Early last year, I read a press release [launches pdf!] that introduced me to a new comic publisher, called First Second Books. They’re actually an imprint of Roaring Brook Press (who apparently don’t have a website yet?!), so they’re coming from a book publishing background and it shows.
Although they’ve yet to publish their first books, I knew as soon as I found them that these folks had it going on. Not only is their site driven by a typepad blog engine, it actually updates frequently! Currently, they’re having their authors guest blog each day, which gives readers a chance to meet the creators like Lewis Trondheim , whose Dungeon series of graphic novels hilariously skewers the fantasy genre and should be read by those who think D&D would be better if it stood for Dungeons & Ducks.
In addition to effectively using blogs to market their creators, First Second knows that the web offers unique, low cost ways to get attention, like this simple animated trailer for The Lost Colony, released in spring 2006.
I’m a big fan of creating short movies to promote books, as I think books are more deserving of promotion than any of other crap that clogs our TVs, radios and more increasingly, the web. Companies like Bookshorts in Canada and Vidlit in the US understand this, and I’m hopeful more publishers will agree.
If you’re hungry for another comic trailer on the web, check out this one for Jeff Smith’s Bone, published by Scholastic and produced by KidVidLit.com.
tagged: [comics] [vidlit] [bookshorts] [first_second]
