Who's on Third?

I spent several posts running through some small publishers and discussion what they tend to right and or wrong from our perspective but today I want to look at a publisher that has yet to release a single book but has already done a solid job of positioning themselves in this market, namely First Second (or :01 as they have cleverly branded themselves).

First, I do want to point out that First Second has something of an advantage, since they are actually an imprint of Roaring Brook Press a childrens book publisher and ultimately owned by the same company that owns FSG, Henry Holt, etc. The formation of the imprint was announced over a year ago and they've clearly spent plenty of time and resources building a solid stable of talent and work. Just any of that actually shakes out in terms of real world advantages I have less than zero clue about.

What I do know is that they're publishing Eddie Campbell's Fate of the Artist, a book I'm very much looking forward to. I'm a fan of the Alec books and can't wait to read this. It will be one of our spotlight titles when it hits shelves and assuming it lives up to our expectations, it will also get a fairly hefty shove from MacGuffin. They're also releasing Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar (who created the wonderful Rabbi's Cat) and Lewis Trondheim's A.L.I.E.E.E.N. Plus sometime next year we can expect to see a title I'm anticipating only slightly less than Fate of the Artist, Paul Pope's Battling Boy. After looking through their Spring and Fall catalogs, I came away with the sense that this is an organization that knows what it's doing and where it wants to go.

Clearly I'm not the only one looking forward to what First Second will come up with. Chris Butcher met several members of their staff at NYCC and came away impressed (read the whole thing, its in there somewhere and the rest is interesting too). ICV2 has some of the details about the spring and fall releases. Plus Graeme got an early look at Fate of the Artist and it sounds like we won't be disappointed. Two other intriguing titles from the spring releases that I have thus far neglected are The Lost Colony and Sardine in Outer Space because these are the only two I've been able to get ahold of. I'm going to go ahead write a review of them later in the week, but in the meantime check out the trailer for The Lost Colony. Oh, and they've got an interesting blog too.