'XKCD: Volume 0' is sticking it to traditional publishers

What's the most stupidly ambitious aspect of "XKCD: Volume 0," the book based on the wildly popular yet still very underground webcomic:

• Is it the assumption that cartoonist Randall Munroe's uber tech-savvy audience would pay for a hard-copy version of the comic strips it gets for free in a comprehensive online archive?
• Is it that Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Conde Nast's Reddit, turned his "un-corporation" Breadpig into a publishing company for his friend Munroe's book, while Munroe, 25, declined several offers from established publishers, despite their persistence? "I kind of make it hard to e-mail me," Munroe said on the phone from Somerville, Mass.
• Or how about the pledge to build a $32,000 school in Laos from a portion of book sales without the luxury of advertising or having copies on major bookstore shelves?

You're right if you guessed all -- or none -- of the above.

"XKCD: Volume 0" is a gamble that's paying off for Munroe, a former NASA contractor who left to pursue stick-figure cartooning full-time.

The first run of 10,000 books is almost sold out. Ohanian's half-baked publishing project has attracted dozens of uninvited proposals from authors. And the school in Laos, whose $32,000 goal was reached shortly after the first two book signings in San Francisco and New York, is almost constructed.

Mystery writer Janet Evanovich joins the graphic novel fray

"My daughter and I have always loved comics," said soon-to-be graphic novelist Janet Evanovich. "I actually still get a subscription to Uncle Scrooge. That’s because I’m so old."

Evanovich has made an agreement with publishing company Dark Horse to write a new set of illustrated titles from her Alex Barnaby series. "We’re thinking two books right now, and then we’ll figure it out from there," she said.

As Times staffer Geoff Boucher has pointed out, comic book publishers are rediscovering noir in a new spree of crime-centered graphic novels. IDW Publishing was able to get the late Donald E. Westlake’s blessing for its just-released adaptation of his first Parker novel, 1962’s "The Hunter." DC Comics, meanwhile, has committed an entire imprint, Vertigo Crime, which launched earlier this month; Scottish superstar Ian Rankin's "Dark Entries" is the lead title.

Evanovich is best known for her sassy Stephanie Plum mysteries, about a bond agent in New Jersey, but it was her comic NASCAR thrillers (the Barnaby books) that got her thinking about getting into a new medium.

"When I wrote ‘Metro Girl,’ that was really when we looked at it, and we thought this would be a fabulous comic," she said of that series’ first installment, released in 2004. "It was so visual, we could see the flashy cars and the sexy scruffy guy and the entire dynamic we felt would really lend itself to the comic book."

Evanovich and her daughter have already plotted out much of the story, she said, but beyond its Miami setting and its major characters -- the wise-cracking heroine, her race car driver boss Sam Hooker, his dog and "these three Cuban ladies" -- they aren’t giving up many details.

Meanwhile, Dark Horse, also home to the "Buffy" comics as well as "Star Wars" titles, is working with Evanovich to develop the right visual style. The author says she hopes for something between the Betty-and-Veronica she grew up on and the Japanese manga of which her own daughter, Alex, is such a fan.

"This is an action comic," she said. "We want the action not just to be shown through what they do and what they say and by ‘ka-pow!’ We actually think it’s very important that these figures portray movement an action and fluidity."

An erstwhile painter herself, Evanovich believes conjuring up the right images won’t be difficult. What’ll be trickier is rendering her trademark voice.

"I don’t think we’re going to know [about that] until we get that sucker out there," she said. "We just have to work at it, and we have to make sure the voice is there, because that’s an important part of it."

Readers can judge for themselves one year from now. The book is scheduled for a July 2010 release date, timed to take advantage of next year’s Comic-Con, the annual explosion of comic books, pop culture and their costume-clad fans, which wrapped up this summer in San Diego. Evanovich has already made plans to be on hand with her graphic novel at the next one.

"I have a whole year to decide what I’m going to dress up as," she said.

-- Mindy Farabee

Photo: Janet Evanovich  Credit: Deborah Feingold

When musicians get the comics itch (and vice-versa)

Alan Moore, the writer whose comics work includes "Watchmen" and "From Hell," is collaborating with avant hip-hop artist Doseone (Subtle, Themselves) and Andrew Broder (Fog) on music to accompany his upcoming graphic novel "Unearthing." This is far from Moore’s first foray into music: He has collaborated with Tim Perkins and David J from Bauhaus.

Looking back to R. Crumb's album cover for Big Brother and the Holding Company, it's clear that comic art and music have a long, interweaving relationship. Now musicians/artists/writers pull double-duty, making music and graphic novels in tandem. The artists below work in both disciplines.

Percy Carey’s "Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm" (DC Comics, 2008), a collaboration with artist Ronald Wimberly, is a memoir of Carey’s decades-long involvement with hip-hop, acting and the illegal activities that landed him in prison. It has the feel of an illustrated monologue, and is presented as a cautionary tale: Carey emphasizes his own wrong turns, specifically his inability to choose music over the allure of maintaining a small drug empire. And while Carey’s storytelling is at times intentionally oblique, admitting that certain topics are off-limits to this particular narrative, it’s also an example of why the archetypal redemption story retains plenty of power.

Gerard (My Chemical Romance) Way's series "The Umbrella Academy" (begun in 2007) boasts the surrealism of Grant Morrison’s "Doom Patrol," (he notes this is an essential read) and the emotional heft of Chris Claremont’s "X-Men."  It’s not surprising that the vocalist for My Chemical Romance has a sense for the grandiose and a morbid sense of humor. Interior artist Gabriel Bá ably handles the absurdity, angst, and heroics on display in Way’s scripts, while James Jean, the cover artist, also provided illustrations for My Chemical Romance’s "The Black Parade." Publisher Dark Horse recently announced that Way and co-writer Shaun Simon would be teaming with artist Becky Cloonan for a new series, "Killjoys," debuting in 2010.

Tod Goldberg on zombies and star encounters at Comic-Con

Author Tod Goldberg, who has written two novelizations for the series "Burn Notice," reports on Comic-Con for Jacket Copy:

It’s been about 20 years since I last attended a “con” of any kind not directly related to books. That last con was for the late, great Starlog Magazine. It was held at the Anaheim Convention Center and was filled with entire families wearing "V" costumes, Spock ears and Buckaroo Banzai headbands. The other notable aspect was that I caught chicken pox at the con and thus am, literally, scarred from the experience. Subsequently, I’ve gone to book cons like BookExpo and Bouchercon and Left Coast Crime, and the combined effect is that generally I go home with a lot of free books, a murder of bookmarks and a true sense of how desperate self-published authors are — but nothing of real sociological value.

Attending my first Comic-Con, however, has proven to be a most fascinating affair. You see, there’s a lot you can learn about the world by watching everything from the 13-year-old boys taking provocative photos with scantily clad vixens covered in open wounds, dried blood and dramatic gore (or, alternately, blood and spandex clothing so tight you can actually see the spleen at work) to the clear distinction between the expensive (and explosively loud) Hollywood displays of star power promoting films and television shows and the rather staid and relaxed portion of the floor devoted to actual, you know, comics.

Though maybe the most prevalent initial issue with Comic-Con is how long it actually takes one to get into the San Diego Convention Center. I arrived at 8:00 a.m. and spent the next hour in a mass of people that reminded me more of the Jewish diaspora than just your average queue, provided the diaspora featured thousands of Harry Potters and Slut Aliens (this is not a real character, just a personal fashion choice) and men unironically wearing porkpie hats. The line stretched around the block, through the marina, across the Hoth planet, over Tatooine and then dead-ended next to a spot that smelled a lot like urine. Lovely.

Everyone stayed in a nice mood up until the convention center was actually in sight and then the people in front of us began complaining about all the “new people ruining it." They had badges from the last three years around their necks, which to me is a little like wearing the old tour shirt of the band you’re seeing in concert, and couldn’t have been more than 19, or at least old enough to buy clove cigarettes apparently without issue. There was some shouting, some decrying, some cursing (actual cursing -- one of the Potters had her wand out and was shaking it at the red-shirted security staff) but eventually everyone got in and all problems were solved.

The convention hall was filled end-to-end with fans, and also with huge displays for properties large and small. Everyone seemed to head directly for the enormous "District 9" display or the crushingly loud booth for "Twilight," both of which featured some of the most beautiful men and women ever extolling the properties while handing out free stuff. "Stuff" is actually pretty descriptive here since it’s not anything you’d actually keep, but which seems oddly important while you’re on the convention floor. A pink Styrofoam hammer for a movie called "Red Velvet." A shot-sized bottle of an energy drink called Gamer in honor of the upcoming movie of the same name. 800 posters for movies you will never see (I don’t see my wife and I heading off to see the horror movie "Sorority Row," but I have five posters for sale on EBay now). And if you were willing to wait in line for an hour, free and exceptionally cheap T-shirts were in the offering at several booths too. Plenty of people, it turns out, had time on their hands as lines for free tees stretched for yards and yards. Likewise, if you wanted to get one of the coveted spots for top-shelf panels, like the 1:45 panel "The Twilight Saga: 'New Moon," you had to get in line as soon as the doors opened in the morning, though something tells me the 5:30 p.m. panel "Graphic Novels in Libraries" was available for open seating.

Donald Westlake may be dead, but he keeps on publishing

News circulated widely among fans this weekend that Donald Westlake, who died Dec. 31, 2008, will publish a new book in 2010. "Memory," which follows a man whose memory has been destroyed as he tries to rebuild his life, was written in the early 1960s but didn't find a publisher then; Hard Case Crime thinks it will catch on now. Publisher Charles Ardai said in an e-mail:

It's a dark existential novel, and a long one, and I think these were the reasons his then literary agent at the time advised him to shelve it and concentrate instead on the more commercial sorts of crime fiction he was becoming known for. But it's a shame, because the book's really excellent -- a perfect example of noir fiction pushed to its limits -- and it deserved to have been published during his lifetime.

Thing is, Westlake's reputation has done nothing but build since his death. Today our Calendar section features a big piece -- even longer online, with illustrations -- on "The Hunter," the first of Westlake's novels to get graphic novel treatment (by artist Darwyn Cooke). Geoff Boucher writes:

The Cooke adaptation is already being hailed as a masterpiece by key tastemakers in the comics world, and next week it will meet the public in a major way as Cooke and [editor Scott] Dunbier take it to Comic-Con International in San Diego, the massive pop-culture expo that is a sort of Cannes for capes or a Sundance for sci-fi. Cooke will be on two panels, one of them a Thursday program titled “A Darker Shade of Ink: Crime and Noir in Comics.” That might conjure up memories of the infamously lurid EC Comics of the 1950s, but hard-boiled crime is heating up in the word-balloon medium.

Superheroes still dominate comics, but “The Hunter” is part of a surge in noir-minded projects that owe far more to the bloodied pulp of Westlake, James M. Cain and Jim Thompson than they do the cosmic melodramas of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.

And in our Sunday books pages, Robert Crais reviewed the last novel Westlake completed before he died, "Get Real," in which his thieving protagonist agrees to let his gang be filmed -- in burglarizing action -- for a reality TV show.

Before Janet Evanovich brought us Stephanie Plum, Don Westlake was the Grand Master of Criminal Laughs with his hilarious novels about professional thief John Dortmunder. "Get Real" is the 14th Dortmunder novel and proves again that Westlake is the King of Clever....

Donald Westlake will not leave you hanging, my friends. Part of the great fun of these novels is watching Dortmunder (and Westlake) outsmart the people who think they're smarter than he is -- including readers like me. So, trust me, Dortmunder comes up with exactly the play to make this outrageous concept believable.

Westlake -- under various pseudonyms -- published about 80 books while he was alive. I wouldn't be surprised if these projects are not the last we hear of him.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Donald Westlake in 2001. Credit: Louis Lanzano / For The Times

What are Elliott Gould and Jules Feiffer reading?

Last night, actor Elliott Gould joined cartoonist Jules Feiffer at a Los Angeles screening of "Little Murders," the 1971 film produced by and starring the former and written by the latter. If this were a film blog, I'd tell you all about the movie, which was funny, dark, anti-violence and strikingly uncomfortable in parts. I'd tell you about how Gould had, at one point, wanted Jean-Luc Godard to direct it, and his conversations with the French master (Alan Arkin directed, instead). I'd have asked Feiffer a question about another movie he wrote, "Carnal Knowledge." But it isn't a film blog; it's a book blog.

After the screening -- at the modest Cinefamily, which has recently been doing phenomenal programming -- Feiffer signed his books on a back patio. Fantagraphics has reissued several, including the comic collections "The Explainers" and "Passionella" and the novel "Harry, the Rat With Women." During the Q&A, Feiffer -- a successful cartoonist, screenwriter and playwright had claimed not to have been able to master the novel form "because I couldn't describe anything," he said. "That's why my cartoons have no backgrounds."

Novels aside, Feiffer, who has won an Obies for his playwrighting, an Oscar for an animated short, a Pulitzer Prize for his cartooning and accolades for his childrens books, has certainly mastered many other forms. He seems decades younger than his 80 years and probably would have answered questions longer if they'd let him.

So what is Feiffer reading? "Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920," by Jackson Lears.

As for Gould, he's just finished "City of Thieves" by David Benioff. "I loved it. I think the guy's great," he said. Gould likes to keep up with the books his daughter reads -- she studied literature at the University of Vermont. He particularly liked "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," because, he said, he recognized in one of its characters "my inability -- unwillingness -- to compromise."

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Elliott Gould and Jules Feiffer. Credit: paperhaus via Flickr

Celebrating humanity, the surprise Impac Dublin winner and more literary news

Our blog Hero Complex talks to Dean Hanspiel about Next Door Neighbor, the Web comics series he's editing for Smith Magazine. "We are celebrating humanity, from the kid next door to the raging alcoholic upstairs with the night terrors," he says. Tara Seibel's "The Vestibule" is the 29th in the series.

American Michael Thomas has won the Impac Dublin Prize for his first novel "Man Gone Down," beating out serious competition from the likes of Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates. The 100,000 euro (about $141,000)  prize is one of the largest literary awards in the world. The Guardian reports that Thomas, in Dublin for the announcement, admitted to being stunned. "I had a hard time believing I'd made the shortlist -- or the longlist, for that matter -- so I'm still waiting for the punch line." The book was rejected by more than one publisher before finding a home at Grove Atlantic-- and in the hearts of the Impac Dublin prize committee.

Matt Bucher, an editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and publisher of the critical anthology "Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest,' " admits to the Infinite Summer blog that he first picked up Wallace's iconic work because it had been marked down to $8.99: "They were stacked in a large square, three or four feet high, each book a brick in tower, near the cash registers. How could I resist?"

And in case you missed it, the New Yorker Book Bench blog talked to Aleksander Hemon last week. When asked how autobiographical the stories are in his new collection, "Love and Obstacles," he's got an awfully good explanation.

Here’s how it works: Last night, on my way to give a reading, I hurt a ligament in my right hand while putting my shoe on. As I was driving this morning and talking on the phone with my sister in London, I lost my grip and sideswept my neighbor’s car. Being honest, I went to their house to tell them what I had done. When I rang the bell nobody answered. I knocked and went in anyway, thinking they might be in the backyard. The house was empty, and as I walked through I noticed a vase in the shape of a monkey head. The light angle made it somehow seem that the monkey was winking at me, so I picked the head up to examine it, but then, dropped it, what with the weak hand ligament, and it shattered in a thousand pieces. For a moment, I considered cleaning up or waiting for my neighbors to show up, but then decided to sneak out. Now I dread hearing the door bell.

I could go on and turn this into a story. I did hurt my hand last night and I did get into the car this morning, but I did not cause any damage, nor did I trespass. I did not talk to my sister yesterday, but she does live in London. And I’ve never seen a monkey head like that. So, how much of this putative story is autobiographical?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Illustration credit: Tara Seibel's "The Vestibule" / Next Door Neighbor

Superman creator's long-kept secret

Joe Shuster drew Superman in the 1930s, which should have made him invincible. But after he and writer Jerry Siegel got into a legal tie-up with DC Comics over rights to the character in the 1940s (DC won), he moved on to other things.

One of those things, which he kept quiet, was a magazine called Nights of Horror. The salacious fictional crime booklet launched in 1954 and ran for 16 issues -- with illustrations by Joe Shuster. These are now collected in the book "Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster" by Craig Yoe.

Nights of Horror was a plain-wrap kind of a periodical, one destined to run afoul of 1950s censors. Yoe details a Brooklyn crime spree by teens that was allegedly inspired by the magazine and that helped lead to its demise.

But enough copies have survived to put together this marvelous, adults-only coffee-table book. There are buxom ladies -- with whips and in leg irons, holding daggers and cigarettes. Men with chiseled jaws fondle them, embrace them, peep on them, kiss their feet. As Yoe points out, some of these men look a bit like Clark Kent (or Superman, take your pick). Others evoke Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor and Lois Lane.

At a party for the book in New York on Sunday, some of the scenes that Shuster drew were staged (above). But although real people standing in for the tableaux might be cool, it isn't the same thing as his drawings (you can see the book's cover, if you look closely, in the photo).

That's because Shuster drew beautiful women who were impossibly stacked and handsome men with impossibly broad shoulders. Once he drew them as heroes; later, he drew them stripped, vulnerable and twisted off into another world.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: istolethetv via Flickr

Where did '08 come from? The story behind the graphic novel

After a historic, precedent-setting election, there's usually a rush to press to see who can get out the first book or documentary about the event. For the Obama election, the first books out with a major publisher are: a serious analysis by NBC correspondent Chuck Todd (Jan. 5) and a graphic novel by journalist Michael Crowley and artist Dan Goldman (Jan. 25).

That’s right — the No. 2 slot for book-length journalism about the presidential campaign has been taken by a comic book.

So how did Crowley (a senior editor from the New Republic) pair up with Goldman (who drew the indie Web comic-turned-book "Shooting War") to create "’08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail" (Three Rivers: $17.95 paper)?  Well, in July of 2007, Sean Desmond, an editor at Crown Books, was sitting in the Lucky Strike, a cozy little Parisian-style bistro in SoHo, musing over his scotch to literary agent Bob Mecoy that he wanted to create a print version of Pennebaker’s documentary "The War Room" for the 2008 election. Desmond was grumbling that the public wouldn’t go for the sort of in-depth book he wanted to do.

Mecoy, who’s known to be down with graphic novels (he represents a number of graphic novelists), said the best way to capture the feel of the election would be a journalistic comic book.

“We never could have dreamed that we'd picked the election of the century,” says Mecoy. “If we'd known then ... we probably would have ordered steaks instead of beer [Mecoy’s drink] and French fries.”

So Desmond put Dan Goldman, who’s webcomic "Shooting War" had recently been made into a successful book, together with Crowley, who was following candidates during the primaries. The co-collaborators met for the first time in Desmond’s office, then while on the campaign trail, Crowley fired off comic book scripts about what he saw to Goldman. "Writing in medias res was kind of a high-wire act," says Crowley.

[More after the jump]

Just don't call it a graphic novel and more book news

At an appearance in England, Art Spiegelman publicly chafed against the term "graphic novel," saying, "I'm called the father of the modern graphic novel. If that’s true, I want a blood test," the Economist reports. " 'Graphic novel' sounds more respectable, but I prefer 'comics' because it credits the medium. ['Comics'] is a dumb word, but that’s what they are."

In news from another groundbreaking contrarian, Iggy Pop is releasing a CD inspired by "The Possibility of an Island" by Michel Houellebecq. "It's a quieter album with some jazz overtones," Pop says in a video on his site, "because at one point I just got sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music." He calls Houellebecq's book "a great novel, a funny novel ... about sex, death, the end of the human race and some other pretty funny stuff."

Jamie Byng -- the young, dashing, visionary and foul-mouthed head of Canongate -- may be the closest thing the publishing world has to a rock star. And now, with the help of his staff, he's hoping the bookish in Edinburgh will get up and get down at a quarterly nightclub called Irregular, "a smorgasbord of unexpected sounds that will include bands, readings, stand-up, video installations and DJs." Sounds good -- is it ready for export?

Just what you were waiting for: another prize. The Orange Prize for Fiction -- which is only for women authors, and is judged by women -- has announced its shortlist. The prize is based in England but includes writers from all over; this year, Americans among the contenders include Toni Morrison for "A Mercy," Curtis Sittenfeld for "An American Wife" and Marilynne Robinson for "Home." Last year's winner was "The Road Home" by Rose Tremain.

And from home to away: The upcoming film "Away We Go" was scripted by (married) authors Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The movie, about thirtysomething parents-to-be trying to find a place to call home, is directed by Sam Mendes and stars Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski (chalking up his second literary film of 2009). How's it look? Check out the new trailer, after the jump.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Image: Art Spiegelman's "Maus" / Random House