Top Shelf Productions

Tom Spurgeon's famous Holiday Interview series at The Comics Reporter has become a wonderful year-end tradition, offering rich conversations with all manner of significant figures in the world of comics. This time around, CR offers a great interview with Daren White, author of The Playwright.

You'll learn about the roots of that book, the creative process of making a book about the creative process, Daren's collaborations with Eddie Campbell on The Playwright and other projects, his experience editing the DeeVee anthology, and much more.

Check out the interview here, and if you haven't read The Playwright yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up!

Happy new year! You know, around here we have a saying: Christmas ain't over 'till you throw out the tree! To help celebrate the holiday season, Jeffrey Brown and his Incredible Change-Bots present a special holiday comic strip over at Comic Book Resources. Check it out here, and ask your favorite comic shop to pre-order Incredible Change-Bots Two, recently announced for release in March!

Hey friends,

We're honored and proud to have made it through another year here at Top Shelf -- publishing these books is a dream come true for all of us, and it's all thanks to your support.

Now, as we're wrapping up a great 2010 and preparing for a truly exciting 2011, we want to say "thank you" and wish you all a very happy holiday season!

All the best,

Chris, Brett, Rob, Leigh & the Top Shelf family

(and dig this lovely piece of winter beauty from longtime Top Shelf pal Max Estes!)

The folks at America's largest state library system, the Texas Library Association, have named BB WOLF & THE 3 LPs to their 2011 Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List! The book, written by J.D. Arnold with art by Rich Koslowski, is a thrilling story of race, revenge, and Delta blues that adapts a classic fairytale to Jim Crow-era Misssissippi.

The Texas Maverick list is the first (and so far, only) recommended reading list dedicated to graphic novels issued by a state association. It's designed to spotlight great comics for grades 6-12 in a variety of styles and subjects. BB WOLF is specifically recommended for the oldest age group, "Young Adult / Adult."

We note with pride that Super Spy author Matt Kindt is on the list as well, with his newest book 3 Story.

Thanks to everyone on the Maverick committee and congratulations to all the honorees!

The CBC's Canada Reads, a nationwide book club program in which 5 books compete (each championed by a Canadian celebrity) to be named the #1 book of the year, has officially announced the final 5. Jeff Lemire's phenomenal Essex County has made the cut, becoming not simply the first Top Shelf book, but the first graphic novel ever, to be in Canada Reads! This year, the Canada Reads program bears the theme "the essential Canadian novels of the past decade," so the honor is even more prestigious.

The celebrity champion of Essex County has also been announced: indie rocker Sara Quin, one-half of the award-winning band Tegan and Sara! Along with Sara's spirited defense of the book in the Canada Reads broadcasts, we can expect plenty of attention on author Jeff Lemire, ranging from this Q&A to a variety of podcasts, interviews, and more.

The selection of Essex County for this program is a huge honor for Jeff Lemire, Top Shelf Productions, and the comics industry at large. It poses an opportunity for an entire country to discover the power of Jeff's work, and to debate its values against four other excellent books. Our deepest congratulations to Jeff and the other finalists!

Canada Reads has encouraged everyone to spend the winter reading all 5 books, with various programming allowing readers to get to know the finalists better, all building up to the official competition in February 2011. Happy reading, and may the best book win!

While we're still glowing from the Essex County news, there are plenty of other accolades burbling around lately. Here are some noteworthy recent reviews:

Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing, who thought Tonoharu Part One was "stunningly good," got an early look at Tonoharu Part Two, which just landed in stores yesterday -- and has an exclusive look inside to share with you all!

Douglas Wolk at Time's Techland blog has another delicious preview of Tonoharu Part Two, of a moment that manages to be both tender and painfully awkward at the same time. And of course everything's rendered in Lars' incredible visual style. Check it out here!

Meanwhile the good folks at FA: The Comiczine have fantastic things to say about Eddie Campbell's Alec: The Years Have Pants. "Throughout, Campbell’s apparently unflinchingly honest about himself, detailing his conviviality, his eccentricities and his parsimony, and in time he begins to draw up a picture of not only himself, but his family too. You feel that you know these people, though the medium of words, and those loose, scratchy pen-and-ink drawings." Reviewer Peter Campbell concludes: "There aren’t many comics that are both comprehensive and essential, but this is one of them... Every home should have a copy."

Will Dinski's recent Hollywood head-trip Fingerprints gets a great write-up from MNartists.org, which dubs it "a biting, perceptive satire on the seedy side of Hollywood." An interview with Will is nicely interwoven into the article -- discover the thought process that spawned the book, Will's thoughts on bringing it to Top Shelf, and more!

It's also great to see the outstanding mini-comics of Joseph Lambert get some praise in The Comics Journal. One of the stories praised by reviewer Rich Kreiner, "Fall," is available right here on Top Shelf 2.0. See why he says it "reminds in coloring and content of those glorious Sunday excursions Frank King chronicled for Walt and Skeezix in the autumn countryside."

Thanks to the votes of huge numbers of readers, the CBC's prestigious Canada Reads program has placed Jeff Lemire's three-part graphic novel Essex County on the short list of 10 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade!

The decision now falls to a panel of judges, who will select the final list of 5 novels for an epic multimedia elimination tournament on the CBC. The list of 5 will be announced on November 24.

Many thanks go out to the army of Jeff Lemire fans who helped land him in the top 10. This is a great honor for Top Shelf and Jeff -- now let's hope Essex County becomes the first graphic novel to become a Canada Reads finalist!

Now we need your help to push it over the top!

Jeff Lemire's Essex County trilogy, now collected into a single beautiful volume, is more than just a great graphic novel. It's a love letter to the farms of Essex County where Jeff grew up, to the wider province of Ontario in both its urban and rural communities, and to the nation of Canada as a whole -- its wintry cold and human warmth, its love of hockey, and its rich history.

That's why it's been named one of the 40 novels honored by the CBC's prestigious Canada Reads program -- i.e. the Top 40 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade! And that's not all: you can head to the Canada Reads web site, now through November 7, and vote for your pick for the final Top 10 list! Anyone with a web browser is eligible to vote, so head over there, check out all the great nominees, and make your voices heard!

Award-winning graphic novelists Eddie Campbell (The Playwright, Alec) and Nate Powell (Swallow Me Whole) have each been featured recently in relaxed, intelligent interviews that penetrate deep into the craft of making comics. There are plenty of great insights here from two artists from very different backgrounds, and both are well worth your time -- for anyone who loves comics but especially for comic creators.

In a newly-released video interview from last year's trip to Italy, Eddie Campbell talks to Alfredo Goffredi about how technology changes illustration, why he makes comics about everyday life, why he's never satisfied, why he considers himself a writer who writes with pictures, and why sometimes you have to smash alarm clocks with your children for the sake of Art.

Then, Nate Powell speaks with The Economist's Will Wilkinson for BloggingHeads.tv in a no-holds-barred discussion of graphic novels. They cover Nate's work, his growth as an artist, writer, and self-publisher, his experiences in the comics community and his perspective on the current state of the art.

You can view both interviews embedded below, by clicking Read More!

Top Shelf heads to San Francisco this weekend (October 16-17) for APE, the Alternative Press Expo!

Come by and meet:
–Renee French, author of The Ticking and Micrographica, who's got a new book H Day from Picturebox!
–Rich Koslowski (who drew the APE poster art), famed for Three Fingers (now in a new edition!), The King, and BB Wolf & the 3 LPs!
–JD Arnold, writer of BB Wolf & the 3 LPs with art by Rich. Also a Northern California comic retailer himself, at Comicopolis in Santa Cruz!

And we'll also have all our great recent releases like Will Dinski’s Fingerprints, the underground Japanese comics anthology Ax, and Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic magazine (including the new issue #5)!

Some of our Top Shelf 2.0 pals will be around as well, including Jed Alexander!

See you by the Bay!

New York, here we come! This weekend (October 8-10) is the New York Comic Con, and Top Shelf Productions will be exhibiting in style. Don't miss our first ever appearance with the world-renowed Akino Kondoh, contributor and cover artist for Ax: A Collection of Alternative Manga! Grab copies of the brand-new Dodgem Logic #5, the latest issue of Alan Moore's wild underground magazine! Plus appearances by Top Shelf stars JD Arnold & Rich Koslowski (BB Wolf & the 3 LPs), Jeff Lemire (Essex County), and Robert Venditti (The Surrogates)! Come out and see us this weekend!

Hey Gang, Just so you know, Alan Moore's Dodgem Logic #5 has just arrived, and is now available (along with issues #1-#4). All the best, Chris

Hey Gang, Thanks to everyone for participating in the big sale. Just so you know, as of today, Monday October 4th, all the orders have shipped out. Whew! That was a ton of work, but work we were very grateful for! All the best, and see you at the New York Comic-Con this weekend. -- Chris Staros

Geek renaissance man and weird-culture hero Mark Frauenfelder recently read Lars Martinson's Tonoharu: Part One - and loved it! In his review on Boing Boing today, Mark writes: "Tonoharu is a story of isolation, frustration, and mystery, with just the right amount of black humor to keep it from being depressing ... the overall effect is stunning. I can't recommend Tonoharu highly enough."

Tonoharu: Part One, Lars' Xeric-winning graphic novel, is the story of a young American college grad who heads to Japan to teach English. In a starred review, Booklist called it "a fully realized, engaging tale of international alienation. You can grab your copy of Part One below - and pre-order Part Two, which ships in November!

Hey Gang, I'll be at the Baltimore Comic-Con all this weekend -- with all our new releases: THE PLAYWRIGHT by Daren White & Eddie Campbell, AX (VOL 1) Edited by Sean Michael Wilson, FINGERPRINTS by Will Dinski, BB WOLF & THE 3 LP'S by J.D. Arnold & Rich Koslowski, MOVING PICTURES by Kathryn & Stuart Immonen, UNDELETED SCENES by Jeffrey Brown, all four issues of Alan Moore's DODGEM LOGIC, and lots more. Come see me there! -- Chris Staros