Linkfest: Wheeling and Dealing

 Raina Telgemeier, who illustrated the Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels, has good news and bad news for us about  Smile: A Dental Drama. The good news is that Scholastic/Graphix will be publishing it as a full-color graphic novel in 2010. The bad news is that she won’t be updating the online version any more. If a comic about dental work sounds, well, unappealing, go check it out—it’s really about the trials of being 12, which Raina remembers amazingly well.

In other business news, Jimmy Gownley has signed with Simon & Schuster to publish Amelia Rules! This is another of those good news-bad news items, as S&S will be reprinting the four existing volumes before publishing any new material.

Archaia Studios Press is up for sale, and Christopher Butcher wonders what the implications will be for the second volume of Mouse Guard.

Tales of the Beanworld is back, and about time, too. I read this comic when it first came out, in the 1980s, and I was fascinated by the logical, self-contained universe that Marder created. These books would be a great choice for teenagers with inquiring minds and a bent towards either philosophy or environmentalism. This  interview with Beanworld creator Larry Marder at the Westfield Comics blog is a good introduction to the series, which is being republished by Dark Horse in pamphlet and collected form. 

Rachelle Goguen interviews Mariko Tamaki, the writer of Skim and Emiko Superstar, at Living Between Wednesdays.

Over at The Hooded Utilitarian, critic Noah Berlatsky has been reading Spider-Man Magazine, and he likes what he sees:

Parker’s dialogue is crisp and witty, and he’s got an idiosyncratically charming sense of pacing. Basically, there’s very little in the way of traditional suspense or cliff-hangers; villains and heroes all chat with each other, and, instead of panicked melodrama you get crisis which unfold with a friendly leisure.

The First Second Blog spotlights the library program Get Graphic!

Ed Sizemore went to Small Press Expo a couple of weeks ago, and one of the things that stood out to me about his account of it was how many of the creators he saw were making comics for children and teens.

Reviews of note:

Tangognat on vol. 1 of Sugar Princess: Skating to Win
John E. Mitchell on the Minx title Emiko Superstar (Shuffleboil)
Johanna Draper Carlson on September’s Archie Digests (Comics Worth Reading)
Matthew Brady on Janes in Love (Warren Peace Sings the Blues)

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