Laura Lee Gulledge, author of the graphic novels Page by Paige and Will & Whit doesn’t limit her artistic aspirations to creating graphic novels.
She is currently involved in an interactive musical production that she calls “Do It Yourself and Choose Your Own Adventure.” Her dream is that she could do a project with Felicia Day.
Jim Ottaviani is the author of numerous non-fiction books including the graphic novels including Fenyman and Primates. His preference is to write about fearless characters, people who are always pushing forward. When asked how he would respond to parental complaints that graphic novels aren’t as valuable to read as traditional books he responded,
“Why should they be considered sub par? They’re different.”
Raina Telgemier is the author of the wildly popular, semi-autobiographical graphic novel Smile. Her latest, Drama, is the story of a female theater technician who falls in love with a boy that she is friends with. It has unfortunately be met with unwarranted censorship because several of the characters are gay.
Her next title, Sisters is very autobiographical and in it Raina tries to understand her sister as a person and as a character.
Gilbert Hernandez is probably most known for his long running adult comic series Love and Rockets. He has been in the industry for over 30 years and has learned that he doesn’t enjoy collaboration, even from editors. He gave some advice about writing,
“Be as honest as you can through your characters. Once you do your story, your ideas are yours.”
His most recent title, Marble Season is made for children and he made it without editors. He was pleased by the results, this has been his most successful publication to date.
Hernandez’s next project is entitled Julio’s Day and covers 100 years of a repressed gay man’s life in 100 pages. The man watches his openly gay great grand-nephew with awe and jealousy.
It was a particular thrill for me to listen to and meet author/illustrator Hope Larson. Her graphic novel version of Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time is one of my favorite graphic novels ever.
Hope is a multi-tasker and currently has 6 projects in production, unfortunately she can’t yet discuss any of them. Her new book, Who is AC was released this month and is about a girl who gains superpowers from her phone.
Orpheus Collar is the illustrator for several books by Rick Riordan including The Lightening Thief and The Red Pyramid.
He talked about how paralyzing repetitive and time consuming drawing the same images can be. He has reached out and accepted assistance from colorists to help expedite his work.
HipMamaJenn 