Mark Siegel On Assertions That First Second Is Becoming More Of A Kids Line



First Second Books' Mark Siegel wrote me a nice note about my act of wondering out loud, and Eddie Campbell doing approximately the same thing in an interview that ran soon after, about the future of imprints like First Second Books and related efforts at various traditional book publishers as a significant boost to literary comics of the kind literary-minded adults might get to read. Mr. Siegel:

There is no change with respect to First Second's editorial aims. Technically :01 remains an imprint of Roaring Brook Press; and I can promise you we're not veering from our mission of publishing across the comics spectrum, for children, teens, and adults; and First Second has not in any way been "designated as a children's publisher." Of course, it is part of my job to push back against the industry's historic inclination to pigeonhole anything out of the ordinary, but where it matters, First Second is very much its own creature. There's so much in the pipeline for many coming seasons, and part of that is the flowering of our adult titles. 2009 has a number of them, including Guibert's The Photographer and Adam Rapp's script Ballpeen Hammer with art by George O'Connor (as just two that couldn't be construed as young or teen or all-ages by any stretch of the imagination.)

I greatly appreciate Mark writing in and am glad to hear that he and his line remain devoted to books like Guibert's. As for the more general idea that book publishing is going to make a huge impact on that kind of comic book, I can't speak for Eddie Campbell, but I think this is one of those discussions the Internet fairly warps. In the end, I think we're best served by remembering the issues asserted and moving into a wait and see period, occasionally taking broad measurements and then discussing them without slipping into a framework of proof or guilt/innocence in individual cases. We have to get to the point where we can have more discussions of "did they" and fewer arguments about "should they," and that's going to take some time. Hopefully, I'll be better able to participate in such discussions in the months and years ahead in a manner that doesn't make one of the publishing figures involved feel I'm being unfair! Eddie Campbell, to my mind, shouldn't change a thing and should continue to inquire and agitate in precisely the directions he feels it's necessary to inquire and agitate. I'm personally going to wonder after the overall impact of traditional publishing on art comics until I see more work developed by US publishers as opposed to the publication of translated works or works cherry-picked from a smaller press, but I hope to do that -- and more, besides -- while being careful of turning that into easy indictments of the offhand variety.
 
posted 7:50 am PST | Permalink
 

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