While some kids comics publishers are holding on to their big announcements until Comic-Con International in San Diego, some stories just can't wait, including the news that a webcomic with a huge audience now has a publisher.
Webcomic to Print: Ngozi Ukazu's teen-friendly Check Please is one of the hottest webcomics out there, and now Entertainment Weekly reports that First Second is going to publish it as a two-volume graphic novel. Ukazu has already self-published the first two "years" of the comic, which features a college student who plays hockey and bakes pies, and her Kickstarter campaign for Year Two raised almost $400,000, a record for a webcomics Kickstarter. The First Second edition will combine those two years into a single volume, with additional material not in the Kickstarter volumes, and the second volume will cover years three and four of her hero's college career. Check Please also won this year's National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for best long-form webcomic. More Diesel: Tyson Hesse's Diesel: Ignition, a coming-of-age story about a girl who pilots an airship, was the BOOM! Box imprint's "most successful" original graphic novel (see "Top 300 Graphic Novels Actual--December 2016"), which is impressive in a line that also includes Lumberjanes. This week they announced they are following it up with Diesel: Gear Shift Special, a one-shot that kicks off the next story arc. The comic will debut in October 2017. Hesse says his inspirations for Diesel include One Piece and How to Train Your Dragon—adventure stories with a strong focus on friendships. Andrea Marroquin reviewed Diesel: Ignition recently at No Flying, No Tights. No Farewell Tour for the Holograms: The monthly Jem and the Holograms series wound up in June with issue #26, but the band will live on in miniseries designed to be collected into trades, Claire Napier reports at Women Write About Comics. The first one kicked off this week, and it's a crossover: Jem Infinite is a six-issue story that will be told in alternating issues titled Jem Infinite and Misfits Infinite. (The Misfits are the Holograms' rival band, for those new to the Jem-iverse.) Jem writer Kelly Thompson is writing the miniseries, with two different teams handling art for the two different titles (see more at “ICv2 Interview: IDW’s Chris Ryall and Sarah Gaydos”).Teen Titles: YALSA's Great Graphic Novels for Teens nominations list was just updated this week. YALSA stands for Young Adult Library Services Association (it's part of the American Library Association) and the list is not just the cream of the crop, it's also what's being supported by librarians. At the end of the year they will vote on a final list as well as a Top Ten.
Recent Reviews: Writing at Multiversity Comics, reviewer Jess Camacho calls Zodiac Starforce: Cries of the Fire Prince #1 "a blast"; this issue starts a new arc of the magical-girl comic about high-schoolers saving the world, but Camacho says it's a good jumping-on point for those who haven't read the first arc yet. J. Caleb Mozzocco reviewed the first trade of Josie and the Pussycats at Good Comics for Kids. And at Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson calls Andi Watson's Glister, recently published in a collected edition by Dark Horse, "modern fairy tales in the full British tradition."Click the Gallery below for full-size images.