in this issue
from the publisher
Greetings from Graphic Mundi!
Our fall graphic novels are already rolling into our warehouse. Releasing in November, Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 1: From Syria to Turkey by Fabien Toulmé (featured in the author spotlight below) is the first of a three-volume series that has been immensely popular in France. We’re making this moving refugee story available for the first time to anglophone readers throughout the world, with Books 2 and 3 coming out next year. Another story of resilience, A Chance by Cristina Durán and Miguel Giner Bou, also releases in November. It’s a family story of big hearts, unconditional love, and beating the odds when there’s only one chance in a thousand for your child’s survival.
Speaking of odds, what are the chances of a book winning not just one but two Eisner awards? MK Czerwiec’s Graphic Medicine anthology Menopause: A Comic Treatment scored the 2021 Eisner for Best Anthology, and Mimi Pond’s contribution—“When the Menopausal Carnival Comes to Town,” worth reading for the hilarious Freaks reference alone—won for Best Short Story. We are thrilled to be releasing a Graphic Mundi edition of Menopause in November. I hope you’ll consider offering it as a holiday gift this year to someone you love. Even if you don’t experience “the change” yourself, you can support someone who does by sharing this book with them.
Stay tuned for news of more Graphic Mundi releases in our December newsletter! Until then, follow us on Twitter @GraphicMundi and @klboileau.
—Kendra Boileau
Publisher, Graphic Mundi
new & noteworthy
Dirty Biology
The X-Rated Story of the Science of Sex
Léo & Colas Grasset
“The mix of giggle-inducing factoids and incisive scientific insights make this investigation of copulation well worth digging into.”—Publishers Weekly
Taking Turns
Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371
MK Czerwiec
Coming in November
“Through the lives and deaths of individual patients, written and drawn in documentary detail, we see the power dynamic between doctor and patient begin to shift. When cure is not an option, care takes on a new meaning.”—Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home
Hakim’s Odyssey
Book 1: From Syria to Turkey
Fabien Toulmé
Coming in November
“Thrilling, contemplative, tragic, and inspirational.”—Peter Dabbene, Foreword Reviews
A Chance
Cristina Durán and Miguel Giner Bou
Coming in November
For Cris and Miguel, creating a family will take a little luck and lots of determination.
industry news
via Publishers Weekly:
Fall 2021 Announcements: Comics & Graphic Novels
Meg Lemke | June 18, 2021
“Many of this fall’s top comics look with hope (or horror) toward the future—while others reckon with the past, including Rep. John Lewis’s long-anticipated next memoir.” Read more.
via WPSU:
Take Note: “COVID Chronicles” Explores the Pandemic Through Comics, From Funny to Deadly Serious
Emily Reddy | August 13, 2021
“The COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t seem like it would be fodder for comics. But the recently released anthology ‘COVID Chronicles’ takes on the heavy topic in more than 60 comics. They range from single New Yorker style panels up to 17 pages, and the topics go from funny to deadly serious.” Read more.
via Publishers Weekly:
2020 North American Comics Sales Grow to $1.28 Billion
Calvin Reid | June 30, 2021
“Combined sales of comics periodicals and graphic novels in North America continued to climb in 2020, reaching approximately $1.28 billion, according to a joint estimate by pop culture trade news sites ICv2 and Comichron.’” Read more.
awards & reviews
Menopause: A Comic Treatment won the 2021 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Anthology, and Mimi Pond’s contribution, “When the Menopausal Carnival Comes to Town,” won for Best Short Story. Look for the Graphic Mundi edition of this critically acclaimed collection in November!
Matthew Noe reviewed Crude: A Memoir for Diamond Bookshelf, calling it “a comics memoir, a call to action, and a history that needs to be heard.” Read the full review here.
On The Last Word on Nothing, Cameron Walker ponders what makes Héloïse Chochois’s The Body Factory such a visceral read. 
“There are few who command those panel beats like Hofer does.”— artist spotlight
In addition to the Hakim’s Odyssey books, Fabien is the creator of Ce n’est pas toi que j’attendais, a graphic memoir about the birth of his daughter, who has Down Syndrome. His other graphic novels include Venenum, Les deux vies de Baudouin, and, most recently, Suzette ou le grand amour. A native of Orléans, France, Fabien originally studied civil engineering but began creating comics in 2009. For Hakim’s Odyssey, he conducted interviews with Hakim, a Syrian refugee, through a translator for approximately a year and a half in order to bring his story to life.
Find Fabien...
On Twitter!
On Instagram!
On his blog!
for librarians & booksellers
Graphic Mundi is distributed in North America exclusively by Diamond Book Distributors.
Overseas booksellers and libraries, please contact the appropriate person below:
- UK and Europe: Matthew Surzyn, The Oxford Publicity Partnership
- Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea: Andrew Guy, Woodslane Pty, Ltd.
- Japan: Mark Gresham, MHM, Ltd.
- All other territories: Brendan Coyne, PSU Press
When available, e-book editions of our titles can be purchased through most major library e-book distributors, including Overdrive, ProQuest, EBSCO, JSTOR, and Project MUSE. Can’t find the e-books you want for your library? Contact Brendan Coyne.
is an imprint of
Penn State University Press
