Craig Thompson’s Blankets, which won three Harvey Awards back in 2004 (see "Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics Top Harveys"), remains a perennial seller, an essential part of the graphic novel canon.  Thompson’s next major effort, Habibi stayed on the BookScan Top 25 Adult Graphic novel list for 5 straight months in 2011 and 2012 (see "'Sailor Moon' Pulls Off a Hat Trick").  But the artist’s new project, Space Dumplins, is a tween-targeting outer space saga about a plucky heroine who has to save her dad, created for Scholastic Books, may end up becoming his bestseller yet, at least in terms of units, due to Scholastic’s long marketing reach into the nation’s school systems.

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The plot of Space Dumplins ($14.99) is fairly standard stuff--when Violet Marlocke’s father goes missing on a dangerous job in the far reaches of space, she throws caution to the stars and embarks with a crew of misfit friends on a quest to find him--but Thompson’s readers are in for a lot more in this expansive, full color (by Eisner Award winner Dave Stewart) saga that takes place in superbly-rendered fantasy world.  Readers can expect lots of space adventure leavened with humor and enriched by Thompson’s strongly felt humanistic values--plus some truly awesome spaceships (at least for those who know what a "muskie" is).