Comix Experience Graphic-Novel-of-the-month club update!
/(Oddly, this was supposed to post 2 weeks ago, gr)
We’re almost ready to launch the Graphic-Novel-of-the-Month club, so here’s your latest news!
STATUS UPDATES
We’re super-excited to tell you that the adult club has 206 members signed up – which means we only need 128 more members in order to hit our funding goal of 334 members.
Minimum Wage raised in San Francisco to $12.25 on May 1st, but thanks to our membership, as of July 1st we’re now not paying any staff member less than $13.50 per hour! So thank you very much for that! After we achieve our goal, every 25 members over and above that we gain will yield a 25 cents per hour raise for every staff member as well. There is no limit on this, and my most fervent hope is we can drive the club membership high enough to have the awesome Comix Experience staff be the highest paid comic store employees in the world!
The Kid’s Club is having a slightly slower start, and we’re just at 26 members today – but I really do think this has the potential for thousands of members, and we’re going to spend most of the summer figuring out the ways to get the word out there for the fall and the gift-giving season. If you have any thoughts or connections, please don’t hesitate to let us know!
Help us spread the news on your social media!
FIRST BILLING STARTS ON JULY 1st!
We’re just about to bill, and start shipping the first books, so there's still time to join us and be in from the start! just go to www.graphicnovelclub.com to join!
OUR INAUGURAL CHOICES
Our inaugural pick to kick off our Graphic-Novel-of-the-Month Club is exactly the kind of book that we hoped it would be: smart and poignant, touching and emotional, showing the full range of what comics can do, by a real master of his craft, and, above all else, an eminently human read: “Room For Love” by ILYA.
A middle-age and washed up writer and an on-the-streets rent boy meet and have a remarkable and complex relationship. “Room For Love” eschews most standard romantic tropes for a sometimes painful, and always authentic, fully rounded study of its two characters. Like all of the best fiction, the characters are deeply changed by their encounters, and ILYA doesn’t shy away from exposing the truths at the heart of the characters and their assignations.
This is a story of opposites, and how they attract, as well as repel. This is a work of great intimacy, and is a markedly original work. We truly think this is one of the best graphic novels we’ve read this decade, and we could not possibly be happier that this is our debut pick.
All members of the club will receive a copy of “Room For Love”, but if you’re not an Adult club member, and would like to purchase a copy, or if you would like additional copies, please order below!
http://mkt.com/comix-experience/room-for-love-by-ilya
We are also EXTREMELY thrilled to announce that ILYA is going to be here in person for our first book club meeting, all the way from England – how cool is that? This is tentatively planned for Wed 7/29, but we will be confirming all of our dates in early July.
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Our inaugural pick for the KIDS club is a rollicking adventure: “Junior Braves of the Apocalypse” by Greg Smith and Michael Tanner, and Zach Lehner
The Junior Braves of Tribe 65 return from a camping trip to find swarms of bloodthirsty mutants have overrun their town, bringing death and destruction everywhere they go! With their families missing and their homes destroyed, these plucky kids must use all their scouting talents, combined smarts, and teamwork to survive the end of the world! Junior Braves: A Brave is Brave is the beginning of an exciting, new, young adult graphic novel series that is one part Goonies and one part The Walking Dead, full of zombies, adventure, and handy tips for wilderness survival!
All members of the KIDS club will receive a copy of “Junior Braves of the Apocalypse”, but if you’re not a Kids Club member, and would like to purchase a copy, or if you would like additional copies, please order below!
The first KIDS CLUB meeting, with all three creators participating via video call is tentatively planned for Sunday 7/19 -- more details will be released soon!
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In picking the best graphic novel of each month, we usually also find several other books that we rate nearly as highly. While we can only have one choice each month to send out, we thought it might be useful to you to hear what our alternates were. These are our runner-ups for July 2015!
“Mike’s Place: A True Story of Love, Blues, and Terror in Tel Aviv” by Jack Baxter, Joshua Faudem and Koren Shadmi
Writing about Middle Eastern conflicts is tricky, because the roots of those conflicts are deep and divisive, and those of us who aren’t a part of it probably know very little of what we’re talking about. So I, for one, always welcome a new insight from involved parties. Co-author Jack Baxter is an American filmmaker who was making a documentary about Mike’s Place, a bar in Israel, when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb out in front, killing three and injuring fifty, including Baxter. This is a comic of the inspiration for the making of the documentary and then the event and the aftermath that was filled with both triumphs and tragedies. Baxter co-wrote the story with Joshua Faudem, who was the cameraman for the documentary.
There’s something extremely compelling about first hand recollections in comics, and this would be a solid entry for your autobiography shelf.
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“The Divine” by Boaz Lavie, Asaf Hanuka, and Tomer Hanuka
A civilian bomb consultant reluctantly accepts an off-the-books mining contract into an obscure Southeast Asian country, and becomes embroiled in civil war led by twin 10-year old guerillas wielding what about to be supernatural powers. Oh, and then there’s the Dragon…
This is a lovely lovely comic, filled with all the shimmering colors of a verdant paradise torn by war. My favorite sequence is set in a cave where the predominant color used is an inky purple, and yet the action and movement can clearly be followed. “The Divine” is the most action-driven comic in our July runner ups, and also, by far, the best drawn.
http://mkt.com/comix-experience/the-divine-by-boaz-lavie-asaf-hanuka-and-tomer-hanuka
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“Long Walk To Valhalla” by Adam Smith and Matthew Fox
Rory would love to forget about most of his life in rural Arkansas, maybe even including his brother Joe who has fits and sees visions in the fields and woods. When Rory’s car breaks down, he is befriended by a young girl named Sylvia, who emerges from the corn fields. Sylvia is a Valkyrie, sent by Odin to escort Rory to Valhalla. On their journey, Rory needs to confront the secrets of his life and family and come to learn the truth about Joe’s visions.
Sometimes you get a debut graphic novel that makes you think “Wow, I really have to keep an eye on those people!” The rhythms of comics are hard to master for people who have been doing it forever, so to see a first-time project done with such skill and assurance and verve, it thrills you to wonder where they’re be when they finally master their craft? Smith and Fox are two to watch for as this book missed being our Selection for the month by only a single point in the voting (out of forty possible)
http://mkt.com/comix-experience/long-walk-to-valhalla-by-adam-smith-and-matthew-fox-july
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We really think that ROOM FOR LOVE is a superb book, and there's still time to join www.graphicnovelclub.com and be a part of our meetings, including ILYA live and in person in late July!
We hope you'll join us!
-B
