Janna Morishima, formerly of Diamond Book Distributors and Scholastic, has joined Papercutz as its Marketing Director.  Morishima has a potent resume of pioneering graphic novels for kids at Scholastic, where she was founding editor of its Graphix line, helped shepherd Bone in color, and launched Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel adaptation of Babysitter’s Club. 

In 2006, Morishima joined Diamond in conjunction with the formation of Diamond Kids Group (see “DBD Creates Kids Group”), where she coordinated sales of children’s books across channels worldwide for five years.  The period saw the launching of kids graphic novel sections in bookstores and the launch of Francoise Mouly’s Toon Books line. 

Papercutz has been on a roll recently, with a 200,000 copy print run on the first volume of Ninjago (upped from 170,000, see “Ninjago GN Hits 170,000”) and a big hit with Smurfs (see “Top 10 Kids & Tweens Graphic Novel Properties—Summer 2011”).