Author: admin

I didn’t actually see David Saylor at the ICv2 panels yesterday, as mentioned below… I just thought I did and was confused by someone who looked a little like him. Otherwise, all good.

I’m blogging from INSIDE THE TOKYOPOP BOOTH.

Lillian is trying not to read over shoulder.

L8s!

– Chris

New York is going well, and the first day of panels were certainly interesting. The show opens to professionals and the press in about 10 minutes… I’ll be there a little later. I did see Scholastic VP David Saylor in the audience for the ICv2 programming yesterday and wanted to ask him about the Francoise Mouly quote I posted this week, but in all the hustle and bustle I missed him. Then what should I find on the comments to that post this morning but a response? Here’s David Saylor, talking about Francoise Mouly’s interactions with Scholastic and the beginnings of the Graphix line and TOON Books:

After reading the statements by Francoise Mouly about her (and Art Spiegelman’s) interactions with Scholastic, I feel it’s important to set the record straight.

At the time Scholastic was starting GRAPHIX, an artist and friend of mine, Barbara McClintock, suggested that I talk with Art and Francoise because they were interested in exploring a relationship with another publisher after the third volume of Little Lit had been published by HarperCollins. I met with Art and talked a bit about Scholastic, and then later we had a meeting with our then publisher, Jean Feiwel, including a very pleasant lunch where oysters were consumed.

Art and Francoise were interested in publishing what has since become the full-fledged program of Toon early readers. BONE was never part of something they were offering to us as part of their program. They did praise BONE as being a comic that would be perfect for our target market, of 8-12 year olds.

The truth is that we were already aware of BONE before we met with Art and Francoise. My then assistant, Janna Morishima, bought a copy at Forbidden Planet, passed it to me, and I then passed it to Jean Feiwel, with a recommendation that we look into taking over the publishing from Jeff Smith. After reading BONE, I called Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer and discovered that they were in fact interested in a publisher taking over the publishing as they neared the end of the series.

It’s important for me to state that we never “turned down BONE” nor was BONE ever presented to us by Art and Francoise as part of their TOON program. The one thing that Art and Francoise did do on BONE’s behalf, was to urge Jeff Smith to create color editions of the BONE books.

I should also say that when Scholastic explored creating a graphic novel imprint, we talked with many, many comics professionals and comic book creators, including Calvin Reid, Allen Spiegel, and Jeff Smith. The founding of GRAPHIX extended from my love of comics as a kid and was an idea that I had long been interested in, from when I first met the agent Allen Spiegel, who represents artists from the comic-book world, in 1996.

The conclusion to our few meetings with Art and Francoise, was a feeling (on our part) that TOON books, as presented at the time, wasn’t how we wanted to launch our graphic novel program, which was going to focus on middle-grade readers. The fact that we couldn’t figure out a way to work together was sad for me, and I expressed this to them at the time.

One last rebuttal: Scholastic never suggested that Art and Francoise do a comic-book version of Shrek! It makes for a very funny story, and certainly makes us seem like buffoons, but it simply isn’t true. Scholastic published movie-tie in books for Shrek but the artwork and look of Shrek is controlled by Dreamworks, the owner of that license.

I’ve had tremendous respect and admiration for the work of Art and Francoise and I hope their line of Toon Books (which, by the way, were originally going to be published with PENGUIN books: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6312123.html), reach a wide audience and deliver on their promise of helping kids read. I wish them every success and I hope that their Toon Books lead to more (and better) comics for kids of all ages.

David Saylor
VP, Associate Publisher & Creative Director
Hardcover Books & Graphix
Scholastic Inc.

—

So how about that, huh? I didn’t imagine that Mouly’s statement would go completely unchallenged, but that certainly is a different reading of the events. Both Saylor and Mouly are at the show this weekend, perhaps I’ll scoop up some further commentary from both.

– Chris

I can’t believe I just thought “Wow, only 21 new manga. Looks like a light week!”.

– Chris
*Note: Not actually first though, I’ve been up since 4am, but it’s my first coherent thought.

I’ve got the most severe case of writer’s block at the moment, which is why posting has been so sporadic. Many apologies. I was going to churn out a linkblog post but I think I just tripped over the only thing that needs linking at the moment. I give you Chris Mautner’s interview with Raw and Toon Books founder Francoise Mouly:

Mautner: That’s interesting considering how companies like Scholastic now have their own comic book line.

Mouly: Actually Scholastic is a case in point. I went to see them in 2003 and offered Toon Books to them. The range of what I was offering at the time also included Bone because I had talked to Jeff [Smith] about doing Toon Books and wanted to show [Scholastic] a comic that’s perfect for the eight-nine year olds. And they had turned Bone down as not something that they wanted to do. Then they looked at my proposal and the response came back, “Oh that’s great, it’s beautiful. We’ll reconsider, we’ll take Bone because we know we can do something with that. But the rest, eh. Too much work.” So a lot of what you’re seeing now is the direct result of the efforts we made.

That interaction I must say was incredibly unpleasant because it also came with “Oh, and by the way you should ask Jeff Smith for a cut.” No thank you, he’s our friend. “If you really want to work for us,” says the head of Scholastic, “You could help us do the comic book version of Shrek 2.” (laughs)

Mautner: And of course you jumped at that.

Mouly: You have Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly in your office and they’re begging to be in your employ so of course you find them the perfect thing. The comic book adaptation of the movie which is a sequel of an adaptation of a book by a cartoonist? Yes, of course, we’re going to jump on that.

That’s Gold, Jerry.

Apologies in advance to my friends at Scholastic, but OMG.

– Christopher

Trevor Brown is an artist that is quite well-known in comics and illustration circles. A favourite of the Juxtapoz Magazine crowd. One of his paintings has been completely ripped off by a band called Crystal Castles, and they’re printing it on their T-Shirts (and quite possibly an album cover) and making a profit off of it. THey’ve not ceased to do so even after being asked by Trevor Brown. Conversations with their management are surreal. They tried to get Brown to sign a truly odious and unfair contract in return for payment… that never materialized. Their behaviour is frankly pretty unbelievable. Here’s hoping that the internet can step in and secure some justice for this artist where decency and doing-the-right-thing have failed.

Check it out on Trevor Brown’s blog: http://www.pileup.com/babyart/blog/?cat=14

Their new CD just got released. I bet this would be a pretty interesting angle for a story, should someone be writing about that CD.

– Chris

I’ve never posted this sort of list before but I figured it’s kind of interesting to see what our numbers are like versus what the numbers are like for the rest of the industry. I’d say that, in general the big trends tend to hit us the same way, though you can see the benefits of hand-selling and engaged and happy clerks making their presence felt around the middle of the list.

It’s also worth noting that All Star Superman #10 from a few weeks ago would have charted just on a standard best-seller list, as would Dragon Head Volume 10 and a few other graphic novels… and it was a sort of a light-week for graphic novels. I felt that this list was a little more interesting though…enjoy. I’d love to hear comments or see similar lists from my retailing friends…

Top 20 Best-Selling New Comics at The Beguiling Last Week
1. Buffy The Vampire Slayer #13
2. Secret Invasion #1
3. Kick-Ass #2
4. Angel After The Fall #6
5. Action Comics #863
6. Casanova #13
7. Amazing Spider-Man #555
8. Omega The Unknown #7
9. The Boys #17
10. Countdown to Final Crisis #4
11. Detective Comics #843
12. Anna Mercury #1 (Multiple Covers)
13. Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #2
14. The Twelve #4
15. Young X-Men #1
16. Trials of Shazam #12
17. Abe Sapien: The Drowning #3
18. Jonah Hex #30
19. Walking Dead #48
20. Project Superpowers #2

– Christopher