AdHouse celebrates 10 years of ‘Skyscrapers of the Midwest’

New limited-edition comic and slipcase edition highlight the publisher’s plans to celebrate.

Joshua W. Cotter‘s debut comic, Skyscrapers of the Midwest, came out 10 years ago from AdHouse Books, and to celebrate the publisher is releasing a new Cotter comic, Skyscrapers Inc., and a limited slipcase edition of the original series.

“It seems like only yesteryear when a youngish publisher was walking the floor of the MoCCA Festival (when it was COOL and at the PUCK, you kids!) when he happened upon one of those skinny, unkept cartoonist types standing in line,” AdHouse publisher Chris Pitzer said on the company’s blog. “It wasn’t so much the cartoonist that caught his eye, but the comic that he held in his hands. You see, he had just heard tell of this comic winning the first ever Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics. The publisher then approached this cartoonist, and even though a table wasn’t between them, he offered to buy said Mini-Comic. Was it bought, or was it given? Only time and possibly the cartoonist knows!”

Since then Cotter has gone on to create Driven by Lemons, Nod Away and other works, but Skyscrapers still stands as a strong look at childhood by an artist with a unique style and voice.

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D + Q to publish Rumi Hara’s ‘Nori’

The Ignatz Award-nominated story about a girl and her grandmother gets the graphic novel treatment in 2020.

Drawn and Quarterly has announced plans to publish Nori, the the debut graphic novel from Rumi Hara, in the spring of 2020.

Nori is quietly enchanting, drawing you into the adventures of this little girl,” Drawn & Quarterly Publisher and acquiring editor Peggy Burns said. “At times it’s surreal and haunting yet simultaneously a light-hearted depiction of childhood and friendship. Rumi’s draftsmanship is gorgeous and she draws in many folkloric elements in the standalone stories.”

Nori’s story began in a series of minicomics. “It started as a minicomic first printed in 2016 about a little girl and her grandma’s encounter with an army of bats,” Hara said on her website. “I couldn’t stop thinking about this little sassy girl, and now there are 3 minicomics completed in the series.”

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