(Lucy Knisley, the author of the graphic novel Relish: My Life in the Kitchen [it comes out tomorrow, we're super-excited!] has been kind enough to share a day from her life last week — from the final throes of pre-publication book promotion count-down time.)

Lucy Knisley — May 28th, 2013

The MoCCA Festival is a show that we attend — and enjoy — every year.  We get a chance to hobnob with fellow publishers, see work from upcoming cartoonists, and show off our own books while we’re at it.

We’ll be at table c79, and here’s who we’ll have signing:

Saturday:

11:30 – 12:30pm — George O’Connor, with the now New York Times Best-Selling Poseidon

1:00 – 2:00pm — Mark Siegel, Sailor Twain

4:00 – 5:00pm — Nick Abadzis, Laika

5:00 – 6:00pm — Sara Varon, Robot Dreams, Bake Sale

Sunday:

1:00 – 2:00pm — Lucy Knisley, Relish: My Life in the Kitchen (show debut!)

2:30 – 3:30 pm — Mike Cavallaro, Curses! Foiled Again

4:00 – 5:00pm — MK Reed, Americus

And, special bonus: Lucy Knisley, the author of Relish (which comes out this coming week, just in time for the MoCCA Festival) will be doing a Table Talk in the Moving Image Lounge at 11:30 on Sunday.  So you can both buy her book and hear her talk about her book (though not at the same time).

See you this coming weekend!

Now announcing: the First Second Fall 2013 season of books!

Gems, every one of them.  We swear.

Adventures in Cartooning: Characters in Action, by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost.  This book is formatted like the first one — full color and full of how-to instruction.  It’s super!

Battling Boy, by Paul Pope.  Entertainment Weekly can tell you all about this book.  What we have to say: it’s going to be awesome.

Boxers, by Gene Luen Yang.  The first half of a diptych about the Boxer Rebellion.  Wired can tell you all about this book.  This is Gene’s first single-author graphic novel project since American Born Chinese, and it’s just as awesome as that book was.

 Saints, by Gene Luen Yang.  The second half of the diptych — they both come out on the same day, so there’s no waiting years to finish the story!  The two books are available separately or as a boxed set.

The Cute Girl Network, by Greg Means, MK Reed, and Joe Flood.  It’s love at first sight for Jane and Jack — until Jane’s busybody friends decide she deserves better!

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant, by Tony Cliff.  This is going to be the best nineteenth century adventure novel you’ll read all year!  You can’t tell in this cover image, but the title text after ‘Delilah Dirk’ is actually printed in silver foil.

Fairy Tale Comics, edited by Chris Duffy, with a cover by Eleanor Davis and fairy tales by: Bobby London, Emily Carroll, Gilbert Hernandez, Vanessa Davis, Gigi D.G., Ramona Fradon, Jaime Hernandez, Luke Pearson, Brett Helquist, Joseph Lambert, Raina Telgemeier, Charise Mericle Harper, Graham Annable, Jillian Tamaki, Karl Kerschl, David Mazzucchelli, and Craig Thompson!  This book is a companion to Nursery Rhyme Comics, and it’s just as amazing.

Tune: Still Life, by Derek Kirk Kim and Les McClaine.  This is the sequel to Tune: Vanishing Point — Andy’s still stuck in an alien zoo, and it looks like he’ll be there — for life!

We’re super-excited for this season, you guys — it’s filled with wonderful books!

(reading person on a boat from the State Library of Queensland; why this boat appears to be full of water is really anyone’s guess.)

When you’re considering your lifetime career, publishing is something that comes up pretty frequently to the tune of the logic, ‘you get to read all the time!’

It’s true that there’s tends to be more reading involved in publishing than in, say, household appliance repair.  We all have offices full of books!  We are encouraged to read books in our lives!

But: since I have arrived at the office this morning, I have not read one single book.  Not even half a book.  Or even a quarter.

Instead, I have: reviewed cover concepts; worked with our designer on upcoming sales materials; pitched media; mailed an upcoming book to the trade magazines; organized author events; worked with our designer on promotional materials for upcoming fall titles; put together a presentation for a talk I’m doing tomorrow; edited presentation materials for an upcoming talk with our sales department; helped plan a party; talked about our books on Facebook and Twitter; updated our website; processed a contract; booked an author’s flight for an event; started planning what we’re doing at San Diego Comic-Con this year; reviewed our current catalog layout; mailed some review copies.

All of these things are things that I genuinely enjoy (well, maybe mailing a little less genuinely), and all of them are 100% book related.  But there is no day on my calendar where I come into work at 9am and sit down with a pile of novels (or manuscripts) and a cup of tea and read until I go home in the evening.

If you’re looking for a job that involves daily book consumption, book reviewer might be the way to go instead of book publisher.

We’ve all been fans of Tony Cliff and Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant since it was on the internet.  So we’re super-excited to be publishing an edition of Delilah Dirk in print!  Who can resist her globetrotting adventuring ways?

No one, that’s who.

We just got copies of Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant in the office, and it looks super!  Pictures.

Here’s the book cover.  You can see that Delilah Dirk is getting herself (and probably innocent bystanders) into trouble already.  These globetrotting adverenturers!  Will they never learn?

And here’s the back cover, which is full of tea (a thing that features largely in this book, as it is very important).  Also: quote from Faith Erin Hicks to prove that other people like the book than just us!

Spines!

You will be unsurprised to learn that the book has a spine.

Best flap copy ever.

Back flap — has information about the author!  Also an attractive image!  What more can you ask for?

In conclusion: this book is awesome!

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant comes out in August.

DesignerViews are mini, two question, interviews about design with creators whose work we admire: What have you designed that you love? And what design inspires you? This month we are featuring Erik Buckham, the fantastic designer behind the stunning Jerusalem jacket (written by Boaz Yakin and illustrated by Nick Bertozzi). From the haunting limited palette with contrasting bold, yellow lettering, to the abundance of bullet holes surrounding the characters—holes that our eyes desperately try to make sense of only to finally realize it’s hardly a pretty wallpaper pattern. The cover is so striking that you feel the tension in the story long before you even touch the pages. We’re very proud to be publishing the book and to have gotten the chance to work with Erik.

COLLEEN: What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever designed?

ERIK: I interpret this question in two ways. The first would be to answer what is the my favorite thing I have designed in terms of its artistic/design merits. This is a tough one to answer, mostly because I am a pretty ruthless judge of my own work and tend to see the mistakes and missed opportunities in everything I have ever made. It’s hard to pick something, but if I have to I would probably go with the Beasts of the Southern Wild poster I did last year. I think more than any other poster I have done it captures something truthful about the film and with a fairly simple image. I think there is something timeless about it and that is hard to achieve.

My second answer would be in terms of what was my favorite experience working on something. That would have to be the series of posters I did for House of the Devil. Growing up in the 80′s I was obsessed with horror VHS covers. I love that campy/creepy imagery. In some ways it has become sort of a lost artform. I got to relive my childhood a little bit with that one. And the client loved everything so much we ended up releasing them as a series on the internet.

COLLEEN: What’s a piece of design that gives you design chills?

ERIK: One of my favorite designers is Peter Mendelsund. He mostly designs book covers and everything he does blows me away. His work is so deceptively simple. Which is the hardest thing as a designer to achieve. How to be clear while still being smart and well thought out and somehow looking totally original. I especially love the cover he did last year for The Flame Alphabet.

You can see more of Erik’s wonderful design work at: http://www.palaceworks.net

We’re very excited to be bringing Lucy Knisley to Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland (OR), Seattle, and Toronto to celebrate her upcoming graphic novel Relish: My Life in the Kitchen (in stores April 2nd).

Here’s where she’ll be (with an attractive food illustration for each city!).

George O’Connor delivers POSEIDON, the fifth installment in his mythical OLYMPIANS series—and continues to dethrone D’aulaires Book of Greek Myths, as the most valuable and trustworthy reference for young readers for the original world-shaping tales of Ancient Greece . . . and O’Connor turns out to be one of their most inspired and exciting retellers.

Not to be missed—as thousands of young readers and their teachers will already attest!

Everyone at First Second is sending our very best wishes to Fantagraphics co-pubisher Kim Thompson, who is dealing with some really scary health stuff right now. Fantagraphics has been showing the world how it’s done for over thirty years, and it’s probably safe to say that First Second wouldn’t exist without them. Kim Thompson is a model and an inspiration to all of us.

When I was a kid in the late eighties and early nineties, the Fantagraphics catalog was my bible and my window into a world I very much wanted to be a part of. I’ve been working in comics for five years now and I still can’t believe my good luck, and I owe a lot of it to Thompson and Groth, who have made — and are making still — a place for comics that are strange and scary and beautiful and true and utterly, utterly new.

Thanks, Kim, and best of luck.

Traveling the world talking to millions of people about my book Sumo the same question all ways comes up.  “Mr. Pham, ” they’ll say “how do I get my comic made?” “Do I need an agent?” ” Why are you so awesome?”  Well, I can’t answer the last question, but I made up this simple flow chart to help cartoonists make decisions about choosing a the best course of action for their comics.  For a long time I only shared it with a privileged few, but now I feel that I need to share this chart with the world!  So no, you do not need an agent, let Thien Pham be your agent.

ps. You can also use this chart for all life decisions, just replace publisher with girlfriend, or job, or grad school and let Thien Pham be your Life Coach.

For an unfinished comic:

For an unfinished comic: