Aug 22: Cartoonists at National Book Festival from Library of Congress

Let me know if I missed someone please!!

https://blogs.loc.gov/bookmarked/2026/07/07/the-2026-national-book-festival-author-lineup-and-new-programming-to-celebrate-america-250/ and https://www.loc.gov/events/2026-national-book-festival/authors-and-speakers/

Frank Miller (Memoir) – The award-winning comic book writer, artist, novelist, inker, screenwriter, film director and producer, best known for “Sin City” and “300,” his comics featuring Marvel superhero Daredevil, and his miniseries “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns,” discusses his new memoir, “Push the Wall,” which also serves as a masterclass for aspiring creators.

Max Brooks (Genre Fiction) – The bestselling author presents a radio play adaptation of his graphic novel “The Harlem Hellfighters” and discusses the value of firsthand recollections of U.S. military veterans.

John Gallagher

Photo credit: Bruce Guthrie

John Gallagher is an art teacher, an art director, a cofounder of the literacy organization Kids Love Comics and a leader of workshops teaching kids how to create their own comics. Gallagher lives in Virginia with his family, including a cat, Millie, and dog, Cody (who appears in the “Max Meow” books). His new graphic novel, “Rex Rocket: Cosmic Wiener Dog,” is featured at the 2026 National Book Festival and is the first volume of the series.

Selected Works at the Library of Congress

• John Gallagher

John Patrick Green

Photo credit: Ellen B. Wright

John Patrick Green is a human with the human job of making books about animals with human jobs, notably the graphic novel series “InvestiGators.” Green is a New York Times bestselling human author and not just a bunch of animals in a trench coat pretending to have a human job. With over four million copies of “InvestiGators” in print, Green is a successful human being with only two hands and a normal amount of fur. He lives in New York City. The most recent addition to the series, “InvestiGators: Weather or Not,” is featured at the 2026 National Book Festival.

Selected Works at the Library of Congress

• John Patrick Green

Shannon Hale

Photo credit: Jenn Florence

Shannon Hale is a New York Times bestselling author of over 50 books for preschoolers, kids, teens and adults. Her award-winning novels include “The Goose Girl,” “Book of a Thousand Days,” “Dangerous” and Newbery Honor recipient “Princess Academy.” Hale is the cocreator of the popular “Princess in Black” illustrated chapter books with Dean Hale and LeUyen Pham. Her graphic novels include Eisner-nominee “Rapunzel's Revenge,” cocreated with Dean Hale and Nathan Hale, as well as her bestselling memoirs with art by LeUyen Pham, “Real Friends,” “Best Friends” and “Friends Forever,” along with many other titles. Hale lives in Utah with her four magnificent children and two ridiculous cats. The new graphic novel edition of “Princess Academy” is featured at the 2026 National Book Festival.

Selected Works at the Library of Congress

• Shannon Hale

Dan Santat

Dan Santat is a children's book writer, a commercial illustrator and the creator of Disney's animated hit, “The Replacements.” He lives in California with his wife, two kids, a rabbit, a bird and a cat. His new graphic novel and start of a new series, “A Fishboy Named Sashimi,” is featured at the 2026 National Book Festival.

Selected Works at the Library of Congress

• Dan Santat

Additions from Randy Tischler, updated 7/8:

Mac Barnett has written for Katherine Tegen Books, Oceano Historias graficas, HarperCollins, and HarperAlley.

Meg Cabot has written for DC, TokyoPop, and HarperAlley.

Kadir Nelson has done art at Marvel and Toon Books.

Lauren Tarshis has written for Graphix (Scholastic).

The lineup of more than 80 authors can be found here.

Please note that the author lineup is subject to change.

Attend the Festival: New This Year, Tickets Required

Click on this image to register for your free tickets!

The National Book Festival will take place on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Doors will open at 8:30 a.m. The festival is free and open to everyone. For the first time this year, free tickets will be required for festival entry, but not for individual programs within the festival. Tickets can be reserved at loc.gov/bookfest.

Spirit movie advertisements showing up in comic stores

Some of the advertising material for the Spirit movie that was distributed to comic book shops. That's a temporary lipstick tattoo, a set of 4 trading cards of the women in the movie and the box they're in, and a glow-in-the-dark sneaker print sticker. Big Planet Comics Bethesda has a pile of movie posters that they're giving away. I've also seen a keychain with recordings from the movie on it.

Variety didn't like the movie very much (tip from Mr. Media Bob Andelman).

NY Times on Frank Miller's latest

In "Arts, Briefly: A Superhero Glitch," By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES, New York Times September 12, 2008, he reports that DC has called for the destruction of shipped issues of All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #10 due to language. Black bars were printed over top of Batgirl's profanity. Gustines says, "Unlike other series that are aimed at an older readership, this Batman title does not have a “Suggested for Mature Readers” label," but given the copy that I saw, DC wouldn't have published some of these words in any of their lines. This also begs the question of 'why letter them in, if you're going to suppress them?' It's not like they appear magically - somebody has to put them there and then sanitize them.

I rail against censorship in the comic strips in this blog, but there's only one word for Miller's writing here. Ridiculous.

The Spirit of Eisner, and Miller, and Neil Young's Vertigo

Frank Miller is interviewed for his adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit comic into a movie at "Artist-Director Seeks the Spirit of ‘The Spirit’," By ANDY WEBSTER, New York Times July 20, 2008. The Times also put audio files up on challenging scenes and movies from comics.

An article on Neil Young reveals that the rock musician's work is being adapted into both an opera and a comic book from DC's Vertigo imprint. In "Morphing Neil Young for the Stage and Page," By TOM SELLAR, New York Times July 20, 2008, Sellar wrote:

...Vertigo, the art-house arm of DC Comics, is turning Mr. Young’s material into a graphic novel. Karen Berger, the imprint’s executive editor, said the idea came from Mr. Young... Ms. Berger assigned the project to the artist Cliff Chiang, and the writer Joshua Dysart. “Josh established this wonderful, modern Southern Gothic approach to the tone of his writing,” Ms. Berger said. “He looked at a lot of Neil’s lyrics and tried to find ways to utilize them where it worked.” And, she added, Mr. Dysart was sympathetic to the work’s underlying vision of social redemption.

Like the Undermain stage collaborators, Vertigo’s team is digging deep into mythologies that Mr. Young has created about the fictitious town. So “Greendale” the graphic novel will feature concepts and characters beyond those introduced in the original recording. The 160-page volume will likely be released in fall 2009.

In today's papers

Zadzooks reviews Frank Miller's Batman - "Batman becomes too brutal," by Joseph Szadkowski, Washington Times Thursday, July 3, 2008.

Online only, the Express rails against animated bears selling toilet paper - "Tissue Issue: The Charmin Bears Have Got to Go," by Greg Barber, ReadExpress.com July 2, 2008.

Also online only is an interview with Robert Grossman - "Grossman Land," By Steven Heller, New York Times' Campaign Stops blog July 2, 2008.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson part 2

continued from part 1

JP: Why haven’t you continued to do the covers for The Roots of the Swamp Thing Series?

BW: Initially, because they wouldn’t let me do paintings, and how many times can you deal with those same situations, and make them different and interesting. It’s leftovers, and I really would rather not deal with leftovers.

JP: Yet on your cover for TROTST #1, you went well beyond anything you had done before.

BW: Yeah, I had fun, because they were letting me do something different. I could play with it and experiment; jump in and do something that didn’t have a black line around it and lots of fancy feathering. I could just use a big brush and have fun and play with color. Everything is a learning process. If you don’t learn, you don’t grow.

JP: You start repeating yourself.

BW: Which I’ve been doing a lot of in the last few years, I’d be the first to admit.

JP: There’s a balance between art and commerce.

BW: Yeah, well, I take things on for the money, because I do this for a living.

JP: You’ve been known to get over-committed before.

BW: Oh yeah. I try to help people out sometimes. Like Creepshow was more of a favor to Stephen King.

JP: It must have been a nice shot in the arm for your career?

BW: Not really. It was certainly not my best work. I think it was several cuts below. I really can’t bear to look at it any more. There were a lot of restrictions; we didn’t have a lot of time.

JP: Have you seen Chaykin’s Shadow?

BW: Very briefly – I’ve only seen one issue. I thought it was pretty entertaining, but it wasn’t the Shadow. I’m not as into it as Kaluta, or the real hardcore fans. I’m sort of indifferent, but still, Chaykin’s thing wasn’t the Shadow. I don’t think the character can be updated.



JP: How about Miller’s Dark Knight?

BW: I saw the second issue, the one with the wrinkled Batman on the cover. I enjoyed that. That was a lot of fun. That was Batman. Batman with teeth. That’s a little bit more like what the character should be. I always thought that Batman fought all of these weird psychos, the Joker, the Penguin, and Batman himself is a psycho. Nobody’s ever really explored that in any depth, and Miller’s got a handle on that.

JP: What do you think of Moonshadow?

BW: Moonshadow I find pretty enjoyable. It tends to ramble a lot; it doesn’t hold my interest a whole lot. Maybe I prefer something with a little more punch. You either like fairy tales or you don’t, and I suppose I don’t. Can’t fault Jay’s art. Even in some of the stuff where he’s obviously rushed, he still pulls it off. He still has that assurance to bring it over.
JP: Kaluta and Lee’s Starstruck?

BW: I find it really fun to look at, as all of Michael’s stuff is; I find it difficult to read. Reading it is fun, and it is well written, but I don’t really think I understand it. I know a bit more than the guy on the street because I know Michael and Elaine, and we talk about it. I’ve seen the play. But even with that background, a lot of it is completely lost on me. I get the feeling, sometimes, that Michael doesn’t understand it. Anything that Michael works on is just wonderful.

to be continued in part 3

Images courtesy of the the Grand Comic Book Database.