Posted in: Comics | Tagged: mel gillman, mg, nb, Random House, Reclusivia, rhg
Mel Gillman's Reclusivia, a Horror MG NB OGN From Random House
Melanie Gillman's Reclusivia is a Horror Middle-Grade Non-Binary Original Graphic Novel from Random House Graphic for 2025.
Reclusivia by Mel Gillman, a contemporary horror middle-grade graphic novel about a nonbinary kid going to an art residency to focus on photography. "The summer program takes a turn for the strange and haunted when it turns out that the community, and the people who run it, have a dark secret". Gillman tweeted the news, saying "News is finally out!! I'm working on a new KID'S HORROR GRAPHIC NOVEL with @RHKidsGraphic and it's gonna be a doozy!! All you spooksters better mark yr calendars for 2025, I've been penciling this book in secret in the dead of night for a while now, and am having an absolute blast. The announcement being out means I can finally start sharing some sneak peeks, muahahaha,"
Whitney Leopard at RH Graphic has bought world rights to Reclusivia, to be published in the summer of 2025. Melanie Gillman's agent, Jen Linnan at Linnan Literary Management sold world rights.
Mel Gillman of Tulsa, Oklahoma received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Master of Fine Arts from the Center for Cartoon Studies. Well known as the writer of the Steven Universe comic book for Boom Studios, as well as Care Bears for Oni Press, they have a rich comic book history. They are the creator of the webcomic As the Crow Flies, about a 13-year-old African American queer girl who finds herself at an all-white Christian backpacking camp. As the Crow Flies received the Stonewall Book Award Honor in 2018, was Eisner nominated, and awarded a gold medal by The Society of Illustrators. Gillman began teaching Professional Practices at the California College of the Arts in 2015, later appointed Senior Lecturer in Comics, they teach courses at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and the Art Students' League of Denver, and have been a writing fellow with the Tulsa Artist Fellowship program since 2017. Gillman's first graphic novel Smbitten – about lesbians, swing-dancing, fancy hats, and vampires – was produced as part of their Masters thesis at the Center for Cartoon Studies. They were co-editor with Kori Michele Handwerker and a contributor to The Other Side, an anthology of 19 queer paranormal romance comics published in 2016.
Random House Graphic, part of Penguin, is an imprint dedicated to publishing graphic novels for kids and teens of every age and interest, fiction and nonfiction, and launched its first list in Spring 2020, young chapter books to YA, reflecting the rapidly growing popularity of the format among young readers. Whitney Leopard is the Publishing Director of Random House Graphic. The expansion of children's graphic novels is fuelling all manner of publishers extending into the comics medium.