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We went to San Diego Comic-Con!
We’re still kind of catching up from it, because we promptly came home and got sick and our designer left and two books were due to the printer. But we’re almost back on track, and to celebrate, we have pictures of things that occurred at the show.
We’ll start off at the beginning — with this delightful stack of boxes — because that’s how all our shows start. Boxes. More boxes.
Eventually, they become something that looks like this.
(Also known as, the books come out of the boxes.)
And then they are a booth for real! With organization and everything!
Then we’re ready for the show to start!
One of the coolest visitors we had at the booth this year was Zita the Spacegirl!
Even cooler: multiples of Zitas!
And Robot One, Zita’s surly companion with a heart of gold!
We’re so thrilled that Ben’s final Zita graphic novel, The Return of Zita the Spacegirl, was a #1 New York Times Best-Seller, and it looks like other people are just as thrilled about this book as we are — thrilled enough to build things with paper mache! That’s so fantastic.
On the other end of the age spectrum, we had some advance copies of our WWI trench poetry anthology Above the Dreamless Dead to show off to people who came by.
People who came by included the anthology’s editor Chris Duffy!
We’re so excited about this book, you guys — it’s a wonderful and different way to look at World War I, which has its hundredth anniversary this year.
Peter Kuper adapts ‘The Immortals,’ by Isaac Rosenberg, for the book.
And James Lloyd adapts ‘Repression of the War Experience,’ by Siegfried Sassoon, a really interesting meditation on PTSD.
If you haven’t seen this book yet, you should definitely check it out!
We also had a number of authors stop by for signings, including Cecil Castellucci, the author of Odd Duck.
Ducks were drawn in books!
Lucy Knisley was a Guest of Honor at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, and we were delighted to have her come by and sign her wonderful graphic novel Relish (and draw little food in it).
Faith Erin Hicks also stopped by to sign copies of Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong and Friends With Boys.
She did lovely little sketches in all the books she signed!
The astronauts in Dave Roman’s Astronaut Academy graphic novel were destined to meet with a new kind of kid space-goer . . . from Star Trek!
Jen Wang, the illustrator of In Real Life, came down to San Diego to speak on a panel.
The timing just worked out that we were able to have some advance copies of the book for her to sign!
They had adorable sketches of the protagonist!
We were excited to debut Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel with Sonny Liew, The Shadow Hero, at San Diego Comic-Con. We were even more excited than usual because Gene was a Guest of Honor at the show this year!
All the books had little turtles drawn in them, because the protagonist of The Shadow Hero is a superhero called The Green Turtle.
Then The Green Turtle himself stopped by the booth!
The Green Turtle is a Golden Age superhero who Gene and Sonny are reviving in this graphic novel — he’s apocryphally the first ever Asian American superhero.
It seems like he likes the new version of his story!
Superhero and author!
And we also had a very special visit from Scott McCloud, who came by to see the galley of his upcoming graphic novel with First Second, The Sculptor.
This book is going to be really good, you guys!
And last . . . but by no means least . . . we won an Eisner Award, for Paul Pope’s fantastic graphic novel Battling Boy!
We were excited to have some early copies of Paul’s upcoming book, The Rise of Aurora West, at the show for him to sign.
This book is going to be really good! It comes out at the end of September.
We had a delightful time getting to connect all our authors and their readers. San Diego is always interesting for us because, as an East Coast-based publisher, it’s sometimes the only time of the year that we get to see the First Second friends we know on the West Coast in person. It’s always great to catch up with them!
Goodbye, San Diego! We’ll see you again next year.
