First Second Signs Three New Books
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on September 19, 2006 Sign up now!
by Calvin Reid, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 9/19/2006
Continuing to aggressively add new comics projects to his list, First Second editorial director Mark Siegel announced the acquisition of three projects that will be published in fall 2008.
He's signed a deal with novelist/playwright Carla Jablonski and artist Leland Purvis to publish Resistance, a series of three graphic novels set during World War II in Nazi-occupied France. The first book is called The Secret War and the series will follow three French kids who join the Resistance when they see the Nazis taking away their friends. The deal was negotiated by agent Bob MeCoy.
Siegel has also signed Gene Yang, whose American Born Chinese has just been released by First Second, to a new deal. Yang will collaborate with another Bay Area cartoonist, Thien Pham, on Three Angels, the story of a videogame addict who is visited by an angel and finds out that his destiny is to become a surgeon. The deal was negotiated by agent Judy Hansen.
Finally, Siegel says he's also signed legendary children's author Jane Yolen to create a graphic novel called Foiled, the story of a girl fencer and her first love. Siegel has not yet signed an artist to illustrate the work.
Jablonski has written dozens of books for young adults (including the book adaptations of Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic comics series). She is also an actress, a playwright —and a trapeze artist. Siegel notes that she's "very effective at juggling highbrow and very commercial material."Purvis created the art for Jim Ottaviani's comics bio of physicist Niels Bohr. He has been nominated for an Eisner Award and has received a Xeric independent publishing award.
The new Yang book, Siegel says, will be a little different from American Born Chinese. Yang will collaborate on the book's drawing with Thien Pham, who does a popular food comic strip called I Like Eating that’s published in the East Bay Express.
Siegel says the work is a "tongue-in-cheek mystical story about videogamers." But he also noted that the book will also touch on a little-known health issue among Asian men—"an unusually high rate of liver cancer," says Siegel. He says the book will shed light on the issue and noted that First Second will also tie the book to a research institute working on the health issue.
