Ladies Making Comics

We interrupt this Market Monday to bring you this gorgeous new Stephanie Hans cover.  Cover to what you may ask?  To The Girl Who Would Be King, a YA(ish) novel by none other than blogger, podcaster, and Womanthology contributor, Kelly Thompson! The story:

Separated by thousands of miles, two young women are about to realize their extraordinary powers which will bind their lives together in ways they can’t begin to understand.

Protecting others. Maintaining order. Being good. These are all important things for Bonnie Braverman, even if she doesn’t understand why. Confined to a group home since she survived the car accident that killed both her parents, Bonnie has lived her life until now in self-imposed isolation and silence; but when an opportunity presents itself to help another girl in need, Bonnie has to decide whether to actually use the power she has long suspected she has. Power that frightens her.

Across the country, Lola LeFever is inheriting her own power by sending her mother over a cliff…literally. For Lola the only thing that matters is power; getting it, taking it, and eliminating anyone who would get in the way of her pursuit of it. With her mother dead and nothing to hold her back from the world any longer, Lola sets off to test her own powers on anyone unfortunate enough to cross her. And Lola’s not afraid of anything.

One girl driven to rescue, save, and heal; the other driven to punish, destroy, and kill.

And now they’re about to meet.

Kelly Thompson has been working on this novel for the better part of five years, and has even gotten interest from some of the major prose publishers, but they were ultimately scared away by the story’s violence and because they didn’t think it was “YA enough”.  Did Kelly give up?

No!  She’s taken to Kickstarter to drum up printing costs and whatnot to publish it herself!  And she’s got both digital and print incentives, plus art prizes by none other than Ross Campbell!  Check out the sample chapters on her blog, and if you like what you read, why not kick some dollars her way?  It’s only been up a few hours and is already 35% funded, help her round the track!

Robot6 has a great piece from Colleen Doran about manga and western comics, on the heels of her latest GN Mangaman, with novelist Barry Lyga, about a manga character who falls into an American high school (which is also a comic book— very meta)

Of course, I was a cartoonist before I ever saw any manga. I don’t consider myself a manga artist in the way a real Japanese artist would understand the term. People have actually published articles about my work and called it “Amerimanga.” I don’t agree. I incorporated some of the things I learned from manga in my own work later, but I think there’s a specific meaning to the term “manga” when used in Japan. I was still fascinated by the manga business, and was delighted to see more and more manga trickling into the US market. I like studying it, I like the style. But manga artist or artist who likes manga? I think the latter applies to almost all Western artists working with manga tropes. So much confusion about what is manga and what is not. Basically, manga means comics. But when speaking of a storytelling style, it means a lot more than that.

She also talks about the early days of manga coming over to the States, and consulting with Bandai when they were trying to bring over Sailor Moon for the first time.

“I’ve always read comics,” [P.C.] Cast told Newsarama. “I grew up thinking that my piles and piles of comic books were completely normal. Superman was my boyfriend forever. Swamp Thing, I also had a super, giant affair with for quite a long time. Thor, the Fantastic Four — I read everything.”

—Author P.C. Cast talks to Newsarama about shepherding her House of Night novels into comics form.  She also discusses making the comics accessible to people who haven’t read the novels, and the vision for the evolution of the House of Night comics-verse.

Market Monday

House of Night #1, art by Joëlle Jones, cover by Jenny Frison, based on the novel by P.C. and Kristin Cast

~Preview~

Joëlle Jones talks to CBR about adapting the “House of Night” novels

Market Monday

Spell Checkers vol. 2 TP, includes art by Joelle Jones

Market Monday

Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy GN, based on the novel by Richelle Mead, adapted by Leigh Dragoon, art by Emma Vieceli

Market Monday

Dark Swan: Storm Born #1, co-written by Richelle Mead