you want to make sure you’re getting all the High Republic action, this is a good place to start.

Webinars/Podcasts/Videos

• Melbourne’s Reading book shop has a podcast series and they’ve recently published the first (of we hope many) episodes focusing on comics hosted by one of Australia’s greatest champions of the medium, Bernard Caleo. In this first episode of The Comics Question, Bernard interviews Mirranda Burton, who has just been awarded the Readings 2022 Young Adult Award for Underground. 

• Love & Rockets is one of the greatest comic book series to come out of the U.S. and now there’s a whole documentary dedicated to it free to watch on YouTube. You can watch it here. 

NEW RELEASE TITLES

Junior & YA

• Awaken Volume 1 by Koti Saavedra (Seven Seas)

• The Big Adventures of Babymouse: Once Upon a Messy Whisker by jennifer Holm, Matthew Holm (Random House)

• Buddy Gator - Glad to See You by Chow Hon Lam (Basheen Graphics Singapore)

• Candy & Cigarettes volume 1 by Tomonori Inoue (Seven Seas)

• The Dragon Prince: Bloodmoon Huntress by Nicole Andelfinger, Felia Hanakata (Scholastic)

• The Evil Secret Society of Cats volume 1 by Pandania (Seven Seas) 

• Freestyle by Gale Galligan (Graphix - Scholastic)

• Iyanu Child of Wonder Book 2 by Iyanu Okupe (Dark Horse)

• The Last Mechanical Monster by Brian Fies (Abrams ComicArts)

• Leon the Extraordinary by Jamar Nicholas (Scholastic)

• Lore Olympus volume 3 by Rachel Smythe (Del Rey Books)

• Marvels Vol 2: The Undiscovered Country by Kurt Busiek (Marvel Comics)

• Max Meow 4: Taco Time Machine by John Gallagher (Random House)

• She Hulk Vol 1: Jen Again by Rainbow Rowell, Roge Antonio, Luca Maresca, Rico Renzi (Marvel Comics)

• Side Effects by Ted Anderson, Tara O’Connor (Aftershock Comics)

• Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner, Vincent Zabus, Nicoby (SelfMadeHero)

• Thieves by Lucie Bryon (Nobrow)

Adult

• Batman: One Dark Knight by Jock (DC Comics)

• Be Very Afraid of Inuki Kanako by Inuki Kanako (Kodansha Comics)

• Black Water Lilies by Frederic Duval, Michel Bussi, Didier Cassegrain (Magnetic Press)

• Dancing on the Volcano by Floor De Goede (Oni Press)

• A Fade of Light by Nate Fakes (West Margin Press)

• First There Was Chaos by Joel Priddy (Uncivilized Books)

• Hakim’s Odyssey Book 3 by Fabien Toulme (Graphic Mundi)

• The Human Target Book 1 by Tom King, Greg Smallwood (DC Comics)

• Invisible Wounds by Jess Roliffson (Fantagraphics)

• The Journey of Marcel Grob by Philippe Colin, Sebastien Goethals (Naval Institute Press)

• Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto (VIZ Media)

• Lucy by Tanino Liberatore (Heavy Metal)

• Movements and Moments by Anthology by various authors (Drawn & Quarterly)

• No Kidding by Madeleine Martin, Vero Cazot (Fairsquare Comics)

• Open Bar by Eduardo Medeiros (Oni Press)

Webinar Announcement: Nurturing and Inspiring Reading and Creativity With Comics and Manga

A year ago we had our first ALIA Graphic webinar (which is still available to watch our YouTube page) and we thought we'd gather together again this year.

We are excited to have four amazing speakers to talk about all things comics and manga. In this webinar we will focus on Junior and YA comics and manga. We will explore how they nurture life long readers and inspire creativity. As usual, our webinar will be on Zoom and it will be free.

Hosted by ALIA Graphic Convenor Iurgi Urrutia, we’re pleased to announce four incredibly exciting speakers.

Gabby Cundy has been an ALIA Graphic team member since its inception. She’s situated in Western Sydney where she currently works as a Branch Librarian. Previously she has worked in a school library where she first developed a love of Children’s and YA literature. Recently she presented at the Illawarra School Library Association conference about embracing comics and graphic novels in school libraries. Earlier this year she  completed her Masters of Information Studies specialising in Children’s Literature. She can always be found with a book close by with the majority of those being new release YA novels and Middle Grade graphic novels. Helping children and teenagers find a book that they fall in love with is what she wants to do for the rest of her career.

Follow Gabby on Twitter: @GabzzC

Elizabeth Marruffo and Campbell Whyte are the creative minds behind Milktooth Arts Space, a school of art and comics, based in Perth. They believe that all children are naturally creative and they see it as their job to nurture and inspire that creativity through painting, sculpting, textiles, comics and illustration. They run long term courses and school holiday workshops. They are also artists and comic book creators in their own right. Elizabeth has been a sessional lecturer in painting at Edith Cowan University, a finalist in numerous national painting awards including The Portia Geach Memorial Prize and is working on her first graphic novel, Pup Pup Is the Boss of the Stars, a story inspired by the small towns of Agua Prieta and Magdalena in Mexico, where she grew up. Campbell Whyte has published several short comics and two volumes of Home Time published by Top Shelf, which received lots of recognition and awards, including being nominated at the Eisner Awards 2018 in the Best Publication for Kids Ages 9-12 category. They both also co-founded the Perth Comic Arts Festival - a volunteer run and 100% free to attend celebration of local comics talent. Check out Milktooth’s website here: https://milk-tooth.com 

Jillian Rudes is the school librarian at a 6th-12th grade, public school in New York City. She is the Japanese Culture & Manga Librarian for the New York City Department of Education, as well as, the founder and director of Manga in Libraries. She received the American Association of School Librarians’ Collaborative School Library Award in 2020 and the American Library Association's Scholastic Library Publishing Award in 2022. She was also deemed the “Manga Maven” by Library Journal and selected as Mover & Shaker in 2022. She has presented on manga at New York Comic Con, San Diego Comic Con, the American Library Association’s Annual Conference, the International Association of School Librarianship’s Annual Conference, and more. You can find a ton of resources on her website MangaInLibraries.com. Follow Jillian on Twitter: @JRlibrarian

Are you ready to sign up? Registration is totally free. Please note, the event will be recorded for those who cannot attend live. The recording will be made available after the event(give us a few days).

When: Wednesday November 30 at 12pm AEDT

Zoom registration: Webinar registration here

Duration: 1 hour

Please direct any questions about the webinar to our email address: aliagraphicinfo@gmail.com

ALIA CPD Hours

If you are a member of the ALIA PD Scheme or Proficiency Recognition Program (PRP) you can log and reflect on your time spent engaging with ALIA Virtual Showcases for PD hours. There is no cap on the number of hours you can claim - the total is simply the number of hours that you can spend actively learning and engaging in the conference content. This will vary from person to person. Any PD questions can be sent to pd@alia.org.au

Webinar + Graphic Novel Club + Podcast updates

While we rarely do this, we thought we'd give everyone some quick updates because there are a few things happening. 

WEBINAR

A year ago we got together for our very first webinar, Getting Graphic: Comics Around the World, which you can still watch on our YouTube page here. So we thought we'd get together again and have a second ALIA Graphic webinar. 

We will announce all the details soon but make sure you reserve the day. It will be Wednesday November 30 at 12pm AEDT and we're incredibly excited about the event and the speakers who will be joining the conversation. This is one you definitely don't want to miss.

GRAPHIC NOVEL CLUB

Our Graphic Novel Club returns this Sunday at 3pm AEDT and we will be discussing horror in comics. As usual, there are three suggested readings but even if you haven't read those three you can definitely join the conversation and discuss your favourite horror comics. 

Join the fun and feel free to wear something spooky!

If you've never registered for our Graphic Novel Club, check out all the details here and find the Zoom registration link here.

PODCASTS

We have published two podcast episodes recently. First we had a chat with comic book creator Gary Proudley who has published several comics, most importantly Talgard: Tome 2 this year (Gestalt Comics). The Talgard series is interesting as it depicts a barbarian who uses intelligence rather than brute force. Every Talgard story is four pages long and with art by a different Australian artist. 

The other podcast is an in depth chat with Paul Metcalfe who is the library coordinator for the Albany Campus Library of South Regional TAFE WA. He published an article on Incite recently and with him about building a graphic novel collection at TAFE. The episode notes also include some interesting resources.

We have also created an ALIA Graphic Podcast blog where all our podcast episodes can be enjoyed and have added a Podcast tab on this blog to make it easier to find and navigate. 

Of course, you can still continue to listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

That's all for now. Light up your whole brain, read comics!