Jen Wang

This Wednesday, May 18, sees the release of the 2016 Lumberjanes special, Lumberjanes: Makin: the Ghost of It, written by Jen Wang with art by Christine Norrie and colors by Maarta Laiho. It tells the story of the Lumberjanes going on a plant-foraging hike that leads to a haunted mining settlement, and the mystery that follows them back to camp. We spoke to Wang about the story, and the direction she approached everyone's favorite summer campers from.

From October 1950, when the very first installments of Peanuts was published, every single installment of the strip was drawn by Charles M. Schulz's own hand, and the only variations in the style of the characters' depictions came organically through the evolution of Schulz's own drawing style. Even when the characters have appeared outside their home strip, in various animated specials or in the Dell or Boom comic books, the animators and artists have closely aped Schulz's style. That's what makes Boom Studios' new Peanuts: A Tribute to Charles M. Schulz so compelling. It's difficult to imagine what any other artist's version of the iconic characters might look like, but this book is full of them, and being faced with these characters divorced from their creator's designs is fascinating and at times even disconcerting. It's hard to look at the realistic image of Charlie Brown by Ryan Sook on the cover of the book, staring into the eyes of the "real" Charlie Brown, and not be a little freaked out, isn't it?

Cake is a cat on a mission in these preview pages for Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake: Card Wars #4. Don't mistake that aggressive showering and aggressive cereal eating for signs that she's not a morning cat; Cake has a Card Wars Championship to win. If you've ever been in any kind of tournament, you may recognize Cake's mix of grim determination and heart-wrenching anxiety.

Jen Wang first came to the notice of many comics fans with her incredibly assured 2010 debut, Koko Be Good, a grounded but beautiful tale of young adulthood set in contemporary San Francisco. Her follow-up, In Real Life, presents a younger protagonist and a more fantastical setting -- albeit one that's meant to be an escape from "real life," and proves to be an extension of it. Based on Cory Doctorow's short story Anda's Game, In Real Life is the story of a young woman who learns about the world and herself through her interactions in the massive multiplayer online game Coarsegold Online. It's a story that showcases Wang's gift for emotional reality, and also to create the lavish fantasy of the game world. The result is one of the most resonant and compelling books of 2014. After speaking to Doctorow at New York Comic-Con, ComicsAlliance talked to Wang to learn what this story means to her.

In Real Life tells the story of Anda, a young girl who discovers that video games aren't always an escape from the problems of everyday life. Immersed in the fictional world of massive multiplayer roleplaying game Coarsegold Online, she learns that her life inside the game can influence and shape her life outside it, and vice versa. Published by First Second in October, In Real Life is adapted by Jen Wang from a 2004 short story by Cory Doctorow. ComicsAlliance recently sat down with Doctorow to discuss the feeling of seeing his work adapted to comic form, the ever-shrinking divide between virtual and real worlds, and the unconscious elements of design and storytelling.

Graphic Novelist Hope Larson, who was recently nominated for an Eisner for her 2012 adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, has made the leap to moving pictures. Her new eight-and-a-half-minute short film Bitter Orange, starring Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World's Brie Larson and The Venture Bros.' James Urbaniak, is now available to watch on Vimeo.

As the gender-swapped theme song says, "With Cake the Cat and Fionna the Human, the fun will never end," but come June, they will at least temporarily conclude as Adventure Time With Fionna and Cake #6 caps its miniseries run by Adventure Time animated series storyboard artist and character designer (and creator of Fionna and Cake herself) Natasha Allegri...

Meredith Gran will be joined by a quartet of killer cover artists next month as the new Adventure Time spinoff comic from Boom! Studios, Marceline and the Scream Queens, rocks on across the Land of Ooo and into comic shops. Today The Boom...

Adventure Time fans, prepare for a double dose of monthly comics. Joining Boom! Studios' regular monthly AT comic in July is an all-new spinoff series, Adventure Time: Marceline and the Scream Queens. Written and illustrated by Octopus Pie creator Meredith Gran, the new series will follow Marceline the Vampire Queen as she rocks the Land of Ooo with Princess Bubblegum...