November Roundup

Who’d have thought that November would be such a great month for Australian graphic novel creators? This month, we have some exciting news and resources to share which show a real recognition of the value, creativity and innovation of graphic novels and comics in Australia.

We are beyond thrilled that Sarah W. Searle has won the 2023 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Literature for her insightful graphic novel ‘The Greatest Thing’. Go and reserve it now from your local library if you haven’t already! In addition to this, we share Allen & Unwin’s teachers’ notes for Trace Balla’s stunning ‘Leaflight’ graphic novel, and celebrate a new release this month by Australian creator Stephen Kok in ‘Transhuman: Volume 2.’

Last but not least, we are so excited at the launch of Reimena Yee’s ‘The Creator's Guide to Comics Devices’, which encompasses ‘sequential art, graphic narrative, graphic literary, visual-literary and all other euphemisms for comics’. Not only is it an incredibly perceptive and well-researched resource, but the guide is a living document that is also open to contributors, so feel free to get in touch and contribute more information on graphic storytelling!

In case you missed it

This month we presented our annual ALIA Graphic webinar, titled Let's Get Practical! We’re incredibly excited to share the webinar with you and we will be working on a few themed book lists as a result of discussions we had on graphic novels that represent disability, comics appropriate for all ages, and more. Keep an eye out on the blog in the new year for some of our recommended resources that may be helpful for your library collection. You can find 79 ALIA Graphic Webinar: Let's Get Practical at the link, below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

 

News

• Reimena Yee has launched her Creator’s Guide to Comics Devices and it’s a stunning free resource for comics creators, educators and anyone interested in understanding storytelling devices that are unique to comics and how they work. What an incredible resource!
• The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards were announced and we’re so happy to see Sarah W. Searle’s The Greatest Thing won the Young Adult award for her beautiful graphic novel. Congratulations Sarah! All the winners can be found here.
• The Beat has published an extensive and interesting interview with Rachel Smythe about Lore Olympus and new projects on the horizon. You can read the full interview here.
• Excellent news from the U.S., A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat becomes the second graphic novel ever to win the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Huda F Cares? was also a finalist and Parachute Kids was in the long list. You can find all the winners and nominees here.
• The Angouleme Comics Festival has announced their official selection for 2024. The Angouleme festival is the most prestigious comics festival in Europe and it’s interesting to see what titles have made their list of nominees. The Beat has all the info about the nominated titles that are published and available in English.
• DC announces a new line of compact comics aimed at reaching new readers in the book market. The comics will be smaller than traditional comics and similar to the size of novels and manga volumes. Popverse has the lowdown here. The compact comics line will launch in June 2024.
• Marjane Satrapi, the celebrated author of Persepolis, says she’s done with comics and whilst she hasn’t created a new graphic novel, she’s the editor of an upcoming anthology: Woman, Life, Freedom, out in March 2024. Publishers Weekly has all we know for now.
• Webtoons and webcomics are being published in print in increasing numbers. Publishers Weekly has a great article looking at this and discussing what the trends are. You can find Webtoons and Webcomics Keep Scrolling into Print here.

 

Teaching resource

• Allen & Unwin has published a document with teachers’ notes for Trace Balla’s wonderful Leaflight graphic novel. This is an excellent resource for primary schools. You can find the teachers’ notes here.

 

Collections

• Publishers Weekly has published their lists of favourite books of the year in different categories. In the Top 10 books of the year, they’ve included The Talk by Darrin Bell. And they’ve highlighted four other graphic novels in their best comics of the year category, which you can find here.
• No Flying No Tights has published another of their great Staff Picks list, this time on comics about body image and accepting your body. You can find the list here.

 

Webinars/Podcasts

• Booklist has released the archive of their webinar Graphic Novels for All (filmed Oct 31, 2023)
• Catch up on Comic Plus’ Independent Comics for Every Reader! | LibraryCon Live 2023 for graphic novel titles from library-friendly publishers.

 

New Releases

Junior

• Barb and the Shadow Army by Dan Abdo (Simon & Schuster)
• Bocchi the Rock! Volume 1 by Aki Hamazi (Yes Press)
• Buzzing by Samuel Sattin & Rye Hickman (Hachette Children’s Books)
• Cat Kid Comic Club: Influencers by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic)
• Cats Claws: Cat Ninja by Matthew Cody (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
• Curlfriends: New in Town by Sharee Miller (Hachette Children’s Books)
• Death & Sparkles and the Sacred Golden Cupcake by Rob Justus (Chronicle Books)
• Go-Go Guys by Rowboat Watkins (Chronicle Books)
• The Haunting of Loch Ness Castle by Chelsea Campbell  (Scholastic)
• The History Club: Duel Across Time by Bret Baier, Marvin Sianipar (Aladdin Books)
• Ink Girls by Marieke Nijkamp & Sylvia Bi (Greenwillow)
• Keeper of the Lost Cities Volume 1 by Shannon Messenger, Celina Frenn & Gabriella Chianello (Simon & Schuster UK)
• Minecraft Omnibus Volume 1 by Sfe R. Monster, Sarah Graley, John J. Hill (Dark Horse)
• The Nightcrawlers Volume 1 by Marco Lopez (Ablaze, LLC)
• Punycorn by Andi Watson (HarperCollins Publishers)
• Rose Wolves Book 1 by Natalie Warner (Top Shelf)
• Sherbert and the Partly Digested Amulet of Power by F. Artington (Whitefox Publishing)
• Spell of a Time: Witches of Brooklyn by Sophie Escabasse (Random House US)
• Stories of the Islands by Clar Angkasa (Holiday House)
• Super Boba Cafe by Nidhi Chanani (Amulet Books)
• Turtle Bread by Kim Joy, Alti Firmansyah, Joamette Gil (Dark Horse)

 

YA

• The Boy From Clearwater Book 1 by Yu Pei-yun, Zhou Jian-xin (Levine Querido)
• Ennead by Mojito (Seven Seas) [Please note there is also a hardcover adult edition of this series]
• I am Hexed by Kirsten Thompson (Rocketship Entertainment)
• The Pirate and the Porcelain Girl by Emily Riesbeck (Simon & Schuster)
• Sophie’s World Volume II: From Descartes to the Present Day by Jostein Gaardner, Vincent Zabus, Nicoby (SelfMadeHero)
• Spider Gwen Ghost-Spider by Seanan McGuire (Random House US)
• Static: Up All Night by Lamar Giles (Random House US)
• Transhuman - Volume 2: Adalyn by Stephen Kok (TL Creative) [Australian Creator]

 

Adult

• Arrowsmith Vol 1: So Smart in Their Fine Uniforms by Kurt Busiek, Carlos Pachecho (Image Comics)
• Good Girls Go To Hell by Tohar Sherman-Friedman (Graphic Mundi)
• Hot to Trop by Veronica Post (Conundrum Press)
• I Don’t Want to Be a Mom by Irene Olmo (Graphic Mundi)
• Macanudo: Optimism Is For the Brave by Liniers (Fantagraphics)
• Majnun and Layla: Songs From Beyond the Grave by Yann Damezin (Humanoids / Life Drawn)
• One More Step, Come Stand By My Side by Takeda Toryumon (Yen Press)
• Saga Vol 11 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
• The Solitary Gourmet by Jiro Taniguchi, Masayuki Kusumi (Ponent Mon)
• Transitions: A Mother’s Journey by Elodie Durand (Top Shelf)

 

October Roundup

The year is coming to an end and the awards season has ended with the Harvey Awards announced at the New York Comic Con. You can find the list with all the nominees and winners below. 

As usual, we have a good variety of news and resources here but we’d like to highlight the Library Journal's excellent survey on comics at libraries, The Beat’s roundup of 80 anticipated YA and Adult graphic novels, the upcoming Library Con! organised by Library Journal and, our very own upcoming, Let’s Get Practical: Answering Your Questions webinar.

We’ve all been at a webinar where we were keen to ask a question but the Q&A at the end was cut short. So we thought we would try building a webinar around your questions. We are asking you to send the questions in advance so we can build a whole webinar around the issues you’re facing and your interests. You can submit the questions here right now and you can also register for the free webinar right here. 

We hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it, don’t worry, the event will be recorded and a recording will be made available after the event.

News

• The School Library Journal has published the results of a survey on comics, graphic novels and manga. The results are really interesting and we believe that the results would be similar in Australia. Have a read right here.

• The Harvey Awards have been announced at New York Comic Con. Here’s the list with all the nominees and winners.

• As the junior graphic novels boom continues comic book adaptations of Dr Seuss’ books have been announced. Here’s the lowdown on Popverse and here on CBR.

• Some Marvel Comics are being compiled and published as Penguin Classics. This is significant and Publishers Weekly published a great article discussing why it matters.

• Is Scholastic - Graphix starting to publish manga? They’re definitely going to publish UNICO, an adaptation of an Osamu Tezuka manga next year. If you’re interested, the School Library Journal has more info here. We predict this will fly off the shelves.

• CBR published an article by Thomas Panter exploring some of the greatest things about comics beyond the classic black panel. Some interesting thoughts here worth exploring. You can read Why More Comics Need to Move Beyond The Panel here.

• In unexpected and surprise news, IZE Press is releasing a series of comics based on K-Pop bands. If this is your thing and want to know more, Publishers Weekly has you covered here.

• A new Raina Telgemeier YA graphic novel will be out in January 2025 and it’s her longest one yet according to Popverse. We don’t know much more though.   

Collections

• There are lots of great comics, graphic novels and manga being published all the time and we do our best to pick our favourites for our monthly roundups but if you want to look for even more here are two other roundups. The Beat has a great roundup of 80 anticipated YA and Adult graphic novels that you can find here. CBR has a roundup of best graphic novels here and best indie comics currently in print here. 

Webinars/Podcasts 

• Our annual ALIA Graphic webinar is coming up! Registrations are now open and we’re also asking you to send questions because the theme of the webinar this year is Let’s Get Practical: Answering Your Questions. We want to build the webinar around your questions, the things you want to know. Make sure you register for the event here and please send us your questions right now here. 

• LibraryCon Live! 2023 is upon us. Organised by Library Journal, this is a day-long celebration of fandom, spotlighting genre fiction for adults and teens with panels devoted to comics and graphic novels, horror, sf/fantasy, and more. In addition to panels and keynotes, they’re also offering fast-track learning sessions hosted by librarians and studio spotlights focusing on visual artists. For more info visit the website here.

• The Due Knowledge podcast is all about school and libraries. In their latest episode they feature Tim Smyth as a guest, a tireless advocate for comics in education. You can listen to the episode Rearranging views towards graphic novels, manga and comics on Spotify here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

NEW RELEASE TITLES

Junior

• The Baby-Sitters Club: Stacey's Mistake by Ellen T Crenshaw (Graphix)

• The Bad Guys 18: Look Who’s Talking by Aaron Blabey (Scholastic Australia) [Australian creator]

• City of Dragons Book 2: Rise of the Shadowfire by Jaimal Yogis, Vivian Truong (Scholastic)

• Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust by Neal Shusterman, Andres Vera Martinez (Scholastic)

• Drawn to Change the World: 16 Youth Climate Activists, 16 Artists by Various writers and artists (Harper Alley)

• Ellie in First Position by Brian Freschi, Eelan Triolo & Nanette McGuinness (Marble Press)

• Enlighten Me by Minh Le, Chan Chau (Little Brown Ink)

• Friendly Bee and Friends: Woe is Worm by Sean E Avery (Walker Books Australia) [Australian creator]

• Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy (Dial Books) 

• The Little Kid With the Big Green Hand by Matthew Gray Gubler (Amulet Books)

• Marvel Super Stories (anthology) by various creators (Abrams)

• Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir Vol 2 by Koma Warita (Kodansha)

• Officer Clawsome by Brian “Smitty” Smith & Chris Giarrusso (HarperCollins)

• Rover & Speck: Splash Down by Jonathan Roth (Kids Can Press)

• Shang Chi and the Quest for Immortality by Victoria Ying (Scholastic)

• Watership Down: The Graphic Novel by Richard Adams, James Sturm & Joe Sutphin (Ten Speed Press)

• The Witch’s Wing and Other Terrifying Tales by Tehlor Kay Mejia, Alexis Hernandez, Junyi Wu, Justin Hernandez & Kaylee Rowena (ABRAMS)

YA

• Avatar the Last Airbender: Azula in the Spirit Temple by Faith Erin Hicks, Peter Wartman, Adele Matera (Dark Horse Comics)

• Be That Way by Hope Larson (Margaret Ferguson Books)

• Betwixt: A Horror Manga Anthology by Various creators (Viz Media)

• Blade of the Moon Princess Vol 1 by Tatsuya Endo (Viz Media)

• The Bodyguard Unit: Edith Garrud, Women’s Suffrage and Jujitsu by Clement Xavier, Lisa Lugrin, Albertine Ralenti (Humanoids)

• Brooms by Jasmine Walls, Teo Duvall (Levine Querido)

• Clementine Book 2 by Tillie Walden (Image Comics)

• Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy by Faith Erin Hicks (First Second)

• Illegal Cargo by Augusto Mora (Black Panel Press)

• One in a Million by Claire Lordon (Candlewick Press)

• Sea Serpent’s Heir: Black Wave by Mairghread Scott, Pablo Tunica (Image Comics)

• Smash the Patriarchy by Martha Breen, Jenny Jordahl (Helvetiq)

• Where is Anne Frank? by Ari Folman, Lena Guberman (Pantheon Books)

• Whisper of the Woods by Ennun Ana Iurov (Maverick / Mad Cave Studios)

• Zatanna & The Ripper by Sarah Dealy (DC Comics)

Adult

• Al Capone by Swann Meralli, Pierre Fracois Radi (Black Panel Press)

• Asterios: The Minotaur by Serge Le Tendre, Frédéric Peynet (Cinebook)

• Bad Karma by Alex de Campi, Ryan Howe, Dee Cunnife (Image Comics)

• The Darwin Incident Vol 1 by Shun Umezawa (Vertical Inc)

• Diaries of War: Two Visual Accounts from Ukraine and Russia by Nora Krug (Ten Speed Press)

• #DRCL Midnight Children Vol. 1 by Shin’ichi Sakamoto (Viz Media)

• Eventually Everything Connects by Sarah Firth (Allen & Unwin) [Australian creator]

• The Great Beyond by Lea Murawiec (Drawn & Quarterly)

• Hans Vogel Is Dead Vol 1 by Sierra Barnes (Dark Horse)

• Haruki Murakami Manga Stories Vol 1 by Various creators (Tuttle Publishing)

• I must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)

• Kafka by Nishioka Kyodai (Pushkin Press)

• Monica by Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics)

• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, Chiara Lagani, Lara Cerri (Europa Editions)

• The Mysteries by Bill Watterson, John Kascht (Andrews McMeel)

• The Night Eaters Book 2: Her Little Reapers by Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda (Abrams Comicarts)

• Pill Hill by Nicholas Breutzman (Uncivilized Books)

• The Super Hero’s Journey by Patrick McDonnell (Abrams Comicarts)

• Tales of the Orishas by Hugo Canuto (Abrams Comicarts)

• Totem by Laura Perez (Fantagraphics)

• The Unlikely Story of Felix Macabber by Juni Ba, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (Dark Horse)

• Vanni: Based on Firsthand Accounts of the Sri Lankan Conflict by Benjamin Dix, Lindsay Pollock (Graphic Mundi)

• We Are Not Strangers by Josh Tuininga (Abrams Comicarts)