Tag: Raina Telgemeier

It was quite a week for books by comics folks. Jerusalem AND Ghosts. Raina Telegemeier is on tour and kicked it off at  St. Anne School in San Francisco, with a crowd and a...

To say that Raina Telgemeier is the closest thing to a superstar in the comics industry leaves out the cardinal reason for her well-deserved popularity: her beautifully crafted stories touch on issues that affect every aspect of the soul. In her works readers tackle critical matters of inner humanity, from the tribulations of growing up, to understanding the depths of friendship, to sibling rivalry and reconciliation, and now, accepting the mysterious dimensions of love, culture, and death.

According to publisher promotional materials, Ghosts, the new graphic novel by Raina Telgemeier will have a 500,000 copy first printing. I believe this is the biggest first printing ever for a pure graphic novel....

§ At Emerald City, best selling cartoonist Raina Telgemeier showed she's not just the president, she's a customer, cosplaying as Miyazaki's Ponyo. Just when you thought life couldn't get any more awesome.

For those who don't like to be surprised about what they'll find when they arrive at San Diego for the five day time slip known as Comic-Con, a plethora of information on what you'll see and find is already out there. SPOILERS ahoy, but forewarned is forearmed. As you may have noticed, the San Diego Public LIbrary is now a hotspot of comics-related events. I understand there'll be a whole slate of industry themed programing taking place there, but for early birds who get in Tuesday (an increasing number of people) the whole show kicks off with an Evening with Raina Telgemeier:

This news arrived via an email ad blast in my inbox, but it doesn't change the import of it: Raina Telgemeier's Smile has been on the New York Times bestseller list for three straight years, and she also recently achieved a rare top four sweep of the spots with Smile, Sisters, Drama and the reissued colorized Babysitter's Club.

MoCCA Fest has just announced its programming. With the festival of indie itself is set  for April 11-12th at a new venue, the Center 520, programming will be held a short walk away at...

Brian Hibbs has posted his annual Bookscan analysis—charting actual sales of books that report to Nielsen’s Bookscan sales charts. while Bookscan numbers are not allowed to be broadcast, Hibbs uses a leaked list of...

People are nuts. Really. But some are pretty awesome, too, and you will read about both kinds in this episode we like to call...KIBBLES 'n' BITS...

When Scholastic launched its Graphix imprint 10 years ago, graphic novels were a novelty, if you can pardon the expression, in the mainstream publishing world. And kids comics were an unknown quantity—comics shops didn't want them and bookstores didn't know what to do with them. In the first wave, there were many miscues and misunderstandings at many houses along the way. But Graphix wasn't the one making them. Granted, starting out a line with Jeff Smith's Bone is about as much a sure thing as possible—6.9 million copies in print and counting. But picking Raina Telgemeier to do a Babysitter's Club relaunch and eventually Smile, and Kazu Kibuishi to publish his Amulet series weren't as sure—but they sure paid off. Along the way Graphix has picked up multiple Eisner Award wins and nominations, a Stonewall Book Award, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor, an Edgar Allan Poe nomination, and 14 New York Times bestsellers. They've published many more top cartoonists such as Doug TenNapel, Greg Ruth, Mike Maihack and Jimmy Gownley. And there's more to come.

It was the year of the woman in comics. No question. As readers, as creators and as characters, Finally. As I tallied the votes for this year’s Person of the Year, as chosen by industry professionals, I suspected a woman would win, and the voting was extremely close—and really could have been one of a half dozen people—but eking out a win was Raina Telgemeier. While the votes were cast before the recent Wall Street Journal piece, it generally summed up all the reasons why she deserves to be the Person of the Year. Telgemeier is the first cartoonist to become a “name” author for kids based on her graphic novels alone—Smile has appeared on the NY Times bestseller chart for 133 weeks, and in 2014 she had three spots, with Smile, Drama and Sisters, which debuted with a 200,000 first printing. And according to the WSJ, Smile now has 1.5 million copies in print, with Sisters close behind with 1.4 million. A while ago I joked that Smile is the new Watchmen, and based on these numbers it’s not far off.

Al Jazeera publishes a web comic, and it's not what you expect! Two Harris County (Texas) District Attorney employees were indicted by a grand jury for stealing evidence and selling it online! The case that landed both...