kidscomicsstudioanthology

Happy New Year! What a better way to start it than hearing from graphic novel industry pro Janna Morishima on why she’s supporting a group of Kids Comics Studio members who are crowdfunding a middle grade graphic novel anthology. Parts one and two of the interview are broken into two articles on the #Kids Comics Studio Anthology Blog. Here’s a quote from part one:

MRK: I’ve been thinking about how you take such an interest in developing creators. What motivated you—as an agent— to decide to do a project to gather KCU Studio authors and artists to go down the self publishing route as opposed to something traditional?

JM: That’s a great question. I’m super excited to be working on a self-publishing project because although I think that traditional publishing is a valid way to go, it is getting increasingly competitive. It’s always been competitive but now it’s gotten even more competitive.

There are people whose work doesn’t fit into certain slots that the traditional publishing industry is looking for. Even if their work might eventually fit into traditional publishing, I think self-publishing is such an amazing way for people to get started and get their work out there! I am so excited to be giving it a try with everybody putting together this anthology.

I’m learning as much as everybody else is. I have a background that is very helpful I think because I know the whole traditional publishing process. There are a lot of parallels between traditional and self-publishing.

Part two is equally fascinating and shows a little cameo of Janna in an interview about the origins of Jeff Smith’s Bone graphic novels, which she worked on. You can see the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXSBUX6GPsA

I hope you all have a great 2025!

To read all of first part of the interview between Maritza Ruiz-Kim and Janna, see here: https://kidscomicsunite.com/planting-seeds-for-a-comics-anthology-an-interview-with-kcu-founder-janna-morishima-part1/

To read all of part two: https://kidscomicsunite.com/planting-seeds-for-a-kids-comics-anthology-an-interview-with-janna-morishima/

And to subscribe to the KCS Anthology newsletter: https://kidscomicsunite.com/anthology/newsletter/

In a recent article for SLJ, Henry Herz asked “Why Anthologies?” Great question that I can now answer, having embarked on an adventure with 33 other graphic novel creators to produce a middle grade, crowdfunded graphic novel.

Why did I sign up to be part of this? Well, I’m part of Kids Comics Studio, a membership program of Kids Comics Unite (KCU). When Janna Morishima, a literary agent and owner of KCU, proposed the idea, my first thought was “how are we going to pull this off?” Followed by, “I’ve got to see how this works.”

So, I signed up and it has been a wild ride. Or should I say wild “journey.” That, after all, is the unifying theme for our anthology.

Aside from my curiosity about how it would all work, I was excited to learn how to crowdfund, and even more excited to work with an illustrator. I’m an author-only, and alas, lack the skills to draw the images I see in my own head, so I was very excited to work with an artist. Watching an artist translate my words into their own visual version has been so fun and amazing, which I’ll be writing more about soon.

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