British Government Urges Young Boys to Read Calvin and Hobbes

"The British government says young boys should be encouraged to read Calvin and Hobbes and comic-book annuals such as the Dandy and Beano to get them into the reading habit young and help them to keep up with girls' at school."

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TOON at CNN

Rosa Williams, age 6, reviews Benny and Penny and Otto's Orange Day for CNN.com.

Comics in the Classroom: Student Activity

As a follow-up activity to a lesson on Benny and Penny, first and second graders were asked to create a comic strip using the text features they had learned (speech balloons, thought balloons, and captions).



Submitted by Patricia Phillips
Reading Specialist
Phelps Luck Elementary School
Columbia, MD

Response from Maryland Educator

Thank you so much for giving me this wonderful opportunity to introduce these books to my classroom.

My students loved Benny and Penny in Just Pretend and being able to identify the text features of the comic. They enjoyed finding all the sound effects and saying them out loud. My ELL (English Language Learners) students wanted to read this story over and over again. Their conversations led to talking about their own experiences with their brothers and sisters. After reading this story they asked if they could take the book to their ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) class. The ESOL teacher stopped me in the hall later that day and said, "Where did you get those books? The kids were so excited about reading them to me and told me about speech balloons, and thought balloons, etc. What motivating books!"

I have to agree with her. I've been bringing these TOON Books to class daily. My ELL students run up to me and say, "Did you bring the comic books for us to read!?"

Since I am the Reading Specialist at my school I work with every grade level and with students who are below grade level. Using these books showed an increased improvement in their motivation to read and their knowledge of skills needed to be good readers. I would highly recommend these books for use in the classroom, especially with struggling readers and ESOL students.

Thank you!

Patricia Phillips
Reading Specialist
Phelps Luck Elementary School
Columbia, MD

Rain or Shine

We had a marvelous rainy afternoon in Madison Square Park for Kids Fest. After a dramatic reading of Benny and Penny, everybody pulled up a yoga mat and huddled under the tent for readings of Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons, Stinky, and an encore presentation of B&P. Special thanks to Samantha Terry at Time Out New York Kids for inviting us to participate in this wonderful event!

TOONS in the Park

For those of you who will be in New York over the weekend, join us on Saturday for Kids Fest! Time Out New York Kids teams up with the Madison Square Park Conservancy for this annual outdoor fair chock-full of art activities, face painting, live animals, tasty treats (courtesy of Whole Foods) and more.

At 12:30, look for TOON associate Leigh Stein in a Penny princess cap. She will be reading from TOON titles Benny and Penny by Geoffrey Hayes, Silly Lilly by Agnès Rosenstiehl, and the forthcoming Stinky by Eleanor Davis.

TOON Books at BEA

TOON Books looks forward to attending this weekend's BookExpo America at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Our books will be on display at Diamond Book Distributors' booth #4700 and TOON Books principles will participate in the event's robust slate of comics-related programming.

On Friday at 2:00 pm, TOON Books Series Advisor Art Spiegelman will sign posters for his upcoming book BREAKDOWNS at the Knopf Booth #1130

The BEA's Graphic Novel Breakfast will take place Saturday morning at 8:00 am. The event, hosted by Jeff Smith, will also include Art Spiegelman, Jeph Loeb and Mike Mignola. Room 403AB.

After the breakfast, BEA attendees are welcome to watch Art Spiegelman's interview with Daniel Pink for his podcast Upfront & Unscripted at 10:00 am in Room 405.

Art will be giving a BREAKDOWNS presentation later that afternoon, at 2:00 pm, in room 410.

TOON Books Editorial Director Françoise Mouly is on the panel for Building a Graphic Novel Section for Kids and Teens, moderated by Janna Morishima, director of Diamond Kids. Ms. Mouly, as well as panelists Kristen McLean, executive direction of the Association of Booksellers for Children, and Eva Volin, director of children's services at Alameda Free Library, CA, will discuss how to expand your GN section. 2:30 pm Saturday, Room 406A

At 4:00, Ms. Mouly will participate in an additional panel titled "The New Literacy: How Graphic Novels, the Web, and Video Games are Changing the Way We Process Information." Other panelists will include John Shableski, Gene Yang, Rex Sorgatz and Dr. Michael Bitz.

And don't miss the Diamond Book Distributor cocktail reception, sponsored by Marvel, DC, Raw Junior, and Dark Horse, among others. 4:00pm at the Diamond Booth #4700.

More on D+Q's John Stanley Reprint Plans

Drawn and Quarterly has posted follow-up information to indicate that the publisher's previously announced plans to reprint comic book work by John Stanley have expanded to include Stanley's Nancy and Sluggo comic book stories. Tom Devlin writes:

This series will likely begin next summer; it is undetermined at this time just how many volumes there will be in total. These comics came as something as a surprise to me because I just assumed that there was no way they could be as good as the great Bushmiller strips but they really are. Stanley actually expanded the cast of the strip and added a couple of great characters, the Wednesday Addams inspired Oona Goosepimple and Sluggo's nemesis, Mr. McOnion.

Elsewhere, comics scholar Jeet Heer greets the news by arguing that Stanley is a better writer of comics than the acclaimed and more well-known Carl Barks.

Remembering Wacky Packages

Ex-kids in this blog's audience may recall the Wacky Packages series of stickers produced by Topps. Abrams has recently published a retrospective volume reprinting the first seven series of cards. The book features an introduction by Art Spiegelman, a prime mover behind the project during his years as a creative consultant at Topps. The book includes a "bonus pack of four rare and never-before-printed Wacky Packages stickers.”

Shaun Tan Interviewed

The Australian runs a new interview with Shaun Tan, who discusses the success of The Arrival and his latest picture book project, Tales From Outer Suburbia.

Tales marks a return by Tan to illustrated prose: The Arrival, an international bestseller and literary prize magnet, was a graphic novel that did not contain a single word.

It caused a stir when it won book of the year -- becoming the first graphic novel to do so -- in last year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards. It provoked consternation when Tan was asked to give a reading at the Sydney Writers Festival. Tan notes that France has taken to his entirely visual narrative with far less ambivalence: The Arrival has sold more than 40,000 copies there and hasn't been narrowly defined as a children's book.

Henry's Letter to TOON Books

Otto's Orange Day writer Jay Lynch passed along the following letter from a young reader along with a note from his teacher, Tracy Edmunds.

Hello Mr. Lynch,

I teach in a Reading Intervention program and have been using the Toon Books with my small class of struggling readers. Henry is a fourth grade student who came in to our class in January not able to read at all. He has made great strides in the past few months and he was exceedingly proud the other day that he could read Otto's Orange Day on his own. He has written you a letter, no easy feat for him, and asked me to mail it to you. If you could provide a mailing address, I would love to be able to tell Henry that his letter is on its way to you.

Thank you,

Tracy Edmunds

(Please click on image for larger view)

Centre Pompidou acquires Hergé Page

The Centre Pompidou has acquired a page from Hergé's The Calculus Affair, the Telegraph reports. "The strip’s inclusion was described as revolutionary by curator Laurent Le Bon, the first to point out that the centre’s 60,000 works failed to include a single comic strip, despite France’s flourishing comic art culture. " The Tintin.com website shows a small image of the page acquired by the museum. As the Telegraph piece notes, the Centre mounted an exhibit of Hergé's work in late 2006 to mark the centennial of the artist's birth.

Philip Pullman to Write Comics

The Times reports that children's fantasy author Philip Pullman will write a new comic strip called "The Adventures of John Blake" for the DFC, a forthcoming weekly subscription-based British comic book for children launched by David Fickling. Pullman, well known as the author of the His Dark Materials series, notes that he was "brought up on comics like the Eagle, Wizard and Beano, though not so much Dandy. This is what I want to bring back to today’s youngsters – good storytelling, but with more adventurous and original illustrations.” The strip will be drawn by John Aggs in a "Japanese-influenced" style.

Although Pullman intends to return to novel writing next year with a children’s story called The Book of Dust, he is likely to retain his interest in the illustrated comic form. “Yes, I might do a graphic novel myself after that,” he said.

Brenda Bowen Talks Comics

Publishers Weekly interviews Brenda Bowen about plans to publish comics as part of Bowen Books, her new children's book imprint at HarperCollins. Bowen had previously been an editor at Hyperion, where she established a publishing relationship with the Center for Cartoon Studies, among other projects. "Bowen has plans for a graphic novel based on one of the most famous Civil War battles (Jan. 2009), a kids’ picture book by cartoonist Lynn Johnston (summer 2009) and a new graphic novel based on the work of New York Times bestselling author Melissa Marr," PW reports. Bowen adds: "I’ve also just signed a novel in comics called Herbert’s Wormhole, written by Peter Nelson and illustrated by Ro Rao. It’s a funny book for children eight to 11 years old, about a kid who creates what Einstein only imagines—a wormhole that bores down to the future."

On Vince Fago's Classics Adaptations

Sean Kleefeld posts an article about 1940s funny animal cartoonist and comics editor Vince Fago's Pendulum Press, a 1970s Classics Illustrated-style publishing imprint devoted to comics adaptations of canonical Western literature for young audiences. Fago "scripted most of the books himself, adapting and abridging the originals as closely as possible given page limitations, and then got talented 'newcomers' like Nestor Redondo to illustrate them," Kleefeld writes. He further notes that the series was repackaged in the 1990s as a series of "prestige format" comics albums. More recently, work from Fago's series has been folded into the current Graphic Classics series alongside work by contemporary cartoonists including Rick Geary and Richard Sala.

Highlights For Kids: The Timbertoes

The Highlights for Kids website includes an extensive archive of Timbertoes comic strips from that magazine's pages. Wikipedia details the stip's history:

Created for a 1932 book of the same name (published by The Harter Publishing Company) by writers Edna M. Aldredge and Jessie F. McKee along with illustrator John Gee, The Timbertoes has appeared in Highlights magazine for over 30 years. The first Highlights incarnation was a full-page black and white comic strip featuring line-drawn characters, later switching to digital color in 2003. The Timbertoes family consists of parents Ma and Pa and their children Mabel and Tommy. The characters, including their pet dog Spot and their pet cat Splinter, are depicted as being constructed from wood. Upon Gee's passing, Highlights Senior Editor Marileta Robinson took over writing the strip, with illustrations done by Judith Hunt and Ron Zalme.

June 6: "Post Bang" Symposium at NYU

The New York Institute for the Humanities announces "Post Bang: Comics Ten Minutes After the Big Bang," an all-day symposium taking place Friday, June 6 at NYU's Cantor Film Center (36 E. 8th Street). The free, public event runs from 11 am through 9:30 pm and is being offered in conjunction with the MoCCA Art Festival. Participants will include Lynda Barry, David Hajdu, Leonard Marcus, Gary Panter, Art Spiegelman, Mo Willems, and Douglas Wolk, among others, and the program will include a panel on children's comics including TOON Books Editorial Director Françoise Mouly. A full event schedule follows:

11 am – 12:15 pm COMICS AND CANON FORMATION will feature John Carlin (Masters of American Comics), Dan Nadel (Art Out of Time), and Rob Storr (Yale and the Venice Biennale).

1:30 – 2:45 pm COMICS AND KID’S LIT will bring together Lisa von Drasek (Bank Street College), Leonard Marcus (Minders of Make Believe), Francoise Mouly (The New Yorker), Mo Willems (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!), and Sara Varon (Sweaterweather).

3:00 – 4:15 pm COMICS AND THE LITERARY ESTABLISHMENT, featuring Hillary Chute (Harvard), David Hajdu (The Ten-Cent Plague), Jeet Heer (Walt and Skeezix), and Douglas Wolk (Reading Comics).

5:30 – 6:45 pm COMICS AND THE INTERNET features Sarah Boxer (Ultimate Blogs), Shaenon Garrity (Narbonic), Hope Larson (Gray Horses), Siva Vaidhyanathan (The Anarchist in the Library), and Kent Worcester (The Comics Studies Reader).

7:00 – 8:00 pm Raw magazine cofounder ART SPIEGELMAN (Maus, Breakdowns, In the Shadow of No Towers) in conversation with the “King of Punk Art,” GARY PANTER (Cola Madnes, Jimbo, Pee Wee’s Playhouse).

8:15 – 9:30 pm Harvard scholar Hillary Chute in conversation with one of the country’s foremost alternative cartoonists, LYNDA BARRY (Ernie Pook’s Comeek, The Good Times are Killing Me, What It Is).

Will Elder (1921-2008)

Cartoonist Will Elder died on Thursday, May 16, according to several sources including the Comics Reporter. Among his many achievements, Elder was the flagship artist of MAD's first incarnation as a satirical comic book for young readers, edited and written by Harvey Kurtzman. Elder distinguished himself with his ability to parodically mimic other cartooning styles and pack his comics panels with dense sight-gags, while hewing to Kurtzman's carefully composed page breakdowns. The Journalista! blog runs a fond reminiscence by Elder's son-in-law, Gary VandenBergh. The New York Observer and the CBC both run obituaries. The "Mad Mumblings" website includes an interview with Elder conducted around the time of the publication of a retrospective book, Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art. The artist was 86.

Amazon Spotlights TOON Books

Amazon.com's blog covers children's comics, focusing on TOON Books.

Silly Lilly is the least kinetic of the three, using a deliberately flat style and even tone to provide a primer on the four seasons. Benny and Penny, on the other hand, features two bickering mice who fight over the reality of a pirate ship. Otto’s Orange Day uses exaggeration and good-natured banter to establish its mood. All three are note-perfect for what they’re doing.

D+Q to Publish John Stanley Comics

Drawn and Quarterly announces plans to reprint several volumes worth of comics by John Stanley.

We'll be starting off with a three volume set of Stanley's Melvin Monster... While primarily know as a writer, Stanley actually wrote and drew all nine issues of this series...Next up, a three-volume set of the Stanley "Teen" comics--Thirteen going on Eighteen, Around the Block with Dunc and Loo, and Kookie... Thirteen is again almost all Stanley written and drawn and is one of the great "lost" treasures of silver age comics. Dunc and Loo and Kookie feature other artists (notably Bill Williams) finishing Stanley's layouts but still maintaining that manic quality that was a Stanley trademark.

The series will be designed by the cartoonist Seth. The "Stanley Stories" website runs examples of both Melvin Monster and Dunc and Loo.

Dark Horse Comics currently publishes a series of books reprinting Stanley's Little Lulu comics. Elsewhere, "Pappy's Golden Age" has recently posted a Nancy comic book story by Stanley.

Bone Exhibit Opens Saturday

"Bone and Beyond," a major exhibition of work by Jeff Smith, opens at Ohio State University's Wexner Center for the Arts on Saturday, May 10th. The exhibit is presented in conjunction with OSU's Cartoon Research Library, which runs a related exhibit of Smith's student comics titled "Before Bone." Smith's blog displays photographs of the show being mounted. "Bone and Beyond" runs through August 3, 2008. A catalog is being published in conjunction with the show, and the Center will host several related programming events.

Benny and Penny Cover TONY Kids

The May issue of Time Out New York Kids features an original Geoffrey Hayes drawing of TOON Books characters Benny and Penny on its cover. The magazine previously featured the imprint in its April issue.

Pappy Posts Wolverton's "Scoop Scuttle"

Pappy's Golden Age posts a four-page "Scoop Scuttle" story by Basil Wolverton, originally published in a 1944 issue of Daredevil Comics.

"Blog of the Week"

The Kids' Comics blog is grateful to have been named "Blog of the Week" by Anastasia Suen, a children's books author, consultant and teacher who covers the children's book industry on her blog.

Eleanor Davis: Up and Coming

Eleanor Davis, author of TOON Books' upcoming Stinky, is briefly profiled by Publishers Weekly as part of a survey of notable young cartoonists.

"She was still in school when Mouly approached her to contribute to Toon Books. For Stinky, a story about a pickle-loving monster, she turned to her love of drawing monsters. 'I get bored drawing autobiographical stuff—I tend to like to draw monsters, and there aren't that many monsters in my life,' she quips."

Hayes, Spiegelman in VQR

The Spring 2008 issue of Virginia Quarterly Review features a suite of comics-related material including a remembrance of underground comix artist Rory Hayes by his brother, TOON Books author Geoffrey Hayes. The issue also sports a cover by Art Spiegelman and includes a comics story by Chris Ware.

Françoise Mouly at Length

In a follow-up to his piece for the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Chris Mautner posts the full text of his lengthy interview with TOON Books Editorial Director Françoise Mouly to his Panels and Pixels blog.

I just felt the best way to make my point was to actually make something that hasn’t actually been done, which was to make comics at the point where the child is learning to read, where the vocabulary would be looked at and controlled and the story would be appropriate for a six year old.

It’s a very hinge age, because you’re too big for picture books and you’re not fluent enough for Harry Potter. When you actually have kids you realize there aren’t that many books published for that moment because kids are not into books. They don’t know how to read. They’re a little too big to be read to so there’s a kind of giving up on this.

Billy and Bonny Bee

Pappy's Golden Age posts a six-page "Billy and Bonny Bee" story by Frank Thomas, originally published in 1943's New Funnies #79.

All Aboard the H.M.S. Toon

We happily return to regular blogging with this charming report from Geoffrey Hayes's recent appearance at Casablanca Comics in Portland, Maine. Hayes gave a chalk-talk and led young readers through a comics-making workshop. On hand was the H.M.S. Toon, a cardboard pirate ship modeled after Benny's vessel in Benny and Penny. More photos from the event can be found via Flickr.

TOON Books Events This Week

Several events are taking place this week in New York City to mark the launch of the TOON Books line. Event information is as follows:

Friday, April 11

Borders Books & Music, Columbus Circle
6 - 8 pm
Join us for a celebration of Toon Books, with the authors and illustrators of Otto's Orange Day, Benny & Penny and Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons, presented by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly.

Saturday, April 12
TOON Books at Jim Hanley's Universe Kids' Day
10 am - 6 pm
An extravaganza of comics, cookies, and creativity.
Creator Schedule:
10 am – 12 pm: Sara Varon, Geoffrey Hayes, and Aaron Renier (Spiral Bound)
12 – 2 pm: Misako Rocks!, Kevin Pyle, and Fred Van Lente
2 - 4 pm: Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch
4 – 6 pm: George O'Connor, Nick Bertozzi, and Matt Manning

Geoffrey Hayes at the Museum of the City of New York

1 - 3 pm

Join veteran children’s book author and illustrator Geoffrey Hayes as he reads from his newest children’s comic book, Benny and Penny in Just Pretend (Toon Books, 2008). Following the program, kids can make their own comic book panels and bring their own stories to the page.

Tuesday, April 15
Barnes & Noble, Tribeca
4 pm
Storytime with Geoffrey Hayes

Saturday, April 19

Special Saturday Storytime: Comics for Kids with TOON Books
12 - 2 pm
Geoffrey Hayes, author of Benny and Penny in Just Pretend
Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch, creators of Otto’s Orange Day
Introduction by TOON Books editors Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly

Sunday, April 20
Kids' Day at New York Comic-Con
2 - 3 pm
The Creation of TOON BOOKS: Beginning Reader Comics
Françoise Mouly, New Yorker art editor and wife of acclaimed cartoonist Art Spiegelman, is at it again. After transforming American comics with the seminal 1980s comics anthology RAW, Mouly is now out to teach kids to read by using comics. We invite kids of all ages to come learn why TOON BOOKS is bringing new readers to the pleasure of comics!

Edgar Allan Poetry

More advanced readers may enjoy Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," originally published in 1954 during MAD's first incarnation as a full-color comic book. The seven-page comics story is presented in two parts on the Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog.

TOON Books Profiles Proliferate

This month's launch of the TOON Books collection continues to draw feature attention in a variety of venues. Time Out New York Kids profiles the imprint at length. The Harrisburg Patriot-News extensively features commentary from TOON Books Editorial Director Françoise Mouly:

On how comics can get kids reading: "There's a narrative flow, there's something to look at. Kids are visually literate long before they're literate with words. You don't need to teach your child how to find Waldo.

"You learn a beginning, middle and end. You learn left to right. You learn sequencing. You learn repetition and characters. All of those things are part of learning to read. It's not just the phonetics. It's the whole inner structure of narrative."

Shelf Awareness, in addition to reviewing Geoffrey Hayes's Benny and Penny, features a blank-verse account of Mouly's life and career leading up to the creation of the TOON Books collection.

Dewey Decimal Funnies

The Librarian Mom blog on Scholastic's website features a series of Dewey Decimal-themed knock-knock jokes. The first humorously treats the placement of comics and graphic novels within that system while mentioning the Little Lit series of books:

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Wire.
Wire who?
Why're the comic books in 741.5 when they're not even NONFICTION? Huh?

Comic books are in 741.5, right next to the books about drawing, because the 740’s are the section for art books. That’s where you’ll find Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies, edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, which provides a sampling of traditional tales retold in comic-book form by a jaw-dropping array of illustrators and graphic artists. Fun for kids, teens, and adults, who might recognize some of the artists from underground comic books or the covers of The New Yorker magazine.

The Clouds Above Reviewed

Jordan Crane's The Clouds Above, recently published by Fantagraphics in a softcover edition, is reviewed on the Pink Me blog. The blog, written by a public librarian who runs a Graphic Novel Appreciation Club at an elementary school, also notes several other kid-friendly comics.