A link to this PDF of forthcoming Junior Library Guild selections turned up in my Google Alerts today, so I guess it’s been made public now that Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean has been picked as a Fall 2009 offering by the Junior Library Guild. The Junior Library Guild is, “… a literary review and selection service for children’s and young-adult books serving school and public libraries, established in 1929,and used by more than 17,000 librarians today.” It’s great to know that right off the bat there’ll be a few thousand copies of the book hitting the shelves of libraries around the country. It was a fun surprise to notice that fellow SCAD graduates (and total badass cartoonists) Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing‘s new book, The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook has been selected as part of the same age group’s offerings. (Only Eleanor is listed, but I’m pretty sure Drew inked the book and–unless I’m confusing this book with something else–maybe the coloring was done by Aaron Renier? it’s colored by Joey Weiser)
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Joey Weiser did the coloring (and maybe his wife, too?).
Drew inked it, but, as seems to be gathering more and more regularity with the indie crowd (most of whom are, admitedly, soloist snobs), it’s Eleanor’s book, seeing as how she wrote and thumbnailed and pencilled it. Alex Bullet’s Seeds is being inked by Jarrett Williams, but it’ll still say just Alex on the cover, I’d expect, with Jarrett being given credit inside, just as Drew has with SSA.
I personally think this makes a lot more sense, book-wise. Though the inker does bring a lot to the table, they in essence do the same sort of work as, say, the director of photography in a film. But you don’t see Roger Deakins in the trailer text of a Coen Brother’s movie – it’d just confuse people.
I’m all about the not-putting-every-person-that-had-anything-to-do-with-the-art on the cover of GNs. It’s a self-congratulatory practice that I think diminishes the capacity to showcase a cohesive project. Take a Hellboy or a BPRD trade; the cover will have someone who did inks on a five-page backup story. What it makes ME think is that this is a book that’s had so many people working on it that any sense of singular vision is SURELY watered down, and thus I don’t buy it.
I like Stephen King, but I’m not gonna read any of the books he co-wrote with Peter Straub for the same reason.
Author
In this case, I think the “one person listed” deal is just a function of the fact that the JLG deals predominantly with prose books, which usually have single authors. (Note that I’m not listed with Amelia.)
I do agree with your points, though, about not having a dozen different people listed on the cover of a GN.
By the way, congrats on making the list! I got swept up in what I was thinking about, and that was the whole reason I was posting in the first place.
And there ARE plenty of collaborative books that I DO like, but when it IS a colaborative I think that just the writer and artist (penciller, I guess) should be listed on the cover, rather than inker/colorist/letterer, etc. I DON’T think that in the case of a two-person book that the artist should be left off, if that’s what I was insinuating. I think that there’s just a new format being worked out in regards to cartoonists (writer/artists) being inked by friends and colleagues, and that SSA is the first to use it.
I’m glad to hear Amelia: the Broad is coming out in the Fall! I can’t wait.
Author
Thanks!
I do think that as GNs move more and more into traditional prose book territory, it’d be nice if folks could start to accommodate credits for two people rather than one. I can’t imagine that that’d be a big deal, since I’d assume that it works that way for childrens’ books.
I do agree with you, though, on listing every-damn-body on the cover of a book. I find this especially unnecessary when the book in question is done by an “auteur” sort of person. Like, say, if there were a big collected edition of THE INVISIBLES, I think it’d be totally fine to just put “by Grant Morrison” on it instead of listing all 37 different pencilers and inkers.
I just got finished recommending this book to the SILS Library at UNC. I think they’re gonna buy it, too, Ben.
Great stuff. I cried at the end, just like everyone else will.
Congratulations – well deserved!
Author
Thanks, all… and yeah, I think libraries and schools are definitely going to be more of a target audience for this book. That’s certainly been the case with the previous books in the series.