I’m an Eisner-nominated and award-winning graphic novel and comics writer, editor, and book packager. I've worked on staff at the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Disney Publishing, DC Comics, Nickelodeon Magazine, and Platinum Studios. My sequential art book, The Bramble, won the 2013 Moonbeam Gold Medal for Picture Books, and I created a new way to read comics with BirdCatDog, a 2015 Eisner Awards nominee, that received the 2015 Moonbeam Spirit Award Gold Medal for Imagination, and was chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best children’s books of 2014. SheHeWe, the third book in the series, was a 2016 Eisner Award nominee for Best Publication for Early Readers.
Faced with a limit of five recommendations, I’m cheating. Wordless Bookscovers the innovative output of the major woodcut novels and wordless books that were published from 1918 to 1951. It includes works by Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward, Milt Gross, and so many others. If you have never seen these uniquely artistic works, this volume offers a compelling introduction to the first graphic novels ever published.
"Wordless books" were stories from the early part of the twentieth century told in black and white woodcuts, imaginatively authored without any text. Although woodcut novels have their roots spreading back through the history of graphic arts, including block books and playing cards, it was not until the early part of the twentieth century that they were conceived and published. Despite its short-lived popularity, the woodcut novel had an important impact on the development of comic art, particularly contemporary graphic novels with a focus on adult themes.Scholar David A. Berona examines the history of these books and the art and…
First published in 1987, I puzzled over The Snowmanfor years. Librarians called it a children’s book classic. Here’s the thing that bothered me, though. Briggs uses wordless comic panels to tell his story, and I never once heard it called a comic. This is before the term graphic novel was embraced by publishers, schools, libraries, and, finally, the public, so it took me a while to figure out that it was Briggs’s softly colored illustration style that wiped the word comics from most people’s vocabulary, but it is comics. A brilliantly executed wordless comic! And this book absolutely inspired me to create more of the same for young readers, beginning with my award-winning, near-wordless, sequential art children’s book with artist Bruce Zick, The Bramble.
An activity book based on the animated film of Raymond Briggs' The Snowman. Children of all ages will enjoy exploring the fun and excitement of Christmas with this festive book packed with things to do and make.
In 1997, Peter Kuper knocked my socks off with The System, a wordless book that exposes the underbelly of New York City as an airbrushed wonderland of strippers, druggies, the homeless, dirty cops, killers, taggers, sleaze-balls, muggers, and—oh, yes—there’s a terrorist with a bomb who wants to blow things up. Never was anything so bright and colorful so decadently revealing.
It has been said that the flutter of insect wings in the Indian Ocean can send a hurricane crashing against the shores of the American Northeast, and such a premise lies at the core of The System, a wordless graphic novel created and painted by award-winning illustrator Peter Kuper. A sleazy stockbroker is lining his pockets, a corrupt cop is shaking down drug dealers, a mercenary bomber is setting the timer, a serial killer is stalking strippers, a political scandal is about to explode, the planet is burning, and nobody’s talking. Told without captions or dialogue, this piece of art…
This 2006 wordless book left me open-mouthed in awe. Here’s the idea: cartoonist Trondheim was vacationing with family when he found this discarded comic from an alien spacecraft, and it’s reproduced here just as he found it, tattered pages and all. The word balloons, which point to strangely shaped creatures, contain unrecognizable letters and words—so, to those of us who aren’t aliens, this book is wordless. I think the short comic sequences are supposed to be funny, at least to the alien kids who read them, but I’m not an alien, so I was horrified at what happened to all the cute little creatures from another planet. But okay, I’ll admit it—I also laughed, in that “it’s so awful” kind of way. You’ll laugh, too.
Beaten up, tattered, and weather worn, this volume has crossed through space to become the first extra-terrestrial comic book in print on earth. The language and even the alphabet are alien, but as human readers will soon discover, the themes and stories are universal. These interwoven stories and vignettes start out quite simply, but a darker, more complex side is gradually revealed as alien characters act out very human problems, from peer pressure to intolerance to the challenges of friendship. Beneath it's apparently childlike and catoony style, "A.L.I.E.E.E.N." explores human nature, cruelty and kindness with surprising depth and loads of…
In 2007, artist Shaun Tan rocked my world with his wordless book masterpiece,The Arrival. It is rare for any book to so effectively put readers in the position of a character. A man from a darkly forbidding country leaves his family and emigrates to a new world, a world filled with unimaginable, fantastic wonders. Because it’s a fantasy, like the man, we can’t read any signage, either. We don’t know where things are, or even what things are. After he struggles to first find food, then shelter, then work, he encounters other emigrants who share their stories from other dark parts of the world. This book needs to be appreciated by one beautiful panel of art at a time.
What drives so many to leave everything behind and journey alone to a mysterious country, a place without family or friends, where everything is nameless and the future is unknown. This silent graphic novel is the story of every migrant, every refugee, every displaced person, and a tribute to all those who have made the journey.
THE ARRIVAL has become one of the most critically acclaimed books of recent years, a wordless masterpiece that describes a world beyond any familiar time or place.
Sited as No 35 in The Times 100 Best Books of all time. It has sold over…
Each page shows a nine-panel grid, and if you follow all the panels on the top tier, all the way through the book, you get the bird’s story, and the bird is the hero of that story. But if you look at all the panels on the middle tier, you get the cat’s story, and the cat is the hero of that story. And if you look at all the panels on the bottom tier, you get the dog’s story, and the dog is the hero of that story. Finally, if you read each page from top to bottom, like a normal comic, then you get the whole story. This wordless book is perfect for young readers.
I have always been a fan of Young Adult fiction, even into my late thirties. This is why when I decided to write my first novel, I wrote it for that genre. My biggest draw to this type of book is the emotional connection and hope you get from younger characters. Like most of us, we lose hope as we get older, so reading a book about a young character full of hope in a chaotic world gives me a little of that hope back. Young people feel things much stronger than we do when we’re older. It feels good to reconnect to that and remember what it’s like.
In a world ravaged by an inexplicable plague, society lies in ruins. Amidst the desolation, a lone survivor perseveres in a secluded state park along the Delaware Coast. Over a year has passed since she lost everything, yet as the sanctuary she’s carved for herself begins to crumble, she must summon the strength to endure once more.
Venturing beyond her haven exposes her to the horrors spawned by the plague, creatures both cunning and primal. Their origins shrouded in mystery, they pose a formidable threat to any who cross their path. Armed with scant knowledge and a grim resolve, she…
In a world ravaged by an inexplicable plague, society lies in ruins. Amidst the desolation, a lone survivor perseveres in a secluded state park along the Delaware Coast. Over a year has passed since she lost everything, yet as the sanctuary she's carved for herself begins to crumble, she must summon the strength to endure once more.
Venturing beyond her haven exposes her to the horrors spawned by the plague, creatures both cunning and primal. Their origins shrouded in mystery; they pose a formidable threat to any who cross their path. Armed with scant knowledge and a grim resolve, she…
