I hadn’t heard of Bowen Press before reading this interview with CEO Brenda Bowen, but they sound like they have an intriguing line-up planned for the coming year, including a children’s graphic novel by none other than Lynn Johnston:
PW Comics Week: What are your plans for comics and graphic novels at Bowen Press?
Brenda Bowen: On my first list is Gettysburg: The Graphic Novel by C.M. Butzer. 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. It’s very funny. There is a television option with Curious Pictures, an animation studio here is New York, and it is in early development.
PWCW: What are some other developments?BB: There is a new executive editor at the Bowen Press, Anne Hoppe. She has been at HarperCollins for a long, long time. She is just switching over to the Bowen Press because her sensibility really matches up with what we are trying to do here. Anne is bringing some very exciting comics-based books to the party. We are going to publish the first Emily the Strange novel, called Emily the Strange: The Lost Days, in summer ’09. It is going to be a gorgeous, sumptuous book, designed by Cosmic Debris and written by [Emily the Strange creator] Rob Reger. Black and red and white throughout and heavily illustrated, it is the first time that Emily will have a sustained narrative. There will be four Emily novels.
In summer ’09, we also have a book by cartoonist Lynn Johnston, who is the author and artist of the long running comic strip For Better, for Worse. It is a full-color picture book for children from four to seven years old. It is about a dog who loves to eat and doesn’t care about what he is eating, and he gets lost following one delicious scent after another, and then after a day of being lost he comes home. You will see that the family in For Better, for Worse is in the pictures. Although they won’t be identified as that, but it will be appealing to the readers of the strip.
