MANFRIED THE MAN: An original book-length story depicting an alternate earth where humanoid cats keep tiny humans as pets. Written by Caitlin Major, art by Ignatz nominee Kelly Bastow. Caitlin and Kelly had come up with a strong, unique (and weirdly funny) concept and they’d produced a small pamphlet of single page strips, but wanted to create a book-long story. We spent a lot of time discussing the plot and characters, and outlining the story, to make sure the book kept the spirit of the original concept while providing a more substantial experience of the topsy-turvy world they’d invented. 

Named a "Best Comic of 2018" by A.V. Club and one of Paste’s "25 Best Comic Books of 2018.” 

MANFRED SAVES THE DAY: Sequel with the return of Manfried and his owner Steve Catson. The challenge was to make sure we weren’t covering too much of the same ground as the first book. In this one we meet new characters—Steve adopts a second pet, an orange-haired man named Garfield!—and learn more about some secondary characters from book one.

GIRAFFES ON HORSEBACK SALAD: A visionary recreation of a legendary film project that was planned by Salvador Dali and the Marx Brothers, but never produced. The author had discovered long-lost archival material created by Dali, and decided that short of actually filming the movie, creating it as a graphic novel was the best way to bring it to life. In effect, reading this book is like watching the movie that was never made (with much better special effects). But author Josh Frank had never written a graphic novel before. And his artist (who turned out to be the perfect choice) lived in Spain and did not speak English. Plus, the book’s design had to support pages of photographs, archival sketches, notes from the Marx estate, and more. Lots of script edits, detailed thumbnails, google translate, and careful book mapping enabled the project to succeed. Written by Josh Frank with Tim Hiedecker; art by Manuella Pertega. EISNER AWARD NOMINEE FOR 2020!

WE ARE HERE FOREVER: Humanity has vanished from the earth, replaced by adorable purple creatures trying to create their own society …but where did they come from, and what happened to the humans? Our challenge was to create a book that would complement writer/illustrator Michelle Gish’s year-long web comic, providing stories new to her existing fans but remaining accessible to new readers. Because the author had so many ideas, we talked a lot about what not to include; we wanted to hand the readers some significant revelations without totally destroying the aura of mystery that pervades this series. Author interviewed on ComicsBeat.com. 

BITES OF TERROR: An anthology of disturbingly cute horror stories, told with photographs of exquisitely sculpted characters and brilliantly crafted sets, by Liz and Jimmy Reed, aka Cuddles and Rage. The authors had produced a few multi-page stories and two pictures books, but this was their biggest project in this style. Because revisions to a photographed diorama would be difficult, we planned very carefully with thumbnails and character designs. 

SEE ALSO: COMIC BOOK HISTORY series