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

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)