Top Shelf Productions

The good folks at Comic Book Resources just unveiled an exclusive first look at the opening scene of The Playwright, coming this June from Top Shelf!

Written by Daren White with full-color painted art by Eddie Campbell, The Playwright is a truly delightful piece of work that blends romance and emotional complexity with a dry British wit. It's a dark comedy about the sex life of a celibate middle-aged man. Take a look at the first scene now!

The prestigious Joe Shuster Awards, honoring Canadian comic book creators, have announced their nominees for 2010... and three Top Shelf creators are on the list!

First up, the excellent Stuart Immonen is nominated for Best Artist/Dessinateur, largely for his work at Marvel on Ultimate Spider-Man and New Avengers. Scripter supreme Kathryn Immonen likewise earns a nomination for Best Writer/Écrivain primarily for Runaways and Patsy Walker: Hellcat. Also mentioned is the Immonen-Immonen collaboration "Trampoline Hall" from a CBLDF benefit book. Finally, Shuster veteran Jeff Lemire returns for another shot at the award he won two years ago, Best Cartoonist/Créateur. The nomination honors his work on The Nobody and his story from Awesome 2: Awesomer, among other things.

But the best part? All three have amazing new graphic novels coming up from Top Shelf!

• Kathryn and Stuart have collaborated on the nail-bitingly dramatic thriller Moving Pictures -- about love, war, and Nazi art theft -- which is in Previews now for a May 2010 release.
• And Jeff Lemire has just announced his next major book with us, The Underwater Welder, for a 2012 release!

Congratulations to Stuart, Kathryn, Jeff, and all the nominees!

Library Journal's Neal Wyatt and Tom Batten have assembled a cream-of-the-crop short list of absolutely essential graphic novels -- "classics that not only stand out as great starting points for newbies but also serve as examples of the best work done by masters of the form." Such a list would hardly be complete without something by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, and the writers kill two birds with one stone by recommending Alan & Eddie's monumental collaboration From Hell!

As Batten writes, "Moore weaves together a huge cast of characters, ranging from royalty to doomed footmen, and Campbell's scratchy, dark illustrations create a gloriously grimy and terrifyingly realistic London for them to inhabit." If you haven't braved the dark depths of From Hell before, why not dive in today? We can safely say that it will blow your mind.

Hey folks, those of you in the Pacific Northwest should get ready for the Emerald City ComicCon this weekend (March 13-14) in Seattle! We'll be there in full force all weekend, with Top Shelf superstars Matt Kindt (Super Spy), Jeff Lemire (Essex County), and Andy Runton (Owly) at the Top Shelf booth -- and Owly fans have an extra reason to go, as this year's official ECCC T-Shirts for both women and children feature an awesome "Owly in Seattle" design by Andy Runton!

See you in the Emerald City!

Wow! No sooner do we announce a new graphic novel by Eric Orchard (Maddy Kettle, coming in 2011) than we receive news that Eric has won a Spectrum Award!

The Spectrum Awards celebrate the best in art and design in the fields of fantasy and science fiction, as selected by a peer jury of working artists. The winning pieces will all be included in volume 17 of the Spectrum fantasy art anthology, to be published this fall. Eric's winning page comes from his mini-comic "The Cloud Cave," which he's currently expanding and adapting into his full-length graphic novel debut, Maddy Kettle. So we're totally claiming this one for Team Top Shelf! Congratulations, Eric, and hats off to all the winners.

Hey fans, as if our awesome Swedish Invasion party and book launches weren't enough reason to make this year's MoCCA Festival a must, the festival has now announced panel programming for the show -- and Top Shelf is featured on both Saturday and Sunday!

Saturday (April 10) will see Alex Robinson and James Kochalka included in an all-star panel of artists discussing their favorite comics of the decade. Then on Sunday (April 11), Top Shelf 2.0 editor Leigh Walton will join a host of folks talking about comics and new technology, and later a Scandinavian Comics panel will feature both Johannes Klenell and Mats Jonsson (Hey Princess), our friends from Swedish publisher Galago and key figures in the Top Shelf Swedish Invasion!

Full details on the three panels are after the jump, or click here to see all the great programming lined up for the show.

It’s always exciting when we discover new talent, or get a brilliant new proposal from one of our established masters. At the moment we can announce several of BOTH! The upcoming graphic novels we’ve recently signed include five new kid-friendly series, five new graphic novels by wonderful female creators, a massive award-winner from France, a full-length graphic novel from mini-comics master Will Dinski, the writing debut of Eric Skillman (designer of the beautiful ALEC omnibus, as well as the upcoming PLAYWRIGHT and AX anthology), and ten (!) incredible new graphic novels from our all-time greats. We’ll have more details on each book as they get closer to publication, but for now we’ll direct you here to check out the details we have available: Future Releases & 2010 Releases (as some will be published this year). And you can also see a list of titles by reading the rest of this post.

The March 2010 issue of Diamond Previews just landed, and it's got a ton of great new Top Shelf books ready to be pre-ordered, in advance of their May arrival. First, Rich Koslowski (creator of the beloved graphic novels Three Fingers and The King) teams with talented writer J.D. Arnold for a thrilling, emotional tale of racism, murder, revenge, and music, in BB Wolf and the 3 LPs. Then, the phenomenal team of Kathryn and Stuart Immonen make their Top Shelf debut with Moving Pictures, a tense portrait of a complex relationship and the fate of art during the Nazi occupation. Then, Jeffrey Brown presents a massive, long-awaited collection of his shorter works, Undeleted Scenes! And finally, the international gang at Stripburger have a beautiful new collection, Greetings from Cartoonia, based on the idea of borrowing each others' national culture.

For details and previews of each book, click below!

Holy lingonberries! The crazy geniuses over in Sweden are so excited about their books coming out in English from Top Shelf that they put together this awesome video to introduce themselves!

What can we say, except that this demonstrates perfectly the amazing charm, creativity and offbeat sense of humor that make their books so great. Check out the video below, pre-order their books now at your local shop, those of you in the Chicago and New York areas should make plans to party with the Swedes in April!

Leve den svenska invasionen!

Kevin O'Neill is not only the visual genius who brings to life one of our best-selling books -- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (with Alan Moore) -- he's also got a deluxe collection of his devastating superhero parody, Marshal Law (with Pat Mills), coming from Top Shelf at the end of this year!

So we're delighted to see Kevin plumb his own depths in a deep and wide-ranging conversation with critic Douglas Wolk, hosted in five parts on the Comics Journal web site! Check out the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth parts -- it's all great stuff!

CBR's Robot 6 blog continues to spotlight upcoming titles from our April Swedish Invasion event!

First we saw a scandalous scene from Simon Gärdenfors' 120 Days of Simon. Then a full-color look at the furry freakiness of Kolbeinn Karlsson's The Troll King.

Now Robot 6 presents a darkly hilarious scene from Mats Jonsson's painfully honest memoir of hipsters, heartbreak, and Britpop, Hey Princess!

You can see the 12-page preview HERE!

Another day, another preview on CBR's Robot 6 blog of a new Swedish Invasion title!

After giving us a saucy look at Simon Gärdenfors' 120 Days of Simon, today Robot 6 has a weird, wild, and wonderful first glimpse of the full-color magic that is The Troll King by Kolbeinn Karlsson.

Check out the 16-page preview HERE!

CBR's Robot 6 blog will be taking a closer look at our Swedish Invasion books this week, giving you an advance look at some of these amazing stories that we'll debut in April (though you can pre-order them now in your local shop)!

First up, a scandalous excerpt from The 120 Days of Simon by Swedish cartoonist/rapper Simon Gärdenfors! The scene begins on Day 2 of the trip, with Simon meeting his second volunteer host. But she's awfully young... And you won't believe what they get up to in the day care center where she works! CLICK HERE to find out!

When a trend gets big enough, all the mainstream media eventually take a look at it! CNN's Breeanna Hare investigated various comic-to-film adaptations and spoke to a few industry figures for comment -- most prominently, Top Shelf publisher Chris Staros! In the wake of Touchstone's blockbuster Surrogates film and our recent capital investment / film production deal, Top Shelf is a prominent example of how publishers can respond to Hollywood's interest in graphic novels, without dashing for the quick buck or creating books as a means to an end. Our mission is to publish great books, and we welcome the chance to work with talented filmmakers to adapt those books -- with creator approval -- and introduce a wider audience to the comics that are and always will be our focus.

Click here to read the article!

How cool is this? The February 3 episode of Jeopardy! College Championship included this clue: "A graphic novel by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele was the basis for this Bruce Willis film about androids that live for users."

Solution: "What is THE SURROGATES," of course! Freshman James Hill III nailed it -- and went on to trounce his competitors with over $25,000.

Check out the video here!