Scholastic backs off its separate Book Fair section for diverse books. New Locke & Key books might take a while to arrive. And Green Lantern writer Tim Sheridan is donating his royalties to charity. All on Comic Book Club News for October 26, 2023.
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Episode Transcript:
Scholastic backs off after Book Fair flap.
New Locke & Key under lock and key.
Green Lantern writer donating to charity.
This is Comic Book Club News for October 26, 2023.
Scholastic Reverses Decision On Separate Book Fair Section For Diverse Books:
In a follow-up to Monday’s story about the uproar over Scholastic’s segregated Book Fair, the publisher has backed off their plans to separate out certain books about LGBTQ+ issues and racial inequality into their own section.
Twelve days ago, Scholastic explained the plans for the Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice collection, a response to the increased book bans happening all over the United States. After hundreds of authors, illustrators, and fans protested, Scholastic posted a note in their News Room and on social media explaining how and why they are reversing their decision.
“This fall, we made changes in our U.S. elementary school fairs out of concern for our Book Fair hosts. In doing this, we offered a collection of books to supplement the diverse collection of titles already available at the Scholastic Book Fair. We understand now that the separate nature of the collection has caused confusion and feelings of exclusion.
We are working across Scholastic to find a better way. The Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice collection will not be offered with our next season in January. As we reconsider how to make our Book Fairs available to all kids, we will keep in mind the needs of our educators facing local content restrictions and the children we serve.”
What this means is that the collection, which includes multiple graphic novels, will still be offered to schools through the end of the year. However, starting in 2024, Scholastic will no longer separate out these books. Good news on an initially bad decision.
New Locke & Key Books May Take A While To Arrive:
If you’re waiting for more of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key? Well, you’re going to have to keep waiting. As reported by Popverse via the Short Box Podcast, the duo aren’t quite ready to follow up their hit series. Yet.
Specifically, Hill and Rodriguez have long teased a sequel called World War Key that would jump between eras and serve as a true sequel to the series, including several times to Comic Book Club’s various podcasts. One reason it won’t be happening soon? They want it to be good.
Said Hill: “It might happen. I hope it will happen, and if it doesn’t happen in the next couple of years, it can still happen five or six years down the road… but Locke & Key is a big commitment, we’ve done some really good books, I wouldn’t want to let readers down by giving it anything less than my full attention, and I can’t do that really when I’m working on the novels.”
The bigger problem, though, is IDW’s current, ongoing financial troubles. While we’ve previously reported here on Comic Book Club News that the publisher insists they’re righting the ship, Hill seems hesitant.
“I co-own Locke & Key with IDW comics,” Hill said. “IDW comics is not in financially good shape, as far as I can tell. I only know what I see from the outside, but it’s my sense it’s not a company that’s as financially secure as one would hope. That they have struggled over the last few years, with the pandemic and so on. I’m rooting for them to get back on their feet and stuff, but I don’t know what the future of Locke & Key looks like, because I don’t know what the future of IDW comics looks like. So there are several cross-currents that make it difficult to predict what the future looks like for Locke & Key.”
Fingers crossed the team will unlock future comics, sooner, rather than later.
Green Lantern Writer Tim Sheridan Donating Royalties To Charity:
Tim Sheridan, writer of DC Comics’ new title Alan Scott: The Green Lantern, is donating all his royalties from the book to charity. The reason? In order to combat homophobes aiming to tank the new, LGBTQ+-friendly take on the classic character, he’s telling fans their dollars will go to a good cause.
The move was reported by Polygon, who also talked to Sheridan about the move. Said Sheridan: “I’m no stranger to this type of bullying but, for a long time, I tried to ignore it for fear of fueling a fire I didn’t start. Fast forward to last week. Our book has been attacked since its announcement and with the release of the preview pages last week, the attacks began growing exponentially. I saw that and, knowing it would continue to fester if left unchecked, I reexamined my fire-fueling policy and tried to turn it into a firefighting policy.”
Sheridan goes on to correctly note that writers don’t make a lot of money off of comics, though DC does have a royalty-sharing program for successful books. Which, in his mind, made it easy to offer 100% of his royalties to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
In Comic Book Club’s review of the title, we called the book “a heartbreaking tale” while not shirking on the action. Pick it up today, and support a good cause.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And boy, that was a lot of plugs for our other podcasts, huh? I’m a real Sons of a Gunn.
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