Top Shelf Productions

PRAISE FOR PETER & MARIA HOEY:

• "Spectacular... each page is a feast for the eyes. Challenging, entertaining, and crisply beautiful stories." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
• "Right up there with Chris Ware for craft, composition and complexity... like nothing at all that I can recall." — Page 45

After tremendous acclaim for their series Coin-Op Comics, two brilliant creators present their first graphic novel: a menagerie of wild tales. Pushing the boundaries of their dazzling and unique narrative style, Animal Stories weaves together six short stories exploring the mysterious relationships between humans and other animals.

The recent San Diego Festival of Books featured two Top Shelf authors on fascinating panels that you can watch online now:

Jarod Roselló (Red Panda & Moon Bear) joined the amazing Stan & Julie Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo) to discuss "Comic Consciousness": morality, personal growth, and characterization in comics for young readers. You can watch the conversation, moderated by Comic-Con's Laura Jones, here!

Kim Dwinell (The Science of Surfing: A Surfside Girls Guide to the Ocean) chatted with Theanne Griffith (The Magnificent Makers) about making science come alive for kids, on the panel "From Surf to Science in Middle-Grade STEM," moderated by Jose Cruz of the San Diego Council on Literacy. Don't miss it!

News from down under! The prestigious Ledger Awards, which are now called the Comic Arts Awards of Australia, livestreamed their 2021 ceremony on Friday night and — would you believe it? — all three of Top Shelf's "Australian Invasion" graphic novels were honored with awards!

Pat Grant received a Bronze Award for The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters, while Silver Awards went to Campbell Whyte for Home Time II: Beyond the Weaving as well as Chris Gooch for Under-Earth. To hear their heartfelt acceptance speeches and see all the great winners, you can watch the award ceremony below.

If you're feeling "Zoom fatigue," you're not alone! With San Diego Comic-Con gone virtual again, we knew we had to get creative. So Edgar Camacho and James Albon promoted their thrilling foodie graphic novels with a virtual cooking show, and Kim Dwinell headed to the beach — and the famous Long Beach Shark Lab — to discuss The Science of Surfing! You can watch both programs on-demand on our YouTube channel.

Comics Kitchen: Incredible Food-Themed Graphic Novels!
Reading comics can really make you hungry . . . especially if it’s the gorgeous full-color artwork and juicy storytelling of Edgar Camacho (Onion Skin) and James Albon (The Delicacy)! Visit these international talents in their very own homes and learn how they started from basic story ingredients from their native lands of Mexico and Scotland and cooked them up into sizzling graphic novel adventures—full of romance, murder, food fights, and magic mushrooms! Hosted by @ThatHangryGurl Nikki Hendry, this nourishing conversation will also invite viewers to follow along at home and whip up a tasty treat! A free PDF download of this exclusive recipe inspired by the graphic novels is available, as well as previews of each book!

Dive into an Ocean of Science with Surfside Girls!
Kids, families, and water-lovers of all ages: join Kim Dwinell (creator of Surfside Girls) and the CSULB Shark Lab’s Dr. Christopher Lowe for a light and lively walk on the beach and visit to the Shark Lab, as they discuss tide pools, awesome animals, wave physics, surfing tips, caring for the ocean, and much more—all explored within Kim’s new middle-grade graphic novel, The Science of Surfing: A Surfside Girls Guide to the Ocean! Whether you live on a mountain or a plain, in a big city or right on the beach . . . see how much fun it can be to discover the natural world all around you!

Top Shelf Productions is thrilled to announce that our whimsical and handsomely crafted graphic novels have received a combined FOUR nominations for the 2021 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.

We've completely fallen in love with the sprawling musical epic that is Filipe Melo & Juan Cavia's graphic novel Ballad for Sophie.
Now you can see and hear it come to life, read a gripping preview excerpt, and pre-order for its September release!

When a young journalist prompts a reclusive musical superstar to finally break his silence, he pours out an astonishing saga of rivalry and regret, starring child prodigies and bitter old men, beautiful dancers and demonic managers, Nazi commandants, compassionate nuns, and lifesaving animals.

Ballad for Sophie is a sweeping tale that spans the twentieth century, packed with all the drama of a rock & roll biopic and more twists than a night at the opera. Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia have composed a stunning graphic symphony exploring a lifetime of ambition, betrayal, compassion, anguish, long-buried secrets, and flying pianos.

Hannah Templer's epic lesbian-gladiators-in-space adventure, Cosmoknights, has been one of our biggest hits of recent years... so we're thrilled that the story is finally about to continue! Like the first volume, Book Two will be serialized as a webcomic on cosmoknights.space — starting in just a couple weeks! The collected graphic novel will be published next year, so stay tuned for more details and pre-order options as we get closer.

And if you're new to the Cosmoknights story, there's no better time to dive in! Check out the webcomic and/or pick up Book One from your favorite shop today.

While the publishing industry tries to categorize books intro strict pigeonholes by age group... there's something about graphic novels that often breaks these barriers. Our next book is a perfect example.

Better Place is about a boy who's not sure he's ready to grow up, but it's a heartfelt and powerful graphic novel that readers of all kinds will be moved by. Crafted with layers of emotion and sympathetic characters, including some childlike adults and some awfully mature kids, this book is a celebration of vintage comic-book imagination, a harsh dose of reality crashing against that fantasy, and a roadmap to reconnecting with the things that really matter.

Our marketing director Leigh Walton got dressed up and invited an international assortment of our outstanding 2021 authors to celebrate WonderCon@Home with a fun and freewheeling conversation about their new books — some hot off the presses, and some coming soon! Also discussed: their favorite pages, cool handicrafts by fans, why villains are more fun, why comics make you hungry, and why we haven't gone completely crazy during the pandemic.

Click here to hear from James Albon (The Delicacy, coming in June), James Kochalka (Johnny Boo and the Silly Blizzard, out now), Kim Dwinell (The Science of Surfing: A Surfside Girls Guide to the Ocean, coming in July), Edgar Camacho (Onion Skin, coming in May), and Christian Slade (Korgi Book 5: End of Seasons, coming in just a few days)!

"Kim Dwinell’s Surfside Girls has a timeless quality... it’s a perfect summer read." — Brigid Alverson, School Library Journal's "Good Comics for Kids"

The ocean is packed with plants, animals, water... and science! Ride the waves of knowledge with Sam and Jade as they explain all about the amazing wonders of the sea, and have a blast doing it.

Have you ever wondered why the ocean has waves? Why do the tides change with the moon? Can dolphins really "see" using sound? How does surfing actually work? And what can we do to protect the ocean?

“Ray Friesen is a veritable fount of silliness... Pirate Penguin vs. Ninja Chicken is filled with nonsense, from the copyright page to the comics to the endpages, and it’s guaranteed to make your geeklets giggle.” — GeekDad

"The short stories will keep the interest of your most reluctant readers, and the action almost makes it like you are watching a cartoon on TV... Great for fans of Dav Pilkey and Diary of a Wimpy Kid." — No Flying No Tights

You're telling me this pirate is a penguin?? That's not all, buddy. This ninja... is a chicken. And in their THIRD ridiculous book together, they're even funnier than ever!

"This wild metafictional romp is a fitting goodbye to two singular talents." — The Guardian (Best Comics of the Year)

After an epic twenty-year journey through the entirety of human culture - the biggest cross-continuity 'universe' that is conceivable - Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill conclude both their legendary League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and their equally legendary comic-book careers with the series' spectacular fourth and final volume, The Tempest.

Over the weekend, George Takei's bestselling graphic memoir received another prestigious honor: the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics!

All four members of the creative team — George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker — contributed eloquent acceptance speeches to the livestreamed award ceremony, which was held on the tenth anniversary of McDuffie's death. You can watch the full program, hosted by actor Phil LaMarr and including testimonials about McDuffie's career and legacy in the industry, on Facebook.

They Called Us Enemy has also recently been nominated for many state-level Teen Book Awards, and selected for community reading programs ranging from multiple California cities to the entire state of Ohio! We are deeply honored that this book's timely lessons about family, identity, patriotism, and justice continue to resonate with readers around the world.

With The Three Rooms in Valerie's Head, Dan Berry and David Gaffney turned an unexpected metaphor into a unique, hilarious, and quietly profound character study. Now they're back with an even more ambitious opus:

Three ordinary weirdos, one recurring dream. The acclaimed minds behind The Three Rooms in Valerie’s Head return with a whimsical and ambitious portrait of human connection in the age of digital fragmentation.

Rivers by David Gaffney & Dan Berry
ISBN 978-1-60309-490-0 | Diamond: JAN210510 | $19.99 (US) | 176 pages
Full-color softcover graphic novel with flaps | 8" x 9.75" | for mature readers (16+)
Coming SPRING-SUMMER 2021 — Read 5 preview pages!
Buy it from your comic shop | IndieBound | Top Shelf | elsewhere