BEA Recap Part II: The Graphic Novel Scene
Like birthdays, I think BEA should just go on and on... so my coverage will continue throughout this week. Graphic novels were a bigger deal at BEA 2008 than they've ever, ever been before. There's been buzz about this crazy new category for several years, but this year comics really came into their own; they didn't need to apologize, they owned the show. It started for me at our Emerging Leaders party on Wednesday night, when I met comics icon/guru Scott McCloud , who opened all our eyes with Understanding Comics and has continued to expound upon the format with humor and erudition. He signed my copy of Making Comics provided by HarperCollins, and by the time I wandered away to continue mingling he and Diamond rep John Shableski (who blogs as The Graphic Novels Guy on Buzz, Balls, and Hype) were both talking a mile a minute about their mutual passion. (Diamond, if you don't know them yet, is the biggest distributor of comics to comic shops and bookstores -- they...