New Graphic Novel -THE UNDERWATER WELDER - in JULY!

My next original graphic novel, THE UNDERWATER WELDER will debut at San Diego Comicon this July and ship to stores soon after.

There is a new interview about the project at NEWSARAMA, and a preview at CBR!

The Underwater Welder

by Jeff Lemire

$19.95 (US)

ISBN 978-1-60309-074-2

Pre-Order

Pressure. As an underwater welder on an oilrig off the coast of Nova Scotia, Jack Joseph is used to the immense pressures of deep-sea work. Nothing, however, could prepare him for the pressures of impending fatherhood. As Jack dives deeper and deeper, he seems to pull further and further away from his young wife, and their unborn son. But then, something happens deep on the ocean floor. Jack has a strange and mind-bending encounter that will change the course of his life forever. ... Equal parts blue-collar character study and mind-bending science fiction epic, The Underwater Welder is a 250-page graphic novel that explores fathers and sons, birth and death, memory and truth, and treasures we all bury deep down inside.

SHIPPING IN AUGUST 2012!

You can Pre-order now at TOP SHELF or at your local comic book shop or book store.

LOST DOGS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

LOST DOGS
by Jeff Lemire
-- 104-page softcover graphic novel
-- 6.5" x 9", $9.95 (US)
-- ISB: 978-1-60309-154-1
-- Diamond: FEB12-1158
-- Mature readers (16+)

Long out of print, Jeff Lemire's Xeric-Award-winning LOST DOGS now returns in a newly remastered edition, soaked with blood and ink. This 104-page mythic yarn follows a family man who's larger than life... but even he may not be powerful enough to prevent the loss of everything he's ever known.

Bold, brutal, and emotionally raw, LOST DOGS represents an acclaimed storyteller's first professional work -- an early exhibition of the gifts that have made his ESSEX COUNTY and SWEET TOOTH so phenomenally popular.

ORIGINAL ART FOR SALE!

Interested in owning original artwork from Essex County, The Nobody or Sweet Tooth? I am currently working with two art dealers, both of which offer a wide variety of my work.

CADENCE COMIC ART has a collection of recent SWEET TOOTH art currently at discounted prices for the holiday season!

And my good friends at THE BEGUILING are selling work from ESSEX COUNTY, THE NOBODY and SWEET TOOTH.

ESSEX COUNTY TO BE ADAPTED TO FILM

Visual effects supervisor John Dykstra has set up his first feature film directing gig called Super Zero, which is an adaptation of the comic book Essex Country: Tales from the Farm. Dykstra most recently worked on the film X-Men: First Class, which was a pretty incredible movie for those of you who haven't seen it yet.

Tales of the Farm was created by Jeff Lemire, and was adapted into screenplay form by John Carr. The film will be shot live action, but will include heavy special effects sequences. The story is described as being edgy, but family-friendly. The story follows an orphaned 10-year-old who goes to live on a farm with his uncle. As their relationship grows strained, he befriends the town's gas station owner, a former pro hockey player, and the pair escape into a private fantasy world of superheroes and alien invaders.

The comic book has won several awards and according to Variety "the producers' plan is to "make a big splash at ComicCon, where Lemire and the publisher, Top Shelf Productions, will make an appearance." Producers will be making a very hard push over the next few weeks, which will include casting announcements as well as financing and distribution commitments. After that a package will be sent out to the studios.

Dykstra also worked on the original Star Wars film, Spider-Man 2, and was a producer on the original 1978 Battlestar Galatica series. Here's what he had to say in a statement,

I've been so involved in films that are primarily based on the action sequences and over-the-top visuals that this to me was incredibly attractive just based on the depth of the characters and the evocative nature of the story.

This sounds like it could to out to be a very fun sci-fi movie. Here's a description of the story from the comic book:

Xeric-Award-winning cartoonist Jeff Lemire (Lost Dogs) illustrates the tale of Lester, an orphaned 10-year-old who goes to live on his Uncle's farm. Their relationship grows increasingly strained and Lester befriends the town's gas station owner, and damaged former hockey star Jimmy Lebeuf. The two escape into a private fantasy world of super-heroes, alien invaders and good old-fashioned pond Hockey. Tales from the Farm is the first volume in a trilogy of graphic novels set in a fictionalized version of Lemire's hometown of Essex County, Ontario.

http://geektyrant.com/news/2011/6/6/essex-county-comic-book-to-get-film-adaptation-called-super.html

ON CANADA READS...

Well, I was the first book voted off of the Canada Reads competition today, and I'll admit that it stings a bit more than I thought it would. But, in the end I am really proud of the accomplishment of making it to the final 5. It's a great sign for the future of graphic novels in this country, and their continued acceptance mainstream literary circles on a whole.

The truth is Essex County would never have been nominated if not for all the brilliant Canadian cartoonists who laid the ground work for such recognition over the last couple of decades. Dave Sim, Seth, Chester Brown, Julie Doucet and so many others not only inspired me, but a whole generation of cartoonist that will continue to push our beloved medium into the spotlight.

I'm proud to be part of such a great tradition of Canadian cartoonists, and continue to be inspired by the likes of Darwyn Cooke, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, Kate Beaton and so many other great talents.

And, a big thanks to Sara Quin for her impassioned defense and promotion of not only EC but graphic novels in general. I know a lot of people have read EC, and other graphic novels, over the last couple of months who otherwise never would have.

And thanks to Chris, Brett and Leigh at Top Shelf for helping me run with the ball once I got it, you guys are the best!

j

Upcoming Appearances

Essex County, the Graphic Novel, and Montreal

Time	Thursday, January 27 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location	Drawn & Quarterly bookstore 211 Bernard Street West Montreal, QC
Created By	Homerun Show, CBC Radio One
More Info	Come and meet graphic novelist/cartoonist Jeff Lemire, who’s Essex County is in the running for this year’s Canada Reads. Meet the artist, ask him questions, and see how he works. You could also win one of several complete Canada Reads book packages! Homerun host Sue Smith and arts reporter Jeanette Kelly will also be hand, and joining us on stage will be Drawn & Quarterly’s head publisher and chief, Chris Oliveros, as well as Montreal’s own graphic novelist Sherwin Sullivan Tjia, author of The Hipless Boy, nominated for a Doug Wright Award and four Ignatz Awards. Essex County is the first graphic novel ever to be included in the running for the prestigious Canada Reads book prize. It is composed of three interconnected graphic novels: Tales from the Farm, Ghost Stories and The Country Nurse. Winner of several major awards in the world of comics, including a Joe Shuster Award, it was hailed by reviewers as "the comics medium at its best" (Booklist) and "a quiet, somber, haunting masterpiece" (The Oregonian). The discussion will be recorded and segments will air on Homerun.

Toronto Celebrates Canada Reads 2011

• Fri Feb 04, 2011
• 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
• 120 mins:

• Toronto Reference Library
• Atrium

Celebrate the 10th anniversary edition of the Canada Reads battle of the books. Featuring some of this year's nominated writers and defenders. Hosted by Mary Ito. Presented with CBC Radio 99.1.

Featuring:
Terry Fallis (author of The Best laid Plans)
Angie Abdou (author of The Bone Cage)
Jeff Lemire (author of Essex County)

Check back for more names to be added to our line-up.

ESSEX COUNTY NAMED ONE OF THE TOP TEN ESSENTIAL CANADIAN BOOKS OF THE DECADE!

Meet your Canada Reads Top 10 November 9, 2010 10:30 AM Our Top 40 is now a Top 10. We asked you to vote for the books you most wanted to see on Canada Reads — the Essential Top 10 Canadian Novels of the Decade, if you will. What you gave us, from the original 40 (which was a fabulous list, by the way, and should keep book clubs across the country rich in options for years to come), is 10 titles that represent the richness and diversity this entire campaign has offered. There are former Canada Reads contenders, a formerly self-published novel, a graphic novel, some titles from big publishers and others from smaller presses. There's a humorous book and a heartbreaking one, and everything in between. We think this list represents what Canada is reading and what Canada wants to read. So without further ado, Canada, meet your Top 10! The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis The Birth House by Ami McKay The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill Bottle Rocket Hearts by Zoe Whittall Essex County by Jeff Lemire Life of Pi by Yann Martel Pattern Recognition by William Gibson Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden Unless by Carol Shields It's out of your hands now, Canada. Five of these titles will be selected by our five celebrity panelists to defend during the Canada Reads debates in February. The books and panelists will be revealed on Wednesday, November 24! In the meantime, we've got the biggest and best contest yet for you! Correctly guess the final five titles and you could win a chance to see the final round of debates and meet Jian Ghomeshi and the panelists! To enter, all you have to do is send in your prediction for the final five using this form. As with every contest, there are rules and regulations, so be sure to read those here! The deadline for the contest is Sunday, November 21, at midnight ET. Jian will randomly draw a name from all the correct entries on November 24. Good luck! So, what do you think of your Top 10? Any surprises? Who do you think will move on to the final five? Share your thoughts onFacebook, Twitter or in the comments below! Erin Balser is an associate producer with Canada Reads.

SUPERBOY #1 Reviewed!

Some early Superboy#1 reviews!

comic book resources

craveonline.com

ign.com

brighthub.com

And and interview over a MTV Geek

Click on the ads for more details and a preview!

FROM ESSEX COUNTY TO SMALLVILLE PART 2.

So here I am. Superboy #1 is out today! It feels like a long time coming. Pier Gallo and I have already been working on the book for the better part of 2010. So let me tell you a bit about what I have planned for Conner Kent and Smallville…

As of typing this I have six full scripts done with a seventh in the outline stage. And, I have the first fifteen issues plotted out. So, this will be a BIG story. A Big story made up of a lot of smaller stories. Most of the run will be only 1 or 2 part arcs that add up to a bigger, badder story I’m weaving in that will culminate around Issue 12 or 13. I don’t want to say too much about it yet, but the first issue has some pretty good clues and teases. It also has THE PHANTOM STRANGER! one of my favorite comic book characters. Seems like an odd fit? Well Smallville really is the ideal American small town. But all small towns have a dark side. And Smallville’s dark side will be slowly creeping to the surface, making Kon-el’s attempts at a “normal life” harder and harder to achieve. What you see in the first two issues will only be the tip of the iceberg. (If you’re interested I suggest picking up THE PHANTOM STRANGER showcase editions…they too will hold clues to coming events!)

Astute readers of my past work will also notice an “homage’ of sorts to Essex County in the first issues opening sequence. It pretty much mirrors the opening pages of Tales From The Farm, with the young character of Lester dreaming of flying away and leaving his troubles behind.

(PS…One more thing. Just a side note…my past work is obviously very Canadian. I’m a proud Canuck, what can I say. But it’s kind of interesting how Canadians have played a big part in Superboy’s life so far. Tom Grummet a fellow Canuck was the Superboy artist through the 90’s. maybe we’ll have to team up for an all Canadian issue?)

One thing I love to do in all my comics is use visual motifs. Re-occurring imagery that slowly reveals a metaphor or draws attention to certain aspects of the plot. I did it a lot in Essex and I do it a lot in Sweet Tooth. But It’s also fun to use these motifs as a way of drawing links, thematic or otherwise between some of my different books. It’s why I made Jepperd a hockey player in Sweet Tooth and had him being followed by crows as he trekked across the post-apocalyptic world. And it’s why I used this opening sequence to Superboy. Kon-el and Lester have a lot in common, and at the same time, they’re very different. Lester used his imagination to escape the small town he was stuck in and the hard realities f his life. He dreamed of being a superhero and flying away to great adventure. Conner is trying to use the normalcy of small town life to escape being a superhero. But he can’t. Like Lester he is who he is, and he’ll have to accept it sooner or later.

Now all this talk about my past work and hoe Essex County led to Superboy is probably a bit misleading. Any of my readers expecting to pick up Superboy and read “Essex County with Capes” will be disappointed. EC was a indie book through and through, both aesthetically and in its pacing and execution. Superboy is not Essex County. It can never be that kind of book. It’s a superhero comic. A DC superhero comic, and it celebrates it. It’s big and fun and full of action. But if I do my job right, all of that action a will mean something. And it will be balanced with real characters…real people living in small town America trying to figure themselves, and their lives out. And finding the answers within each other.

What else can I tell you about the book? Let’s see…There is a great first issue cover by Rafael Albequerque (American Vampire) and great covers to issues 2-5 by the awesome Phil Noto. There are a few new characters like Psionic Lad and The Spawn of Smallville. And of course there’s always KRYPTO! So that’s about it for now. That’s all I got. I hope you like the first issue. If you do, stick around and come back for more. If not, that’s cool too. Thanks for trying it out.

I can’t wait for #2 and #3 and beyond to come out, to share the stories I’ve been cooking up with Pier Gallo and the rest of Superman team up at DC! Thanks for reading.

ESSEX COUNTY MAKES THE CANADA READS SHORTLIST!

http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/

Essex County has made the shortlist of 40 Books for the best Canadian fiction of the last decade!

You can vote by clicking on the link above.

Essex County on "Attack Of The Show"

Video Games - E3 2009 - Attack of the Show

New Podcast Interview: INKSTUDS

I was recently interviewed on the Inkstuds podcast, check it out. Inkstuds Interview

Darwyn Cooke Visits Essex County

The collected edition of my trilogy of graphic novels "Essex County" (Tales From The Farm, Ghost Stories, The Country Nurse) will be available in both hardcover and softcover editions later this summer.

This new complete edition will not only reprint the complete trilogy, along with two new short stories and 50-pages of new bonus material, it also features a brand new introduction by oneof my cartooning heroes DARWYN COOKE!

Here is an excerpt from Darwyn's intro...

"It would seem Jeff Lemire is a haunted man. I don't mean this in any melodramatic, ectoplasmic sense. I refer to a more serious condition common amongst many great storytellers. His head and his heart seem to carry remembrances of the quiet beats in which people stand revealed. With a casual grace that would make the late Raymond Carver envious, Lemire's stories build out of innocuous and seemingly unconnected moments that gather and gain weight when viewed in a cumulative light. His instinct for where to start and end a scene and where to place that scene within the larger tapestry is sublime.

The ease with which Essex County flows from past to present to future to fantasy shows the kind of mastery that most cartoonists are incapable of after a lifetime of practice. While Essex County is laced with sentiment, it all seems natural and hard earned. Lemire has either cannily or intuitively avoided the pitfall of many far more celebrated cartoonists;the pitfall of self pity. Many of our best cartoonists have a conflated sense of their own suffering and isolation, and large passages of their work seem engineered to give this type of self absorption a heroic context. Lemire's characters weather their lives with resolution and quiet despair. We feel for them because of Lemire's talent for revealing their inner strength, not their outer weakness.

In Tales from the Farm, our cast are all people trapped in a life they didn't ask for or expect. Lester, Kenny and Jimmy are all caught in a stasis brought about by external forces they couldn't forsee or control. It seems their only substantive way forward is to endure and abide. The road out of the woods is laid stone by quiet stone. Lemire's approach is so devoid of melodrama that when he does go all in we're taken aback, and shopworn cliches take on a heartbreaking freshness. The life of Vince in Ghost Stories is so spartanly laid before us that when he passes we expect yet another moment of quiet despair. When off panel tapping spurs us to turn the page we see Lemire has dove in with both feet. Vince's team stands before us, offering that most Canadian sign of masculine respect; the quiet clicking of sticks on the ice. This moment of melodrama is timed so perfectly it sneaks past our cynicism and floods our hearts with something we forgot we had inside us."

To read the rest of the intro you'll have to buy the book! It is in the current Previews catalog so ask your local comic shop or book store, or CLICK HERE FOR ORDERING INFO AND DETAILS.

IN THE CURRENT PREVIEWS CATALOG:

"Essex County is a tremendous achievement ... This heartfelt piece of graphic literature surpasses its form to stand as an enduring example of the finest in Canadian literature." -- from the introduction by Darwyn Cooke

"The subtle inter-weaving of Jeff Lemire's Essex County Trilogy is brilliant and constantly surprising. The cumulative impact left a lump in my throat." -- Jeff Smith, creator of Bone and RASL

"This is the comics medium at its best." -- Booklist (from one of three starred reviews)

• Winner of the 2008 Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist
• Winner of the 2008 Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent
• Winner of the 2008 American Library Association's Alex Award (For Adult Books with Teen Appeal)
• Nominated for the 2007 Ignatz Awards, the 2008 Harvey Awards, and two 2008 Eisner Awards

Where does a young boy turn when his whole world suddenly disappears? What could change two brothers from an unstoppable team into a pair of bitterly estranged loners? How does the work of one middle-aged nurse reveal the scars of an entire community, and can anything heal the wounds caused by a century of deception?

Critically-acclaimed cartoonist Jeff Lemire pays tribute to his roots with Essex County, an award-winning trilogy of graphic novels set in an imaginary version of the Ontario county where he was born. In Essex County, Lemire crafts an intimate study of one community through the years, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation. With the lush, expressive inking of a young artist at the height of his powers, Lemire draws us in and sets us free.

This new edition collects the complete Essex County trilogy (Tales from the Farm, Ghost Stories, and The Country Nurse) in one deluxe volume! Also included are over 50 pages of previously unpublished material, including sketches, promotional art, and two new stories. -- A Softcover Graphic Novel with French Flaps, 512 pages, 6 1/2" x 9", Young Adult (13+), Diamond: JUN091069, ISBN 978-1-60309-038-4, $29.95


Also available this summer, a special hardcover edition of The Complete Essex County. -- Deluxe Hardcover, 512 pages, 7" x 10 1/2", Young Adult (13+), Diamond: JUN091068, ISBN 978-1-60309-046-9

CLICK HERE FOR ORDERING INFO AND DETAILS.

New WIZARD Interview

There is a new interview at Wizard.com about The Nobody, Essex Count and a few other things.

Also keep an eye on the blog and Newsarama on Thursday for a HUGE announcement about my next project!

First Look: The Complete Essex County

Here's a first look at Matt Kindt's beautiful book design for the collected Essex County softcover edition.


Matt also has some preview pages of his forthcoming Dark Horse Graphic Novel, "3 Story: The Life of The Giant Man" up on his blog. I've read the book and it is beautiful, Matt's best work yet!

TOP SHELF ANNOUNCES THE COMPLETE ESSEX COUNTY

"A quiet, somber, haunting masterpiece... Lemire is writing about loneliness and regret, and I'm at a loss to explain how he manages to illustrate the devastating toll they take on his characters even as he inspires his readers." -- Steve Duin, The Oregonian "This is the comics medium at its best." -- Booklist (from one of three starred reviews)

Where does a young boy turn when his whole world suddenly disappears? What turns two brothers from an unstoppable team into a pair of bitterly estranged loners? How does the simple-hearted care of one middle-aged nurse reveal the scars of an entire community, and can anything heal the wounds caused by a century of deception? Award-winning cartoonist Jeff Lemire pays tribute to his roots with ESSEX COUNTY, an award-winning trilogy of graphic novels set in an imaginary version of his hometown, the eccentric farming community of Essex County, Ontario, Canada. In ESSEX COUNTY, Lemire crafts an intimate study of one community through the years, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation. With the lush, expressive inking of a young artist at the height of his powers, Lemire draws us in and sets us free.

This new edition collects the complete critically-acclaimed trilogy (TALES FROM THE FARM, GHOST STORIES, and THE COUNTRY NURSE) in one deluxe softcover volume! Also included are over 40 pages of previously unpublished material, including two new stories.


SOFTCOVER French Flaps, 512 pages, 6 1/2" x 9"
$29.95 (US)
ISBN 978-1-60309-038-4

Also available, a limited edition HARDCOVER.
$49.95 (US)
ISBN 978-1-60309-046-9

The Real Essex County

Last week was Top Shelf week at Portland bookstore "Powell's "website. They periodically have guest authors posting on their blog. Nate Powell, Alex Robinson, James Kolchaka, Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger and myself all contributed posts. This was my entry which went up last Thursday...

All of my stories start with the setting, and even more than that, location totally informs how my characters and plots grow and take shape. The Essex County books (Tales From The Farm, Ghost Stories, The Country Nurse), all started when I decided to do a book set in the tiny Canadian farming town where I grew up.
I’ll admit, the rusted old farm equipment, teetering windmills and concrete grain elevators that littered the wide open fields of Essex County meant little to me growing up there. I couldn’t wait to move to the big city. But, ten years after leaving EC, and living in said Big City, the sparse lonely landscaped of my childhood started to evoke a strong, almost guttural pull inside of me. Moreover, they seemed like a natural fit with the jagged, expressive inking style that had become the earmark of my cartooning. And, as soon as I sat down and started scratching out drawings, all of those lonely roadside power-lines, and rickety old farmhouses quickly became equally lonely and rickety old characters. The “rural decay” of southwestern Ontario became the rural decay at the heart of inhabitants of my fictional Essex County. And from there plot and narrative structure sprung up.


To my surprise, location, or more specifically places where I spent significant parts of my childhood, has continued to inform the work I do, well after the completion of the Essex County Trilogy. My next two projects, while quite different in tone, are both set in the Northern Canadian fishing community where my family has vacationed almost every August of my life. The old bait and tackle shops, lakeside diners, aluminum fishing boats, earthworms and walleye, and the smell of gasoline coming of an outboard motor are my new drug. They have provided an equal amount of inspiration for me as I work on The Nobody, an original, two-color graphic novel for DC’s Vertigo imprint. That tale takes The Bandaged Stranger from H.G. Wells’ classic “The Invisible Man”, and recasts him as an oddball drifter taking up residence in a tiny northern lakeside Motel in 1994. And, my next Top Shelf GN (sorry too early to spill the beans on that one) will be equally entrenched in a tiny Canadian fishing village.


For me, as a storyteller, it all starts with the place, once I have that, the characters and story all come easily. Which poses the question: I wonder what I’ll do when I run out of places that I lived as a kid? Probably go back home to Essex County again for another round I suppose.

Essex County Vol.3: The Country Nurse Launches at San Diego!

It's been a while since I've posted, I've been really putting the pedal to the metal trying to get a good chunk of my upcoming DC/Vertigo graphic novel THE NOBODY in the can before I head off to The San Diego Comicon next week.

As of today I've got 69-pages of the 144-page book pencilled, inked and ready to go. I'll probably be posting a few sneak peek pages soon, just need to clear it with DC legal first.

As for San Diego, I will be signing a the Top Shelf booth during the majority of the show (check out Top Shelf's site for a full list of their attending cartoonists). The GREAT news is that we will have copies of Essex County Vol.3: The Country Nurse for sale, hot off the press! This will be the first time I've debuted a book at a Con, and I'm pretty excited.

And, speaking of volume 3, the first review hit the web today. Check out Steve Duin's review at The Oregonian.

I will also have copies of the two limited edition Essex County Mini-comics, and original artwork for sale at the show, and of course will be doing sketches and signing, so please stop by and see me!

J

Essex County @ Top Shelf 2.0!

Well the Harvey nominations were announced today, and I was nominated for Bets New Talent along with fellow Top Shelfer Christian Slade. My good buddy the ultra-talented Matt Kindt snagged 3 nominations! Congrats Matt and Christian.

Also, the first of my two new Essex County mini-chapters, The Essex County Boxing Club, is now available to read online for free at Top Shelf's new web comic siteTop Shelf 2.0.

The Mini-Comic versions are still available for sale.

BOTH MINI-COMICS Only $6

CLICK HERE TO BUY!