August Roundup

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It’s another great month for comics and, particularly, for Australian comics. 

The awards season continues. Reimena Yee has been nominated for an Ignatz Award and the Comic Arts Awards of Australia have announced the shortlist. It’s a beauty! Make sure you check it out. As always, some of the titles won’t be available for libraries as the CAAA have very broad criteria that includes webcomics and mini comics too, but it’s an excellent list and we recommend reading them all. 

The CAAA will be presented at Papercuts Comics Festival in Adelaide, on September 15. Check out the full Papercuts festival program here. And you can listen to Georgina and Owen talking about the festival and their own comics on our most recent creator chat. 

We also published an awesome creator chat with Jason Pamment and Remy Lai. Both of them have published a graphic novel recently and we sat down with both of them for a really great chat where we discussed their new graphic novels and their comics making process.

As usual, we’ve also published an August Roundup podcast with Marissa and Iurgi discussing some of the latest news, their recent reads and their favourite picks from this month’s new titles. The podcast feed is here (or wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts) and the YouTube videos are here.

But it’s not all about awards and festivals, the best thing is that we’re seeing more and more Australian comics and graphic novels being published. This month we have four new titles by Australian creators! Check out the new titles list below and, as usual, we’ve highlighted the Australian creators in bold. Make sure you support them.

There’s an interesting free webinar coming up organised by Bibliotheca. Prof. Stephen Krashen (World-renowned Expert in Comic Book Research), Iurgi Urrutia (Librarian and ALIA Graphic Convenor), and Moni Barrette (Director Collection Development & Publisher Relations, Library Pass) will discuss the captivating world of comics and graphic novels, revealing innovative strategies to ignite a passion for reading in reluctant readers. All the details and free registration link are here.

Finally, we have to flag that there are some changes afoot. We will be moving to a new website and mailing list. We’re hoping the move is smooth but keep an eye out. Blogger has served us well but moving to WordPress and to our own domain will make our website more useful and we hope to have more handy resources for you all in the new website. 

We are also discussing changing our social media now that Twitter is being erased from existence and everyone is abandoning ship.

Watch this space and we’ll keep you posted.

News

  • The Comics Arts Awards of Australia are coming up. They will be presented in Adelaide as part of Papercuts Comics Festival. The shortlist of nominees has been published and it’s a wonderful list of amazing comics and graphic novels. You can check it out here. They have also published the Ledger of Honour recipients for creators who have had an historically significant, positive impact on Australian comics; shaping the art form of comics in this country in a meaningful way.

  • The Ignatz Award nominations are out. It’s a really interesting list of titles and we’re really happy to see Australian creator Reimena Yee nominated for The God of Arepo in the Outstanding Online Comic Category. You see all the nominations here. 

  • And Reimena Yee spoke at a recent PETAA webinar together and she’s posted a write up of what she talked about on her blog. She talks about the importance of comics for kids (with a slight subversion) and it’s a really interesting read. You can read it all here.

  • Did you recently notice a tremor? It may have been because Scholastic has announced the publication date of the next Dog Man title. Dog Man: The Scarlet Shedder by Dav Pilkey is due out March 19, 2024. It will be the 12th book in the ridiculous popular series. Make sure you pre-order lots of copies and watch them fly off the shelves. To read more about it you can read the news on The Beat.

  • The Harvey Awards nominations have been announced and it’s an excellent list of nominees. You can check out all the nominees here.

  • The Graphic Medicine International Collective Awards for Excellence have been announced. The winner is Ronan and the Endless Sea of Stars by Rick Louis and Lara Antal. You can check all the winners and shortlist here.

  • The Graphic Medicine website has published a really nice tribute to The Nib really worth a read where different members of the Graphic Medicine organisation write about comics published in The Nib that they treasure and are especially thankful for. You can read all the tributes here.

  • The Beat published a great wrap up of the San Diego Comic Con panel talk focused on libraries through Covid and book challenges/bans. This was a great panel covering really important ground. You can read the wrap up here.

  • To celebrate twenty years, there’s a new edition of Satrapi’s Persepolis. Publishers Weekly caught up with the author to talk about Persepolis, comics, her legacy and why she’s left comics behind. An excellent interview worth a read.

Collections

Podcasts/Webinars

  • There’s an interesting free webinar coming up organised by Bibliotheca. Prof. Stephen Krashen (World-renowned Expert in Comic Book Research), Iurgi Urrutia (Librarian and ALIA Graphic Convenor), and Moni Barrette(Director Collection Development & Publisher Relations, Library Pass) will discuss the captivating world of comics and graphic novels, revealing innovative strategies to ignite a passion for reading in reluctant readers. All the details and free registration link are here.

  • Booklist Online have released the archive of their Celebrate Comics Victories! And Great Graphic Novels! Graphic Novel Book Buzz Part 2

NEW TITLES

Junior

  • Finder’s Creatures Case #1: Bog Gone by P. Knuckle Jones (Penguin Workshop)

  • Ghost Book by Remy Lai (Allen & Unwin) [Australian creator]

  • The Good Neighbors by Holly Black, Ted Naifeh (Scholastic)

  • Hello Twigs by Andrew McDonald, Ben Wood (Hardie Grant Children’s Publisher) [Australian creators]

  • The Inflatables: Do-Nut Panic! by Beth Garrod, Jess Hitchman (Scholastic)

  • Leaf-Light by Trace Balla (Allen & Unwin) [Australian creator]

  • The Miraculous Tale of Ladybug and Cat Noir by Koma Warita (Random House)

  • Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: Hair Today Gone Tomorrow by Ashley Franklin, Bea Jackson (Marvel Comics)

  • Renjoh Desperado by AhndongShik (Denpa)

  • SandyPants!  by Raymond McGrath (Scholastic) [NZ Author]

  • Saving Chupie by Amparo Ortiz, Ronnie Garcia (Harper Collins)

  • Ultralazer by Pauline Giraud, Maxence Henry, Yvan Duque (Fairsquare Comics)

  • Women Who Were Kings 4: Catherine the Great by Queenie Chan (Bento Comics) [Australian Creator]

  • Yokai Cats Vol 5 by Pandania (Random House)

YA

  • Akane-Banashi #1 by Yuki Suenaga, Takamasa Moue (Viz)

  • Batman: Wayne Family Adventures by CRC Payne, Starbite (DC Comics)

  • Confessions of a Shy Baker by Masaomi Ito (Tokyopop)

  • Heart Gear by Tsuyoshi Takaki (Viz)

  • I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup by Kurano (Kodansha)

  • Just Friends by Ana Oncina (Tokyopop)

  • Team Trash: A Time Traveller’s Guide to Sustainability by Trent Huntington, Kate Wheeler (Random House)


Adult

  • Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto (Viz Media)

  • My Picture Diary by Fujiwara Maki (Drawn & Quarterly)

  • Girls Have a Blog: The Complete Edition by By Thorn Kurtzhals and Sarah Bollinger (Rocketship Entertainment)

  • Project Arka: Into the Dark Unknown by Romain Benassaya, Joan Urgell (Humanoids)

  • Fight Club – Underground #1 Saturday AM by JR De Bard (Quarto US)

  • Guardian of Fukushima by Fabien Grolleau (Tokyopop)

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