ColleenDoran.com

I’ve been traveling for two months, and hugely expensive internet costs keep me from blogging. Hop over to the A Distant Soil website for the webcomic and regular adventure updates.

Some quick notes:

My new graphic novel with writer Barry Lyga, Mangaman, is a hit and getting great reviews from prestigious sources. Getting a starred review in Kirkus is like achieving the Holy Grail. I’ll try to do a round up later, but in addition to all the other goodies, The New York Book Show gave Mangaman honors for best book design and production! Congratulations to our design team and all the folks at our terrific publisher Houghton Mifflin.

Margaret Raymo, Editor
Scott Magoon and Christopher Moisan, Designers
Diane Varone, Production Manager

The Winston Salem Journal tagged it as one of the books to get this holiday for teens. MTV recc’d  it in their holiday round up as well. A round up of our great reviews can be found at Barry Lyga’s website.

We’re so happy with the fan support, and delighted to get so many kind words from such prestigious sources! Thank you all!

I’ve also finished my new graphic novel Gone to Amerikay, written by Derek McCulloch, coming in March from DC Comics/Vertigo. I finished page 140 somewhere in the Tasman Sea. I started work on the book about 100 miles off the coast of Morocco about 3 years ago, and turned in the final pages via FTP upload in Wellington, New Zealand. This book nearly sailed all the seven seas!

We’re getting superlative advance buzz on it. I am very nervous and hopeful it will live up to everyone’s expectations. I have never been prouder of any project, and I am truly grateful to our editorial team and to DC Comics/Vertigo for sticking with us through this arduous creative process. No one can say we didn’t work for this one, that’s for sure.

Ciara O’Dwyer is a young woman raising a daughter alone in the Five Points slums of 1870; Johnny McCormack is a struggling actor drawn to the nascent folk music movement in Greenwich Village 1960; and Lewis Healy is a successful Irishman who’s come to present-day Manhattan on his wife’s anniversary-present promise to reveal the connection between him and them. The mystery originates with Ciara’s runaway husband, who disappeared after promising to join her in America, and carries into midcentury when Johnny, devastated by an unexpected romance and a lost shot at musical fame, gets a supernatural visitor.

 

You can listen to a podcast interview with me and writer Derek McCulloch here.

Unfortunately, some stories aren’t  happy ones. And this story, which aired on Discovery: ID channel, was pretty miserable. I had a long term problem with a stalker some years ago. The episode of Stalked: Someone’s Watching will be rebroadcast for those as missed the first go ’round. Details are here.

I hope you all have a great holiday! Remember I normally blog at the A Distant Soil website, and you can read the book at this advertiser supported site. Thanks for stopping by!

AT 7:05 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18, teens are invited to NIU’s La Tourette Hall conference room to a free discussion on “Orbiter,” physics, space and the history of America’s shuttle program with Suzanne Willis and Matthew Wiesner from NIU’s Department of Physics.

The STEMfest SF Teen Read is presented by NIU STEM Outreach in conjunction with Founders Memorial Library and librarians who specialize in teen fiction at the DeKalb Public Library, Sycamore Public Library, Cortland Community Library and other libraries throughout DeKalb County.

The SF Teen read culminates Saturday, Oct. 22, at STEMfest at the NIU Convocation Center with activities for science fiction lovers of all ages.

Live Skype appearance by Colleen Doran, co-creator of “Orbiter” at 2 p.m.on the STEMfest Stage. Doran will discuss “Orbiter,” her art, her love of science-fiction, her interest in the space program and her experiences working in the comic book industry. After her presentation, Doran will answer questions from the audience.

The Holy Grail of book review sources is Kirkus Reviews. Kirkus is the book review top, Tower of Pisa, Louvre Museum. Authors fear and desire Kirkus attention. You are far more likely to get a bad review than a good one. And how.

Kirkus Reviews just gave Mangaman, my new graphic novel written by Barry Lyga a starred review, it’s highest recommendation.

A daring piece of graphic-novel meta-fiction explores the tropes of manga versus Western comics.

Marissa is a stereotypical popular high-school girl: pretty, well-liked and girlfriend of Chaz, the hottest guy in school. But when she first lays eyes on Ryoko, a manga character who travels through “the Rip” into her world, she abandons the formulaic constraints that defined her. Ryoko helps Marissa see that her world, though very different than his, is still boxed in by panels, and that, like him, she is a character in another universe. Even as he plays with
literary inventiveness, Lyga keeps the story accessible with the doomed and forbidden love between Marissa and Ryoko.
Those familiar with both Western and Japanese comics will delight at the little nods to the respective conceits in those formats. For example, when Ryoko slams a volleyball in gym class, a fellow classmate exclaims, “Watch your speed lines!” In complement to Lyga’s clever meta tone is Doran’s highly stylized black-and-white art, seamlessly melding both the Western and Japanese comics aesthetics. While the innovation runs high in this tale, the story itself and the nuances of the character’s relationships is less agile, though the energetic creativity behind it easily keeps the lesser aspects afloat.

An inventive offering, sure to please fans of both American and Japanese comics. (Graphic fiction. 13 & up)

MANGAMAN [STARRED REVIEW!]
Author: Lyga, Barry
Illustrator: Doran, Colleen

Review Issue Date: October 1, 2011
Online Publish Date: September 14, 2011
Publisher:Houghton Mifflin
Pages: 144
Price ( Hardcover ): $18.99
Publication Date: November 14, 2011
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-547-42315-9
Category: Fiction

Well, this pretty much wraps it up for me as far as this book goes. Because that review is the IT THANG.

I await sales figures and fan reaction. Both Barry and I are absolutely delighted Kirkus liked our book. We had so much fun creating it for you, and like any project, we fret what the public will think. But we also fret what well-placed critics will think. Getting a good review from Kirkus is all I require in that department.

Ask for Mangaman at your local comic shop or bookstore. Of course, if you don’t have a bookstore near you, all major online book sales sources will carry it.

Mangaman will be out in a less than 60 days, and I am so very happy to have such great advance word on the project. More than anything, though, I look forward to entertaining our many readers!

Gone to Amerikay is a story about Irish immigration. The cover was shown for the first time at San Diego Comic Con. And here it is.

Cover with copy from The Vertigo Blog, with many gorgeous previews of other upcoming titles. Annotated Sandman? Woot!

Beautiful colors by the incomparable Jose Villarubia.

Here’s a nice interior page.

Here’s what Derek posted on his FB page about the announcement at San Diego Comic Con:

I gave my summary of the book which, as I recall, was something like “It’s a story about people emigrating to America from Ireland over the course of 140 years. It’s a great big historical epic with a crime story and a ghost story and a couple of love stories and all kinds of things in it.” Then I said I hoped the marketing guy down at the end of the table would summarize phrase that more pithily sometime soon.

Derek tells me the panel was recorded. I’ll try to get a post up with the audio ASAP.

The Young Adult Library Association has published its list of Best Graphic Novels for Teens for the years 2011, and the soon-to-be-released Mangaman makes the cut!

“Fantastic—in every sense of the word! Lyga and Doran have created an eye-popping fun-ride through the comics traditions of East and West. Fans of both comics and manga will love Mangaman. Colleen Doran’s encyclopedic, rapid-fire grasp of manga conventions blows my mind!”　—Jeff Smith, author of Bone　

“This is a wonderful, funny, touching story about the ultimate outsider seeking adventure and　love within the borders that surround us all.　 There’s some seriously innovative storytelling going on here, and the artwork is sensational.　 If you’re looking for a fun read, a romp, a rollicking good time…then seriously: buy this book.” —J. Michael Straczynski, New York Times Bestselling author of Superman: Earth One

Ryoko, a manga character from a manga world, falls through the Rip into the “real” world—the western world—and tries to survive as the ultimate outsider at a typical American high school.
When Ryoko falls in love with Marissa Montaigne, the most beautiful girl in the school, his eyes turn to hearts and comic tension tightens as his way of being drawn and expressing himself clashes with this different Western world in which he is stuck in. “Panel-holed” for being different, Ryoko has to figure out how to get back to his manga world, back through the Rip . . . all while he has hearts for eyes for a girl from the wrong kind of comic book.
Barry Lyga writes a metafictive masterpiece as manga meets traditional Western comic book style, while Colleen Doran combines manga techniques and conventions with Western comic book

The panel was given a preview copy of our new graphic novel, and we are so happy they’ve chosen our book for consideration. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Ask for Mangaman at your local comic shop, or preorder it via your bookstore or online.