By Sean Manning
On Thursday afternoon at San Diego Comic-Con, Abrams Comic Cart: The Graphic Storytelling Panel redefinition featured the creators, editors and acclaimed designers behind the publisher’s recent titles, discussing why their work is meaningful, their motivations as artists, and why readers can hope for the line. Moderator Jacq Cohen, Director of Marketing and Promotion at Abrams Comicarts and Host Panelist Mark Evanier, Editor-in-Chief Charlie Cockman, Publishers Joseph Montagne, Chip Kidd, Chip Kidd, Chris Ryall, Nate Powell, and John Jennings.
The panel began with Evanier discussing essential peanuts. This is a new volume celebrating the 75th anniversary of Charles Schulz’s beloved strip, and said that Cockman came together very quickly at the request of the Schulz Estate. “I’ll read peanuts for the rest of my life,” Evannier said. “I don’t know when I started, just like when I started eating chocolate.”
In addition to a selection of 75 comic strips, Essential Peanuts includes additional comics that lend context to essays curated “essentials” by “peanut lovers ju-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de The author also praised the book’s “dourful presentation” designed by fellow panelist Kidd.
Evanier joked that there’s no need to hype the book because it should sell itself. “If you’re interested in peanuts, you’re going to buy them,” he said. “If you’re not interested in peanuts, I don’t want to know you.”
But in case readers need further incentives, Evanier said, “Using all copies of the book gives you a copy of the Epstein files.”
Jennings, an Afrofuchism scholar and professor at the University of California Riverside, told the story of the origins of his work with Abrams Comicart. He said he spoke to then editor Sheila Keenan at a convention where he was interested in Jennings’ work. Jennings recalls Keenan asking him, “Have you ever heard of Octavia Butler?” Jennings said, “I was like, ‘Yes’.”
In the early days of the first Trump administration, many readers pointed to similarities between the president’s policy and style and the leadership that brought the butler of a dark future, and the likes of the stupid butler and leadership, including the use of the phrase “make America great again.” Jennings said Butler lacked a crystal ball, but he extrapolated from Ronald Reagan’s current life in America.
The task of adapting the work of a respected writer like Butler presented several challenges, Jennings said. But “adaptation means changing,” and when working from one medium to another, “you need to understand both affordances.” Still, “the pressure to cut the perfect prose is difficult,” he said. Especially considering Butler’s fandom compared to Beyoncé’s Beyhive. “They are equally enthusiastic and passionate, but they also have PhDs.”
Butler’s successful adaptation led to Jennings, setting his own imprint within Abrams Comicarts, including the Hugo Award for Sower’s Paraable for the Sower. The name Megascope is derived from the unpublished story of Web Dubois, describing instruments for examining time and space. The imprint includes speculative, criminal and historical novel works by authors, including Nnedi Okorafor, NK Jemisin, and many other notable authors.
A veteran of the comic industry, currently an Abrams Comics editor, Lyal, as a writer of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis graphic novels, discussed the various hats he wears for his publisher. “I was always writing and editing my own. I didn’t want other people to touch mine,” he said. “But when I handed it over to the editors, it made everything even better.”
The Megalopolis project began with an email from a filmmaker who was acclaimed to have been truly hoping for a graphic novel of his then film. Coppola reportedly said she grew up in cartoons to Lyor and loved the Phantom, the plastic guy and… Heap. “When he said the mountain, I knew he was real.” (Later, Kidd joked that he was trying to form a heap fan club in middle school, which led to him being “exiled.”) Furthermore, artist Jacob Phillips didn’t watch the film before working on the book.
Lyll also spoke about the latest Abrams Marvel Arts Line, as well as the newest book by John Byrne, X-Men: Abrams’ Marvel Arts Line before that, as well as the Marvel Calendar book. “I’m paying attention to as much as I feel comfortable with me, 10 years old, and I feel comfortable with Francisford Coppola in my 80s,” he said.
Discussing his own Marvel Arts project, Kidd pointed out that he was “spoiled” by having the publisher approach him as he wrote, initially noting the story of what became the Avengers: the trap of truth. But two things that come to mind are the 1964 version of the Avengers, and I want to work with artist Michael Cho. Kidd said the story was inspired by the Rooney Toons cartoon “Duck Amok” and “Michael Cho’s exceptional art delivery system.”
Kidd also put the conversation back to the mandatory peanuts, describing Schultz’s work as “really deep human emotions have been reduced to their most natural parts.”
“That’s what Bauhaus did for the sake of architecture,” he said, explaining that Peanuts “transmit all human emotions in just five small wavy pieces.”
Snyder, a daytime orthodontist, joked, “I was working on teeth one day and thought drawing cartoons would be even more fun.” He said he collected comics by thinking about thought, and that his other titles were like “mental journals,” and found that “it comes out more stranger and more specifically, more universally.”
When asked about his process, tackling sometimes very heavy, personal topics, Powell said, “Drawing pages is my happy place. I don’t really think about the story.” Instead, when he maps the story, “the weight is in advance.” Powell contrasts his work by autobiographical preservation through fall, saying, “My home planet makes my strange, emotional, magical fiction, but unless I’m working in non-fiction, I’m really not satisfied.”
Powell discussed the oddity of later preservation. Knowing that, which will be released in 2021, he had no idea when he submitted how the 2020 elections would take place, Powell said the book’s assignments are composed as a statement that will be released into “social, political and literary landscapes that he doesn’t know.” With Trump taking office, he says the book may be more relevant than it was released in 2025.
The panel was culminated in the canal canal line found by Kochman and Montagne, who published comic history at Abrams, which began with Walt Disney’s art in 1973 and culminated in the 2009 imprint of Abrams Comics True, with the canal line found by City Hunter.
Keep an eye out for more coverage from SDCC ’25.
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