Top Shelf Productions

Top Shelf Productions is thrilled to announce that our whimsical and handsomely crafted graphic novels have received a combined FOUR nominations for the 2021 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.

We've completely fallen in love with the sprawling musical epic that is Filipe Melo & Juan Cavia's graphic novel Ballad for Sophie.
Now you can see and hear it come to life, read a gripping preview excerpt, and pre-order for its September release!

When a young journalist prompts a reclusive musical superstar to finally break his silence, he pours out an astonishing saga of rivalry and regret, starring child prodigies and bitter old men, beautiful dancers and demonic managers, Nazi commandants, compassionate nuns, and lifesaving animals.

Ballad for Sophie is a sweeping tale that spans the twentieth century, packed with all the drama of a rock & roll biopic and more twists than a night at the opera. Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia have composed a stunning graphic symphony exploring a lifetime of ambition, betrayal, compassion, anguish, long-buried secrets, and flying pianos.

Hannah Templer's epic lesbian-gladiators-in-space adventure, Cosmoknights, has been one of our biggest hits of recent years... so we're thrilled that the story is finally about to continue! Like the first volume, Book Two will be serialized as a webcomic on cosmoknights.space — starting in just a couple weeks! The collected graphic novel will be published next year, so stay tuned for more details and pre-order options as we get closer.

And if you're new to the Cosmoknights story, there's no better time to dive in! Check out the webcomic and/or pick up Book One from your favorite shop today.

While the publishing industry tries to categorize books intro strict pigeonholes by age group... there's something about graphic novels that often breaks these barriers. Our next book is a perfect example.

Better Place is about a boy who's not sure he's ready to grow up, but it's a heartfelt and powerful graphic novel that readers of all kinds will be moved by. Crafted with layers of emotion and sympathetic characters, including some childlike adults and some awfully mature kids, this book is a celebration of vintage comic-book imagination, a harsh dose of reality crashing against that fantasy, and a roadmap to reconnecting with the things that really matter.

Our marketing director Leigh Walton got dressed up and invited an international assortment of our outstanding 2021 authors to celebrate WonderCon@Home with a fun and freewheeling conversation about their new books — some hot off the presses, and some coming soon! Also discussed: their favorite pages, cool handicrafts by fans, why villains are more fun, why comics make you hungry, and why we haven't gone completely crazy during the pandemic.

Click here to hear from James Albon (The Delicacy, coming in June), James Kochalka (Johnny Boo and the Silly Blizzard, out now), Kim Dwinell (The Science of Surfing: A Surfside Girls Guide to the Ocean, coming in July), Edgar Camacho (Onion Skin, coming in May), and Christian Slade (Korgi Book 5: End of Seasons, coming in just a few days)!