September Roundup

Another month and another Australian comic creator gets an award. We’re so happy that Reimena Yee, who’s publishing a new graphic novel this month, has received the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Artist for Alexander, the Servant and the Water of Life, a retelling of the life of Alexander the Great. 

This month we published two great podcasts. We had a Creator Chat with Jon Sommariva, who’s co-created with Tom Taylor and recently published Neverlanders. An excellent graphic novel we highly recommend. 

As you may be aware, September includes Banned Books Week. On that topic, we had a chat with some library professionals about bans and challenges. A very hot issue in the U.S. right now. Our North American counterparts, the American Library Association’s Graphic Novel and Comic Round Table, have an Addressing Comic Book Bans and Challenges committee. We had a very important in depth discussion with them. The episode notes also include quite a few links and resources worth exploring and we are very grateful to the four committee members for their time and for sharing their experiences.

Our most recent graphic novel club had challenged and banned books for discussion and next month we’re discussing horror! Remember, our graphic novel club sessions are all free and on Zoom. You can register here and you can find the full schedule, suggested readings and all the info here.

While we can’t announce all the details yet, watch this space for future announcements about a webinar we will be doing in November. We have two confirmed speakers already, Gabby Cundy (one of our team members) will be speaking and our main guest will be Jillian Rudes, the creator and driving force behind the Manga in Libraries webinar series.

Of course, as always, this month we also have lots of great graphic novels that we believe will be a great addition to libraries. Some big titles are coming out this month. For example, Svetlana Chmakova’s Enemies, Reimena Yee’s My Aunt Is a Monster, Alex Ross’ Fantastic Four: Full Circle, and Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands.  Check them out!

News

• The Ignatz Awards have been announced. As always it’s worth checking out the winners but we’re especially proud that Reimena Yee has won the Outstanding Artist award. Congratulations to Reimena! You can find all the winners here.

• Gender Queer has probably been the most challenged graphic novel in the last couple of years and the lawsuit against it in Virginia for obscenity has been dismissed. At least for now. Read more about it on Popverse.

• Will Eisner’s legendary graphic novel A Contract With God is going to Broadway and becoming a musical! Read more about it on Popverse.

• Penguin Random House continues its expansion and will now be distributing Dark Horse periodicals too. Read more about it on The Beat.

• Seismic Press has a very relatable new character in the form of an accidental superhero, for a series debuting in October. Read more about it on CBR.

Collections

• Publishers Weekly has published a comprehensive roundup of graphic novels being published in the next few months that’s really worth checking out. 

Podcasts/Webinars

• You can listen to the Jon Sommariva creator chat on our ALIA Graphic Podcast blog or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• You can listen to the Comic Book Challenges and Bans discussion on our ALIA Graphic Podcast blog or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

• The Manga in Libraries webinar series has continued across the year and their most recent session was: Disability Visibility in Manga. You can access their archive here. Don’t forget to watch this space, for information about our upcoming webinar. Jillian Rudes, the creator and driving force behind Manga in Libraries will be our guest speaker!

NEW RELEASE TITLES

Junior & YA

• Adventuregame Comics: Leviathan by Jason Shiga (Amulet Books)

• Doughnuts and Doom by Balazs Lorinczi (Top Shelf)

• Enemies by Svetlana Chmakova (JY for Kids)

• Everyday Hero Machine Boy by Irma Kniivila, Tri Vuong (Image Comics)

• Garlic and the Witch by Bree Paulsen (Quill Tree Books)

• Investigators: Heist and Seek by John Patrick Green (First Second)

• My Aunt Is a Monster by Reimena Yee (Penguin Random House) [Australian creator]

• My Buddy Killer Croc by Sara Farizan, Nicoletta Baldari (DC Comics)

• Speak Up! by Rebecca Burgess (Quill Tree Books)

• Star Wars: Crimson Reign by Charles Soule, Steven Cummings (Marvel Comics)

• Supper Club by Jackie Morrow (Image Comics)

• Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe by Hirohiko Araki (Viz)

• Two Headed Chicken by Tom Angleberger (Waller Books)

Adult

• Banksy: A Graphic Novel by Francesco Matteuzzi, Marco Maraggi (Prestel)

• Crazy Food Truck volume 2 by Rokurou Ogaki (Viz Media)

• Dune Book 2: Muad D’ib by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Raul Allen, Patricia Martin (Abrams Comic Arts)

• Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross (Abrams Comic Arts)

• Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)

• Everything is Okay by Debbie Tung (Andrews McMeel)

• It Won’t Always Be Like This by Malaka Gharib (Ten Speed Press)

• Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto (Viz Media)

• My Body Created a Human: A Love Story by Emma Ahlqvist (Princeton Architectural Press)

• Mythology Class by Arnold Arre (Tuttle Publishing)

• The Philosopher, The Dog and The Wedding by Barbara Stok (SelfMadeHero)

• Poe Clan Vol 2 by Moto Hagio (Fantagraphics)

• Regarding the Matter of Oswald’s Body by Christopher Cantwell, Luca Casalanguida, Marchisio (Boom! Studios)

• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror: Ominous Omnibus Vol 1 by Various Artists (Abrams Comic Arts)

• Slash Them All by Antoine Maillard (Fantagraphics)

* This article was originally published here