Here’re a couple of early (and positive!) mentions of Midnight Sun around the internets:First, Scott Tingley has posted an expanded review of the book over at comicsintheclassroom.net. Scott mainly reviews books for younger readers, so I was slightly surprised that he wanted to read a copy of the book for a possible review. As he notes, there’s some off-color language (no “F bombs,” though), some drinking, and a few other odds and ends… I guess, though, that shouldn’t preclude older high school students from being able to check it out. On the other hand, I know as an occasional teacher that folks can get pretty touchy about comics in particular, given the visual element.

Second, over on the Comic Geek Speak podcast (episode #346), Midnight Sun gets a great mention from one of that shows guest contributors, Charlito from Indie Spinner Rack. This episode is titled “Looking Ahead to 2008” but Midnight Sun managed to sneak in there despite its December 28th release date since the episode was posted on the 21st, and presumably was recorded much earlier. Even though I know the ISR guys, both as a fan of the show and from working on a story for the ISR anthology, Awesome, it was really cool to turn up on Charlito’s list. More surprising, though, was that one of the CGS hosts (Shane, if I’m recalling correctly) knew the book from its earlier incarnation as a serialized comic.

Anyway, I’m appreciative of the kind words from both…

A couple of early mentions for the book around the internets…

From Justin of the review site/blog, 13 Minutes:

Midnight Sun (SLG): Ben Towle’s little masterpiece finally sees print in one complete smaller-than-digest-sized format. One of the best books from 2007!

And from fellow comics educator Scott Tingley’s site Comics in the Classroom’s holiday book review section:

I just got finished reading a copy of Midnight Sun by Ben Towle . It is a black, white and blue 130 or so paged reimagining of the crash of the Italian airship, the Italia in 1928. It is not meant to be an accurate retelling, but it would be of interest to airship enthusiasts (I’m sure they exist), history buffs and anyone interested in a terrific, grown-up graphic novels. There is a little swearing and drunkenness, but it is the intensity of the situation that makes this for Young Adults and above. I have only read the pdf version of it but, by all accounts, the final version is quite attractive

Thanks, folks!

Johanna Draper Carlson gives a nice review to Midnight Sun in her new column, Graphic Novels Worth Owning, mentioning it as one of the best books of 2007. Regardless of whether my own book were on this list or not, though, it’s just nice to see a “best of” list that’s actually at the end of the year. As mentioned in my earlier grousing, I understand the desire to get those lists together ASAP–not just so folks can refer to them for Christmas shopping, but also so comics reviewers can close up shop and get to holiday festivities like the rest of us–but doing these lists super-early can overlook some notable stuff.  Like Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library #18 for example; that’s an end of year release that I don’t think I’ve seen on anyone’s list, but probably should have been.  Anyway, also of note on ComicsWorthReading.com is the coolest comics-related Christmas gift I’ve seen so far: a hand-made Wonder Woman apron!