Top Shelf Productions

Comic-Con International has announced the nominees for the 2022 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, and congratulations are in order for the creators of three outstanding graphic novels that showcase the breadth and richness of Top Shelf's 2021 lineup:

• The transatlantic team of Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia have received a record-breaking four Eisner Award nominations for their heart-wrenching tale of passions and pianos, Ballad for Sophie, in the categories of Best Graphic Album: New, Best U.S. Edition of International Material, Best Writer, and Best Painter/Multimedia Artist!
• The Science of Surfing: A Surfside Girls Guide to the Ocean, the newest adventure in Kim Dwinell's beloved Surfside Girls series, follows Sam and Jade as they discover the joys of ocean science and is nominated in the category of Best Publication for Kids (ages 9-12). Don't miss the chance to join the Surfside Girls before their live-action TV debut on Apple TV+, just announced for August 19th!
• Finally, French cartoonist Élodie Durand's critically acclaimed Parenthesis, which depicts with stunning power the subjective experience of living through a brain tumor, is nominated in the category Best Graphic Memoir.

Congratulations to these outstanding creators and all the nominees — we look forward to celebrating with you at San Diego Comic-Con in July!

Congratulations to Élodie Durand, whose heartfelt and harrowing graphic memoir Parenthesis has just been shortlisted for the inaugural Graphic Medicine Award from the Graphic Medicine International Collective.

This landmark story, exploring the subjective experience of living through a brain tumor, has already received many honors around the world, including the Revelation Prize, Liberation Readers’ Prize, and Poland Prize from the Angoulême International Comics Festival and inclusion in such lists as the American Library Association's Best Graphic Novels for Adults, FNAC’s Top 10 Graphic Novels About Illness, and JAMA's Top 2 Best Graphic Novels of 2021. Discover why the Guardian called it "extraordinary" and Publishers Weekly dubbed it "unforgettable" — and why Top Shelf is eager to bring you the next graphic novel from Élodie Durand next year!

A huge congratulations to Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia: their book Ballad for Sophie made the Top Ten of the American Library Association's 2021 Best Graphic Novels for Adults list! The list also features three other phenomenal Top Shelf titles: The Delicacy by James Albon, Parenthesis by Élodie Durand, and Under-Earth by Chris Gooch.

Rob Harrell's beloved book Monster on the Hill now gets the star treatment on Paramount+ as an original animated film! Launched on the streaming platform today, Rumble is set in a world where monster wrestling is a global sport and monsters are superstar athletes... but one monster needs a little bit of help to find his flow.

Top Shelf Productions and IDW Publishing are thrilled to see this underdog story reach Hollywood heights — bringing new readers to Rob's lively, tender, and hilarious graphic novel.

Perfect for monsters of every age, new and old fans will delight in the new 10-page epilogue in Monster on the Hill (Expanded Edition). Want to know how our melancholy monster Raymond went from zero to hero? Order from your local comic shop, IndieBound, Top Shelf, or wherever books are sold!

L-R: Miya Cech (Jade), Surfside Girls Book One, YaYa Gosselin (Sam), author Kim Dwinell

Top Shelf Productions and IDW Publishing are thrilled to announce that Kim Dwinell's Surfside Girls will stream as a 10-episode, live-action kids and family series on Apple TV+, starring Miya Cech as Jade and YaYa Gosselin as Sam.

Produced for Apple TV+ by Endeavor Content and IDW Entertainment, "Surfside Girls" will be written and executive produced by May Chan ("An American Girl Story: Ivy & Julie 1976," "Avatar: the Last Airbender"), who also serves as showrunner. Alex Diaz and Julie Sagalowsky Diaz ("The Shannara Chronicles," "What's Up Warthogs!") serve as writers and executive producers alongside Chan. America Young ("Roswell, New Mexico," "Legacies") will direct and executive produce the first two episodes. Paul Stupin and Lydia Antonini ("Locke & Key," "Halo Forward Unto Dawn," "October Faction") will also serve as executive producers on the series. Paul Davidson and Jeff Brustrom will serve as executive producers on behalf of IDW.

Check out the exclusive on Deadline to learn more.

Celebrate by picking up Kim's brand-new book, The Science of Surfing: A Surfside Girls Guide to the Ocean, hot off the press this week!