Françoise Mouly’s September Publishing Trifecta: a New Biography, the U.S. Debut of Internationally Acclaimed Cartoonist Liniers, and a Comics Curriculum for Schools!
“Françoise Mouly, an editor and publisher of uncommon taste and creativity, and an artist in her own right, has spent nearly four decades transforming comics, pushing the art form to become more ambitious,” proclaims the back cover of a new release from Coach House Books. As the art editor of The New Yorker since 1993, Mouly has remade the face of that venerable magazine with covers that capture the political and social upheavals of the last two decades, from the black-on-black cover after 9/11 to the infamous pre-election Barack Obama fist-bump cartoon and the post-DOMA Bert and Ernie cover. And now, with TOON Books, Mouly is at the forefront of a new wave, where making comics for children is at the avant-garde of comics making.
On September 10th, Coach House Books will release In Love with Art: Françoise Mouly's Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman by Jeet Heer. (Coach House: In Love With Art. ISBN: 978-1552452783) “Mouly’s invisibility springs from her gender, her profession and her milieu,” says Heer in his preface. “As a culture, we still undervalue women, even (or perhaps especially) those as accomplished as Mouly. Editing, her chosen career, involves doing backstage work; it’s an invisible profession, often made up of invisible women. And the comics field, which Mouly played a crucial role in remaking, has long been even more hostile to women than the culture at large.” A cultural journalist and academic who has written for many publications including the Globe and Mail, Slate.com, the Comics Journal, theVirginia Quarterly Review and the Guardian of London, Jeet Heer sets out to redress what he sees as grievous under appreciation of a major cultural figure. “Mouly’s achievements, remarkable in themselves, are even more impressive given the hurdlesshe’s faced.” Based on exclusive interviews with Mouly, Spiegelman and a pantheon of comics artists – including Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Barry Blitt, Anita Kunz and Bill Griffith – In Love With Art is both an intimate portrait of Mouly and a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the making of some of today’s most ground-breaking books and iconic images. Through the prism of an uncommonly successful relationship, the book tells the story of one of the most remarkable artistic transformations of our time. |
Also on September 10th, Mouly’s TOON Books, the innovative publisher that pioneered the field of “Comics Early Readers” with its award-wining “lovingly produced” hardcovers, will release The Big Wet Balloon by Liniers, a world-famous Argentine cartoonist beloved in the Spanish-speaking world. With starred reviews from both Kirkus and Horn Book, The Big Wet Balloon marks Liniers’ U.S. début. Available in both English and Spanish editions, Liniers first children’s comic is based on his observations on his daughters, drawn while standing in the summer rain, showcases the cartoonist’s masterful hand in a gentle, moving story of two young sisters who learn the delights of a rainy Saturday. With a self-professed sense of humor that is “observational, dark, absurd, sweet, and strange,” Liniers’ decade-long daily strip Macanudo in Argentina’s La Nación has earned him a massive legion of fans (with nearly 300,000 on Facebook and 200,000 on Twitter), a cover story in Newsweek Argentina, and routine comparisons to legendary cartoonists including Charles Shultz’ Peanuts and Bill Wattersons’ Calvin and Hobbes. This September, Liniers will travel to America to promote The Big Wet Balloon, including appearances at the Small Press Expo (SPX), the Brooklyn Book Festival, and a TOON Extravaganza launch event at BookCourt in New York. |
No one can possibly accuse Mouly of slowing down when in fact she’s arguably doing more now than ever to advance comics by channeling her passion for this evolving literary art form to the youngest of today’s discerning readers.
To schedule an interview with Françoise Mouly and/or Liniers:
Contact Kimberly Guise at [email protected] or 917.545.9724