Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: graphic novels, mg, middle grade, Parker James, StEvEn & Parker

Parker James' StEvEn & Parker Gets Middle-Grade Graphic Novels Deal

StEvEn & Parker, a series of animated shorts created by Parker James and broadcast on YouTube is to be a series of grapjhic novels.

StEvEn & Parker, a series of animated shorts created by Parker James and broadcast on YouTube with, at last count, 2.28 million subscribers, with Los Angeles-based animation studio Toonstar. StEvEn & Parker is about two brothers, the chaos-causing and dinosaur-loving StEvEn and his long-suffering older brother Parker.

Now Random House's Crown Books for Young Readers imprint has signed publish two middle grade graphic novels based on the show, with Phoebe Yeh, VP and editor-at-large at the publisher working with Parker's agent, Barbara Jones at Outshine Talent, and after she reached out to Mallory Loehr, senior VP and president of Random House Books for Young Readers. Yeh told Deadline, "I've been in the children's publishing business for more than thirty five years, and as soon as I encountered StEvEn and Parker, I was completely taken and knew in my gut that StEvEn and Parker should be children's book characters." The Random House deal was repped by Seth Fishman at The Gernert Company.

The first StEvEn & Parker graphic novel, out in the spring of 2026, will introduce the two brothers in the context of a trip to a state fair.

Yeh tells Publishers Weekly that this is a different style to other projects in that the entire Toonstar team, as well as James, is involved in the creation of the novels, with the typical back and forth to get the premise, manuscript, illustrations, and layout right, but the involvement of a team of creators rather than solo writers and artists really speeds things up, rare for graphic novels. "I've never worked this way. It's so much faster. They're super creative and they're not cutting corners, but they've figured out a way to do it so quickly."

And notably while the studios used AI to produce its animation quickly and at low cost, Yeh says that every aspect of the graphic novel is made by humans. They promise. Toonstar is repped by Untitled Entertainment.

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