A Book Club for Giants

This is not my husband.

My husband is a comic book guy. Wednesdays are important here - that's the day new comic books come out for those who are not in this literary loop.

As part of his fan-dom, my husband has joined a Graphic Novel Club in our fabulous local comic book store, Comic Book Jones. It has been great. He has been finding out about new books he wouldn't have picked up himself, and then he gets to chat with some like-minded souls about them once a month.

Last month, he told me, "You're not going to believe this, but the next book the group is reading is I Kill Giants!" I was overjoyed! This was my book. I had been championing it in this house all year! I bought it for my husband six months earlier with strict instructions: "You MUST read this." With the club's selection, I knew he finally would!

As the date crept closer, my husband said that I should join him at the next meeting since I had such a great appreciation for the book. I decided that would be right up my alley (I love book clubs!). Then some exciting news broke:

The author, Joe Kelly, would be coming to the meeting! 

That was pretty awesome. I met him back in October at NY ComicCon right after I first read I Kill Giants. I had already told him how grateful I was for his book, how wonderful it was and I had already asked him how he knew about all that he wrote, but my husband was not with me and Joe Kelly is a super cool guy!

The day finally arrived this past Sunday and it was awesome. First of all, Comic Book Jones is simply the coolest comic book store EVER, so it is always fun to just be there. Then the book club is pretty sweet as well. Joe Kelly was a little late, so I got the best of both worlds - regular book club chat with fellow readers about an amazing book and then a fantastic and surprising Q & A session with our special guests.

Oh yes, that's right, I typed GUESTS, as in plural. There were three and they were all AMAZING!! We had Joe Kelly, the author of the book, his daughter Claire, who was the inspiration for the protagonist in the book and JM Ken Niimura, the artist!!! Incredible Surprises (Ken does not even live in the US!)!!

JM Ken Niimura talking with a fellow book club attendee.

Joe Kelly and his daughter, Claire

For you Fellow I Kill Giants  fans out there, here is some cool "behind the book" stuff that I learned from our time with the team:

• Joe had written the script for the book and held onto it for years. He actually had thoughts of it being a movie before being a comic book. He also said that the movie idea was still floating, but he won't ever let anyone "mess" with this particular story (I think he saw the panic in my eyes!).
• Joe and Ken met in a comic book convention in Europe where they were placed at signing tables next to each other. It was because of that placement that Joe saw Ken's art and proposed his book to him.
• Claire had no idea she was the inspiration for Barbara Thorson until years after the book was published.
• The creation of the book was a labor of love on both writer and artist's part. They both took their time with it and are grateful to have worked with Image on this product. (We all agreed that the passion was evident throughout the book.)
• Ken designed everything in the book from the panel layouts to the paper choice and covers of all of the issues. 
• Joe was fascinated by Ken's technique. At one point midway through the process he excitedly asked Ken to see a page of I Kill Giants - it was then that Ken showed him that he does not work that way. Every single panel had its own full-page sketch. It was only later that each image would be uploaded and re-sized to fit into the design.

...there's more. Of course we talked about the story - what inspired it, why certain choices were made, what we thought of certain parts and what the original intent was - but I can't write about all of that stuff without ruining the story for you! Instead here are a couple more pictures from the day:

Blurry Ken (not my greatest photography!)

Joe signs my husband's book.

My super-cool signed book, now complete with a sketch of Barbara by Ken.

To understand my passion for this book, my need to meet Joe Kelly at New York Comic Con to tell him, and to see why the Comic Book  Jones book club agreed this is the best book they have read to date then there is only one thing you can do: GO READ I KILL GIANTS! If you need more convincing, here is my review of the book.

Have you read I Kill Giants?

Have you ever had the opportunity to meet the author of one of your favorite books? How was it? What did you say?