WonderCon ‘08: New Frontier; King Kirby Bring Out Fans

This year’s WonderCon, held in San Francisco Feb. 22-24, drew more than 22,000 comics fans to the Moscone Center.

Udon Takes Over Murata’s Robot

The first three volumes of Range Murata’s experimental manga anthology Robot were published by Digital Manga Publishing. Now Udon Entertainment has taken over English language publication of the series beginning with the fourth volume. Robot, volume 5, will be released in March.

Comics Briefly

Shooting War Optioned; New PW Video Channel; NYCC Tabs Kubert, Simon; Glyph Award Nominees; Dark Tower Midnight Release; New Naruto; Viz Down Under; Bionicle GN from Papercutz; Berberian, Dupuy at Housing Works; Japanamerica at Kinokuniya; Hotwire Signing Reslated; Tank Girl Prose Novel; and DIY Amulet Comic

Children's Book Reviews

Picture Books Hello, Day! Anita Lobel . Greenwillow , $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-06-078765-3 It's a beautiful spring day, inspiring the denizens of farm, field and forest to offer up their full-throated version of the title greeting. “The Cow said, 'Moo,' ” proclaims the text opposite a mild-mannered, sloe-eyed cow, her hide glowing with marker-like striations of peach, pink and brown.

How Does Our Gardening Grow?

According to the National Gardening Association (NGA), an estimated record 91 million households participated in one or more types of DIY indoor and outdoor lawn and garden activities in 2005. In 2006, homeowners spent a record $44.7 billion to hire professional lawn and landscape services. Taken together, these figures represent a dramatic increase in gardening interest and expenditures.

Nonfiction Reviews

Comfort: A Journey Through Grief Ann Hood . Norton , $21.95 (188p) ISBN 978-0-393-06456-8 The first six pages of this wrenchingly honest memoir of Hood's daughter's death and its aftermath read like a tightly controlled scream. All the platitudes, the dozens of words of comfort that people offer—“time heals,” “she is in a better place”—are interspersed wit...

Fiction Reviews

For a Sack of Bones Lluís-Anton Baulenas , trans. from the Catalan by Cheryl Leah Morgan. Harcourt , $25 (368p) ISBN 978-0-15-101255-8 Set in Franco Spain in 1949, Barcelona novelist and playwright Baulenas's revenge tale of Legionnaire Sgt. Genís Aleu is drenched in desolation, fear and cruelty.

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 2/25/2008

This week: true crime for highbrow and middle-, joking around with politicians and cancer (not at the same time), being in love means never having not to say no, and Dr. Laura tells you to quit your bellyaching (then tells you how you should go about doing it). Plus: the other Erdich girl, Jerry O'Connell reads James Collins (poorly), and more.

Exclusive: Read Jonathan Lethem's Omega the Unknown #1

In recent years Marvel has added a number of stellar novelists to its list of comics contributors, including Stephen King, George R.R. Martin and now, Jonathan Lethem.

Diamond, Retailers Eye Graphic Novel Remainders

Graphic Novels are gaining traction in the bargain book business and Diamond Book Distributors, is also getting in the remainder business and will exhibit for the first time at the Spring Book Show, the largest remainder book show in the South, held in Atlanta at the end of March.

Rogue Wolf Acquires Cold Cut

Chicago-based Rogue Wolf Entertainment has acquired Cold Cut Distribution, the 14-year-old California wholesaler of independent comics, and will move the company to Chicago.

Flash Gordon Returns Via Ardden Entertainment

A new comics startup, Ardden Entertainment, is relaunching theFlash Gordonseries with plans to publish other licensed properties and original creations from a number of novelists and comics writers.

Science Fiction's New Prophet: A PW Web-Exclusive Q&A

PW Talks with PaoloBacigalupi, who's not afraid of weighty issues, like the future of humankind.

Ennis Moves from Punisher to Phantom Eagle

This March, critically acclaimed comic book writer Garth Ennis will end his four-year run on the series Punisher MAX and debut a new title for Marvel called War is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.

Comics Briefly

Toon Books Moved Up; NYCC News; PW The Beat Looks at Sales; Viz News; and Bluewater to Publish Pistolfist

Incognegro: Passing for White to Expose Lynching

DC Comics’s Vertigo imprint brought together novelist Mat Johnson and artist Warren Pleece to create Incognegro, an original graphic novel that recreates a terrible period in American history when the brutal lynchings of black Americans were carried out throughout the South.

David Fickling to Launch Weekly Comic

“In my own experience, the link between reading a comic and reading a book is wonderful and exciting,” says publisher David Fickling, who will launch a comic book program this May called The DFC (The David Fickling Comic). For Fickling, whose London-based, eponymous imprint at Random House publishes children’s books on both sides of the Atlantic, the launch of The DFC reflects his lifelong love of comic books.

Spring Sequels

Forget about happily ever after. At one time, it may have been enough for The Three Bears to chase Goldilocks from their home and get back to their meal. But publishers know well that a good sequel can pave the road from one-off bestseller to veritable empire. Where did Goldilocks's larcenous tendencies take her next? Did she ever get to finish that nap? And did the bears ever get that broken c...

Welcome to Sarahland

“I feel like I always have one foot back in high school,” says Sarah Dessen, who at 37 could almost pass for a recent graduate. Chapel Hill, her home since her parents took jobs at the University of North Carolina in 1973, is her town, and she relishes in disguising its landmarks in the fictional Lakeview, where her stories are set.

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 2/18/08