Tag: Nick Roche

Comics Lowdown | Graphic Novels challenged in TX, VA, WY

Plus: The latest on the supply chain woes!

It’s almost TOO on the nose that three book challenges involving graphic novels came up during Banned Books Week, but that’s exactly what has happened.

Cover of Jerry Craft's New Kid, showing a boy looking at a school notebook

Katy, Texas: The Katy school board has canceled a virtual appearance by Jerry Craft, after an online petition claimed that his middle-grade graphic novels New Kid and Class Act promote Critical Race Theory. TV news station Click2Houston has a good overview of what happened: After a parent complained, the school district put the Zoom visit on hold and pulled the books from the library for review, per their policy; they will review the books within 15 days and are trying to reschedule the visit outside of the instructional day. Kara Yorio at School Library Journal has more details on the backstory: The petition (since removed) urged the school board to cancel Craft’s appearance, claiming that “these books … are wrought with critical race theory in the form of teaching children that their white privilege inherently comes with microaggressions which must be kept in check.” New Kid has won numerous awards and was the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal; both books are best-sellers.

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What’s scarier: demons or parenthood? IDW announces ‘Scarenthood’

Nick Roche, Chris O’Halleran and Shawn Lee kick off a new horror title in October.

Writer and artist Nick Roche is teaming up with colorist Chris O’Halloran and letterer Shawn Lee to bring some bumps in the night to the local neighborhood in Scarenthood, a four-issue miniseries debuting from IDW in October.

“My generation grew up in what seemed like a haunted Ireland: superstition still abounded, and everyone had seen moving holy statues, or lived near a stately home that had been burnt to the ground in a Satanic visitation, or knew someone who chopped down a Faerie bush and lived to regret it,” Roche said in the press release. “Scarenthood is about realizing that some of those horrors from childhood are real, but nothing is more terrifying than ruining your own kid’s life. Also: there are funny bits.”

On Twitter, Roche added: “… it’s about some parents who go ghosthunting while their kids are in preschool, but have to be back by lunchtime to collect them. It’s The Goonies, grown-up and with mortgages. Or: Catastrophe meets Stranger Things. In Ireland.”

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