Turning tragedy into melodrama

First, this item: The new Bone game, The Great Cow Race is up and available for download. The price is reasonable, $12.99, but it's Windows-only and I'm a Mac user. Someone let me know if the thing is any good.

In other news, I received the Farrar, Straus & Giroux fall catalog in the mail the other day (one of my duties is editor of the paper's books page) which is chock full of comic-related news. The most interesting is easily the Hill and Wang's debut Novel Graphic line. PW had an article about the line awhile back, which you can read here.

Easily the most notable book in the initial line-up is the adaptation of the 9/11 Report, by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon.


More of an illustrated timeline at times than an actual honest-to-goodness graphic novel, the preview copy suggest the book is a little, well, ham-fisted, as I think the image below (and the one at the top of the post) shows.


I suppose the argument could be made that this work is designed more for students and younger readers, and certainly it will probably do a good job of condensing a good deal of information, but c'mon, do we really need that "Blam" sound effect? Wouldn't it be more effective and underscore the horror of the event better to stay away from traditional "comic book" cliches? I reserve final judgment until I see the whole book, of course, but the initial preview doesn't really fill me with hope.

The other two books in the Novel Graphics line are biographies of Ronald Reagan and Malcolm X. So you can't accuse the publishers of partisanship.


Both are written by Andy Helfer. Randy Du Burke is drawing the Malcolm X book while Steve Buccellato is handling art chores for the Gipper's book.


These two books show a bit more promise. I've always enjoyed Helfer's work, both as an editor (Paradox Press) and a writer (the Shadow). I'm curious to see how he'll handle these two incredibly different people's lives.

There's more in FSG's catalog, including a look at D&Q's fall line-up, but I think that's enough for now. I'm fighting a bad cold and need my beauty rest. I'll post the rest of the info tomorrow. For now, I'll leave you with some more scans from the Reagan and Malcolm books.