I need a more interesting phrase than “status report” but that’s what it is. We’re skipping April Fool’s day. I hope you don’t mind.
There are SEVEN different items in this report! I numbered ’em for clarity.
1. Tony will be IN THE SHOP three days this week: TODAY, Wednesday, from noon-4pm, as well as Friday (4/3), and Saturday (4/4) from noon to 5:30pm to take phone orders and answer questions. And, we are responding to email and voicemail 7 days a week! 617-492-6763 or millionyearpicnic@yahoo.com. Press inquiries WELCOME!
3. In addition to the classes, Tony is still delivering comics to Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Arlington, and Belmont with a minimum purchase of $15. He’s going farther afield for larger orders. We’re also packing comics to ship via USPS to remote locations! Unfortunately, we’ve had to discontinue curbside pickup for the time being.
4. If you want to support us, you can buy a gift certificate via our PayPal using blanton7772000@yahoo.com (again, DO NOT EMAIL that address; you will not get a response). Just put the details in the note section PayPal provides. You have THREE options: (1) we can mail out gift certificates via the United States Postal Service, (2) we can hold them at the shop until we’re open again, or (3) we can put them in with an order of comics/graphic novels and deliver them to your house… let us know your preference in the note.
5. If you’re looking for prose books, we may be able to order them as well since we have access to a couple of distributors that are still open who do both graphic novels and prose books.
6. GREAT NEWS! OUR VOICEMAIL IS FIXED! You can leave us voice messages! We’ll even listen to them!
7. For more up-to-the-minute news and status reports, follow us on the various social media platforms, especially our main Instagram account (mostly Tony) and Twitter (mostly Kelly):
Image Comics is having a huge holiday trade paperback sale, and we’re looking to pass the savings on to you! The books range from 25 – 50% off. Let us know what volumes you’d like before THIS Thursday (14 November 2019) at 8am! All you have to do is CHOOSE YOUR COMICS!
Place your order by emailing us, millionyearpicnic@yahoo.com, or using our web contact form here. You can also call us at 617-492-6763.
Fans of Jonathan Hickman rejoice! His first project,The Nightly News, a one volume story about a war against The American Media that he wrote, drew, colored, and lettered himself! He got help on his also wonderful all-in-one collections: Pax Romana, Secret, and Transhuman. Also, the entire runs of Black Monday Murders, East Of West, and Manhattan Projects are all available.
If you enjoy creator of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirman’s work, the full and complete run of that series is currently available in trade, as well as Outcast (which is also a TV series on Showtime), Thief Of Thieves, Oblivion Song, and his all-ages series, Super Dinosaur. Also, his full run on Invincible, as well as his related series, Brit and Astounding Wolfman, are on sale!
Our best selling ongoing series from any publisher is Saga, which we recommend to pretty much anyone over 18 (it’s not porny, it just has some language, drug use, and sexuality issues), is by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples. We don’t have anything else in the catalogue by Fiona, but Brian’s other series, Paper Girls (a Stranger Things-esque sci-fi series is soon to be a show on Amazon Prime) is, as well as his all-in-one collection of We Stand On Guard, book about our war with Canada.
Mark Millar has been creating comics for decades now. Some of his old school, more shock-value comics like Kingsmen (basis of the movie franchise), Nemesis, Super Crooks, Superior, Wanted (the basis of the Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy film), and American Jesus are all available, as well as Kick-A** and Hit Girl (from the Kick-Ass movies) are on sale. You can also get your hands on his more recent books, Chrononauts, and the Jupiter’s Circle and Jupiter’s Legacy (the basis for an upcoming Netflix series) .
Do you love noir? Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have been doing the pre-eminent comic noir runs, Criminal, for almost two decades now. The first seven volumes are available during the sale, as well as their Lovecraftian-noir series, Fatale, and their forced vigilanteism fable, Kill Or Be Killed.
Greg Rucka is another extraordinary crime writer, and his series: Lazarus, Velvet, and Black Magick are all on sale, as well.
There are a variety of cool Image books by female creative teams that feature strong women of color, such as Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s Monstress, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro’s Bitch Planet, DeConnick and Emma Ríos’s Pretty Deadly, Chynna Clugston Flores’s Blue Monday and Scooter Girl, Tee Franklin’s Bingo Love, and Leila Del Luca’s Afar.
Rat Queens by Kurtis J Weibe may be written someone male-identified, but its cast of all female foul-mouthed fantasy characters on a D&D like quest is also amazing.
If horror is more your thing, don’t think that, just because Halloween is over, you can’t get your necessary comic-related scares. Maxwell Prince, Chris O’Halloran and Martín Morazzo’s Ice Cream Man, and Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson’s Nailbiter series are get for getting creeped out. Tim Seely’s Hack/Slash gives you a bit of satirical relief with your jumpscares. Former MYP employee, Pohnsack Pichetshote has a modern xenophobic haunted house story, Infidel, which is already on NPR’s “Top 100 Horror Stories Of All Time” list.
If you like your horror Southern, we’ve got a Prohibition-era werewolf series called Moonshine, and barbecue vampire series, Redneck. There’s also a cute queer monster barista all-ages series called Moonstruck that we recommend!
If you’re more in the mood for Classic Image Titles, the sale also includes Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon, Jim Valentino’s Shadowhawk, Marc Silvestri’s Witchblade and Darkness.
There’s a wide range of Rick Remender science fiction books available, including Black Science, Fear Agent, Tokyo Ghost, Seven To Eternity, and Low! Remender also wrote Deadly Class (also a Syfy TV series). And another Syfy series, Grant Morrison’s Happy is on sale. You can also pick up Morrison’s Nameless, which isn’t currently in TV development.
Jeff Lemire is also writing a ton of books for Image, and his sci-fi series, Descender is available, as well as Plutonia, and Royal City.
The ever prolific Warren Ellis’s Injection, Trees, Ministry Of Space, and Fell are all on discount for this event.
The Wicked & The Divine is another of our favorite series to recommend,and if you enjoy Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s work, we have their previous series, Phonogram and Suburban Glamour.
The Luna Brothers have been working together, and apart, for a little over twenty years, and many of their Image titles: Ultra, Sword, Alex + Ada, and Eternal Empire are available.
Chew, a series by Jonathan Layman and Rob Guillory, is available in its entirety, as well as Guillory’s new series, Farmhand!
For those more into erotica, Stjepan Šejić’s BDSM lesbian series, Sunstone, is on sale, as well as Mirka Andolfo’s pig girl naughty love story, Unnatural.
Brandon Graham loves to draw and write about puns, and we have a whole slew of his books including King City, Multiple Warheads, and Royal Boiler, as well as his sci-fi epic, Prophet.
Some personal favorite series: Andrew MacLean’s great warrior satire, Head Lopper; Skottie Young’s adult-oriented ordinary young girl trapped in a world of madness satire, I Hate Fairyland; Joe Kelly’s fantasy tear-jerker, I Kill Giants; Jason Aaron and Jason LaTour’s football-town deconstruction, Southern Bastards; Ales Kot’s Zero and New World.
Other titles available include Age Of Bronze, a retelling of the Trojan war; Autumnlands, a fantastical war story about a human set to protect a world filled with magical non-humans; a horror-esque story where Beauty is an STD; a sci-fi police procedural called Copperhead; the gorgeous fable about animal soldiers being acclimated into society, Elephantmen; the thoroughly weird and wonderful sci-fi collections: God Hates Astronauts, Grizzly Shark, Motor Crush, Morning Glories, No Mercy, Revival, Sex Criminals, Shutter, Skyward, Think Tank, and Wayward; Farel Dalrymple’s It Will All Hurt and Proxima Centauri; Scott Snyder’s Wytches; the examination of The X-Men if Charles Xavier was evil, They’re Not Like Us; Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Snotgirl; Michael Allred’s Madman and the somewhat related It Girl; Matt Wagner’s three-decade long epic, Mage; David Lapham’s Stray Bullets and Murder Me Dead; Otis Frampton’s charming all-ages Oddly Normal; Matt Hawkins, Bryan Hill, and Isaac Goodhart’s Postal; Joe Keatinge’s wrestling-themed Ringside; Chris Dingess and Matthew Roberts’s Manifest Destiny; Brenden Fletcher and Karl Kersch’s Isola; and A.J. Lieberman and Riley Rossmo’s Cowboy Ninja Viking.
Here’s a complete list of the titles available:
Afar
Age Of Bronze
Alex + Ada / Sword / Ultra / Eternal Empire
Astounding Wolf-Man /Brit / Invincible
Autumnlands
Beauty
Bingo Love
Bitch Planet
Black Monday Murders / East Of West / Manhattan projects / Nightly News / Secret / Transhuman
/
Pax Romana
Black Science / Fear Agent /Seven To Eternity / Tokyo Ghost / Low / Death Or
Glory
Blue Monday / Scooter Girl
Chew / Farmhand
Chrononauts / Jupiters
Circle / Legacy
Copperhead
Cowboy Ninja Viking
Criminal / Fatale / Kill or Be Killed /
Lazarus / Velvet / Black Magick
Deadly Class / Happy
Descender / Ascender / Plutonia / Royal City
Elephantmen
God Hates Astronauts / Nameless
Grizzly Shark / Shirtless Bear fighter
Hack/Slash / Ice Cream Man / Nailbiter
Head Lopper
I Hate Fairyland
I Kill Giants
Infidel
Injection / Trees / Ministry Of Space / Fell
Isola
Kick-Ass / Hit Girl
King City / Multiple Warheads / Prophet / Royal Boiler
Kingsmen / Nemesis / Super Crooks / Superior / Wanted
/ American Jesus
Madman / It Girl
Mage
Manifest Destiny
Monstress
Moonshine / Redneck /Moonstruck
Morning Glories
Motor Crush
Stray Bullets / Murder Me Dead
No Mercy
Walking Dead / Oblivion Song / Outcast / Super Dinosaur / Thief Of Thieves
Oddly Normal
Paper Girls / Saga / We Stand On Guard
Phonogram / Wicked & Divine /Suburban Glamour
Postal
Pretty Deadly
Proxima Centauri / It Will All Hurt
Rat Queens
Revival
Ringside
Savage Dragon / Spawn / Shadowhawk / Witchblade
Sex Criminals
Shutter
Skyward
Snotgirl
Southern Bastards
Spawn
Sunstone / Unnatural
Theyre Not Like Us
Think Tank
Wayward
Wytches
Zero / New World
Saturday, October 26, noon-4pm, meet author/illustrator Peter Vinton, Jr., creator of the Monitor’s Guild, who will be signing copies of Book I and (newly released) Book II. More at http://www.petervintonjr.com
The Million Year Picnic is delighted to announce that Jerry Craft (https://jerrycraft.com/, @JerryCraft) will be stopping by the shop to sign books and talk to fans on Sunday, 11 August 2019, from 1-2pm.
Jerry Craft is an author and illustrator who has worked on numerous picture books, graphic novels, and middle grade novels for publishers such as HarperCollins, Scholastic, Benchmark, Pearson and his own publishing company, Mama’s Boyz, Inc. His newest book, NEW KID (HarperCollins), is a middle grade graphic novel that has earned four starred reviews, including one from Booklist magazine that called it “Possibly one of the most important graphic novels of the year.” Kirkus Reviews called it “An engrossing, humorous, and vitally important graphic novel that should be required reading in every middle school in America.”
In 2014, Jerry earned recognition from the Junior Library Guild for illustrating The Zero Degree Zombie Zone, written by Patrik Henry Bass and published by Scholastic. His middle grade novel, which he co-wrote with his two sons Jaylen & Aren Craft, THE OFFENDERS: SAVING THE WORLD WHILE SERVING DETENTION!, is an action / adventure story designed to teach kids about the negative effects of bullying. It was chosen by PACER.ORG as one of the best middle grade books on bullying.
Jerry’s illustrations have also appeared in national publications such as Essence magazine as well as comic books, greeting cards, book covers, and board games.
Jerry is also the creator of MAMA’S BOYZ, an award-winning comic strip that was distributed by King Features Syndicate from 1995 – 2013; making him one of the few syndicated African-American cartoonists in the country. MAMA’S BOYZ follows the lives of Pauline Porter, a widow raising her two teenage sons (Tyrell and Yusuf) while also running the family bookstore. Jerry has won five African American Literary Award Show Open Book Awards for “best comic strip” (2013, 2012, 2011, 2009 & 2004).
Jerry is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts where he received his BFA degree in advertising. After working in the ad world for a dozen years as a copywriter, he got his first job as a cartoonist working as an assistant to Barbara Slate on a variety of comic books and graphic novels for Marvel and Harvey Comics, including Sweet 16 and New Kids on the Block. This was followed by eight years at King Features Syndicate where he wrote sales brochures for some of the world’s most popular comic strips. Before stepping out on his own, he was the Editorial Director for the Sports Illustrated for Kids website where he was nominated for a New Media Award by the National Cartoonists Society for his series of popular Flash cartoons.
He is a co-founder and co-producer of the Schomburg’s Annual Black Comic Book Festival which has drawn close to 50,000 fans since its inception in 2013. Jerry was born in Harlem and grew up in nearby Washington Heights. He is a graduate of The Fieldston School and received his B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts.
NEW KID
Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, NEW KID is a timely, honest novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real, from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft.
Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.
As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?
