ALIA Graphic September 2020 Roundup

Lumberjanes series coming to an end, new Dog Man book becomes instant North American bestseller, announcement of 2020 Harvey Award Nominations, and Australian Creators win top Ignatz awards.

We’re saying goodbye to old favourites and hello to exciting new releases this month in the September edition of our ALIA Graphic Roundup. While the Lumberjanes series may be coming to an end in its current form, it’s not the last we’ll see of our favourite Hardcore Lady Types with publisher Boom! Studios hinting at new adventures on the horizon.

You can be sure to anticipate plenty of reserves on the latest Dog Man book by Dav Pilkey, which recently became the bestselling book throughout North America for its first few weeks, surpassing even the new Stephanie Meyer novel. If you can stand the wait, pop your name down to be one of the first people to read a book with a first print of 5 million copies(!)

Two Australian creators have received some international renown in the comic book world recently. Ariel Ries from Melbourne picked up two awards for Cry Wolf Girl and online comic Witchy, and Eleri Harris from Tasmania won for editorship in Be Gay, Do Comics as part of The Nib. Well done to these outstanding Australian creators, we’re so proud of you and your work.

And don't forget, our September Roundup podcast is out now on Apple Podcasts where you can listen to Iurgi, Tara and Sarah discuss the latest news and their picks from this month's releases. Have a listen here and subscribe for creator chats and conversations about comics and literacy.

News

• The 2020 Harvey Awards Nominations have been announced and it’s really worth checking the list of nominees. The awards will be livestreamed during the New York Comic Con, October 8-11. You can subscribe to the NY Comic Con YouTube Channel in preparation.
• The Ignatz Awards are a celebration of outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning. The winners were announced recently. Melbourne creator Ariel Ries won two awards, Best Comic for Cry Wolf Girl and Outstanding Online Comic for Witchy. Tasmanian Eleri Harris was one of the editors for The Nib’s Be Gay, Do Comics winning the Best Anthology award. 
• RH Graphic is becoming a powerhouse in graphic novels publishing and here’s a good rundown of some of the exciting titles they have coming up.
• Lumberjanes is coming to an end (but not really end). The ongoing series will end at the end of this year but don’t worry there will be more Lumberjanes for a while. You can read more on The Beat.
• Polygon published a great article with some of the biggest names in comics discussing what defined the comics of the last 20 years and what’s next.
  

Collections and PD

• LibraryCon is upon us again, a whole day, free online con organised by Library Journal and School Library Journal. Follow the link and register now for a November 5 event. The event is usually recorded and an archived version made accessible after the event.
• U.S. comics and graphic novels sales charts: Dav Pilkey has published a new Dog Man book and, no surprise to anyone, it was immediately the bestselling book with just under 240,000 books sold in the first week! And if you want to check out the bestselling graphic novels in the US in August here are the charts: Top 20 Kids, Top 20 Adult, Top 20 Graphic Novels, Top 20 Author, Manga and Superhero.  

 

Media

• Jarret J. Krosoczka is really active on YouTube and well worth following. He’s started a new series called Origin Stories interviewing different creators and the first episode is with Raina Telgemeier.
• The Australian Kapow YouTube Channel partnered with Half Cut to Help Save the Daintree Forest for a virtual comic con. You can find a playlist with 7 excellent panel talks here that include excellent panels on making comics for kids, underground comix, crowdfunding during a crisis, and a cartooning workshop with absolute legend Dean Rankine.
• Two Australian creators Shaun Keenan and Stephen Kok host a chat every Sunday night on the Comics2Movies YouTube channel. Their discussion about Christopher Reeves’ Superman movie with Darren Close, followed by a discussion of Australian comics is great viewing.
• When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed is a great graphic novel for discussion with kids and particularly good to use with students that deals with the everyday lives of refugees. Comix Experience had a great chat with Victoria about it that you can access on their YouTube Channel.
• The Creator Talks podcast interviewed Chris Gooch. If you listened to our Creator Chat this month and want more Gooch, this is a great interview. 

 

New Releases

Junior and YA

• Bunnygirl - Holly Jayne (Berbay) [Australian creator]

• Chickensaurus - James Foley (Fremantle Press) [Australian creator]

• Dog Man: Grime and Punishment - Dav Pilkey (Scholastic - Graphix)

• The Flower of the Witch - Enrico Orlandi (Dark Horse)

• Forget Me Nat (Nat Enough Book 2) - Maria Scrivank (Scholastic - Graphix)

• Karen's Roller Skates (Baby-Sitters Little Sister Book 2) - Ann M Martin, Katy Farina (Graphix)

• Kodi Book 1 - Jared Cullum (Top Shelf)

• The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire - Michael Dante Di Martino, Michelle Wong (Dark Horse)

• A Map To the Sun - Sloane Leong (First Second)

• Squidding Around - Kevin Sherry (Scholastic - Graphix)

• Stranger Things: The Bully - Greg Pak, Valeria Favoccia (Dark Horse)

• Teen Titans: Beast Boy - Kami Garcia, Gabriel Picolo (DC Comics)

• Witches of Brooklyn - Sophie Escabasse (Random House Graphic)

 

General Adult

• Authorised Happiness Volume 2 - Jean Van Hamme, Griffo (Cinebook)

• Batman: Curse of the White Knight - Sean Murphy, Klaus Janson (DC Comics)

• Chasin’ the Bird: Charlie Parker in California - David Chisholm (Z2)

• The Contradictions - Sophie Yanow (Drawn & Quarterly)

• Fangs - Sarah Andersen (Andrews McMeel Publishing)

• Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Bernie Wrightson (Simon & Schuster)

• Nineteen - Ancco (Drawn and Quarterly)

• The Old Guard, Book Two: Force Multiplied - Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez (Image Comics)

• Reaver Volume 2: The Grim After - Justin Jordan, Niko Henrichon (Image Comics)

• Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut, Ryan North, Albert Monteys (Archaia Studios Press)

• Solutions and Other Problems - Allie Brosh (Gallery Books)

• Teaching Artfully - Meghan Parker (Clover Press)

  
   

ALIA Graphic August 2020 Roundup

 

Boom Studios has had its biggest ever pre-order, Image comics has overtaken Marvel, DC in their most recent sales rankings (as reported by bleedingcool.com), and DC had its first online convention with DC FanDome.

So much news to share this month! The team at ALIA Graphic are super excited for the new original series by award winning Australian writer Tom Taylor and fan-favourite artist Daniele Di Nicuolo, Seven Secrets. We are really looking forward to the collected edition coming to libraries in a few months.

DC FanDome was a big hit this month with great promotion and advertising for all their upcoming projects. Lots of movie and video game news and teasers, and an announcement that Milestone Comics, DC’s Legendary imprint centred around the experiences of characters of colour, will return in 2021.

We also have a fabulous new Creator Chat this month with Cameron Davis, author of Rose and Dahlia, Blow the Cartridge, Presidog and more. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up to date with Creator Chats, comic-related videos, webinars, and talks. Prefer to listen? Our monthly roundups and chats are also available on Apple podcasts.

 News

• Frank Herbert’s Dune is seeing a lot of movement these days. A movie, a graphic novel adaptation of the original book, and a prequel series of comics to cite a few. The Beat published a good wrap up: SDCC ’20: Frank Herbert’s DUNE Universe is Expanding Like No Other 
• Dark Horse Comics have announced that Avatar: The Last Airbender is getting a graphic novel spin-off entitled Toph Beifong’s Metalbending Academy.
  
  
  
• Asterix and Obelix is a favourite of many and has been for decades. With the series being relaunched by Papercutz in the US, Publishers Weekly discusses race and representation in these classic comics. Are the Asterix and Obelix comics racist, should they be changed, or should they have some sort of disclaimer? Something to ponder.
• Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino’s Gideon Falls (Image Comics) has an end date. The creepy horror series will come to an end in December with an 80-page finale.
• DC News: DC Fandome delivered a whole lot of news about the James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984, Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut and Matt Reeves’ The Batman, among many others.
• Marvel News: With The Eternals movie coming out next year, Marvel is relaunching the comic with Kieron Gillen, Esad Ribić, and Matthew Wilson. Nia DaCosta (Candyman) will direct “Captain Marvel 2” for Marvel Studios.
• Dark Horse: Dark Horse Comics will distribute print editions of ComiXology Originals collections to retail, beginning March 2021. Titles will include: Eisner Award-winning Afterlift, Breaklands Vol. 1, Youth Vol. 1 and The Black Ghost Vol. 1.

Collections and PD

• This month, the ALA’s Booklist offered two graphic novels related webinars: A Novel Form: Graphic Novels Part II and Booklist’s Graphic Novel Panel Part II. Follow the link, register, and you can access the archived versions.
• BookRiot have a great article called A Brief Guide to Comic Book Art Styles by Giovanna Centeno which discusses the many different styles used in comic publishing.
• ICv2 published an interesting article discussing the change from monthly comics to graphic novels, from Marvel and DC to Scholastic’s Junior and YA graphic novels. Superhero Comics May Have Finally Met Their Kryptonite by Rob Salkowitz.

Media

• We published a new ALIA Graphic Creator Chat with Cameron Davis of Rose and Dahlia. We talk comics, Rose and Dahlia and food (Also available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts)
• The San Diego Comic Con @ Home had lots of great events and we created a playlist on our YouTube channel with some of our favourites. One of the highlights for us was the Graphix/Scholastic panel: Graphix Get Drawn In.
• Kapow! has published an excellent video interview and profile of Safdar Ahmed who will be publishing his first graphic novel, an expanded version of his highly acclaimed Villawood: Notes From an Immigration Centre, next year through Twelve Panels Press. You can read lots of Safdar Ahmed’s webcomics on his website.
• The AIPT Comics Podcast recently had a great interview with Tom Taylor and Danieli Di Nicuolo about their new series Seven Secrets. This is Melbourne-based Tom Taylor’s first creator-owned series after The Deep and we can’t wait for it.
• The I Read Comic Books Podcast is always a good listen. In this 250th episode, they discuss some great new releases and they have a very cool discussion about comics they didn’t think they would like but they ended up liking. A great topic for discussion.
• The latest episode of the Serious Issues Podcast from Sydney’s Kings Comics is wholly dedicated to Manga. A great listen.

New releases

               

Junior and YA

• Agent Moose - Mo O'Hara, Jess Bradley (Feiwel & Friends)
• A Map to The Sun - Sloane Leong (First Second)
• Beetle and the Hollowbones - Aliza Layne (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
• Bigby Bear: The Explorer - Phillippe Coudray (Humanoids)
• The Daughters of Ys - M. T. Anderson, Jo Rioux (First Second)
• Displacement - Kiku Hughes (First Second)
• Grumpy Unicorn Hits the Road - Joey Spiotto (Graphix)
• Kerry and the Knight of the Forest - Andi Watson (Random House)
• Little Josephine: Memory in Pieces - Valerie Villieu, Raphael Sarfati (Life Drawn)
• Lois Lane and the Friendship Challenge - Grace Ellis, Brittney Williams (DC Comics)
• Lumberjanes: Birthday Smarty - Shannon Watters, Kat Leyh, AnneMarie Rogers, Maarta Laiho (Boom! Box)
• Teen Titans Go! To Camp - Sholly Fisch, Macelo DiChiara (DC Comics)

General Adult

• Broken Frontier - Various creators (A Wave Blue World)
• Carthago: Origins - Christophe Bec, Ennio Bufi (Humanoids)
• Child Star - Brian Box Brown (First Second)
• DCeased: The Unkillables - Tom Taylor, Karl Mostert (DC Comics)
• Ghostwriter - Rayco Pulido (Fantagraphics)
• The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Fordham, Aya Morton (Simon & Schuster)
• Invisible Differences: A Story of Asperger’s, Adulting and Living a Life in Full Color - Julie Dachez, Mademoiselle Caroline (Oni Press)
• In Vitro - William Roy (Humanoids)
• Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics - Tom Scioli (Random House)
• Medicine: A Graphic Story - Jean Noel Fabiani, Philippe Bercovici (SelfMadeHero)
• Metal Hurlant: Selected Works - Various creators (Humanoids)
• Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen - Helen Mullane, Dom Reardon, Matthew Dow Smith (Humanoids)
• Pulp - Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips (Image Comics)
• Retina - Benoit Riviere, Phillippe Scoffoni (Humanoids)