Has the time come to award the Caldecott Medal to a graphic novel?: Writing for School Library Journal, librarian Ernie Cox argues that it is. The Caldecott is awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children, and is one of the prestigious awards available to books for kids. Cox suggests some solid candidates from this year’s crop of graphic novels, inlcuding The Storm in the Barn, Mouse Guard Vol. 2, Jellaby: Monster in the City, Bayou and Binky the Space Cat. I don’t know if any of those necessarily deserve the Caldecott, but they’re all certainly worth a look.
C’mon, Gustines!: George Gene Gustines puts together a little 2009 Graphic Novels holiday gift guide for the New York Times, and the third item on it’s a prose novel. It’s published by DC’s Vertigo print, written by a comics writer and is set in the world of comics series Fables, but still…!
Is there anything Neil Gaiman can’t do?: National Public Radio’s Morning Edition invited Gaiman to contribute to their “Open Mic” series, in which they give a person they’d ordinarily cover the opportunity to do a story of their own. Gaiman puts together a piece on the state of the audiobook, with input from other authors and people in the business. Gaiman, it turns out, has a hell of a radio voice, and isn’t a bad journalist either. You can listen to the report, or just read the transcript, here.
“Aquaman—A love story”: Given the headline, I thought college paper copy editor Ashleigh Johnson would get more into how dreamy Aquaman is, but instead her column focuses on defending the least popular Super Friend as a total bad-ass. (“More recent incarnations of Aquaman depict him losing his hand to piranhas and subsequently replacing it with a retractable harpoon hand. Holy. Crap. … It doesn’t get much more awesome than a hook that shoots from his stump.” And like that).
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
While I appreciate the effort and sentiment behind the Aquaman story, that was actually a really weak and outdated attempt to explain what makes the character cool.