Posted in: Comics | Tagged: colleen doran, generation wonder, Paul Levitz

Paul Levitz Writes His First Prose For Generation Wonder YA Anthology

Former DC Comics President and Publisher and Legion of Super-Heroes writer Paul Levitz is a contributor to the upcoming anthology Generation Wonder: The New Age of Heroes. His story, "Bumped!", marks Levitz's very first prose fiction. Each story, and the cover, will have an illustration by Colleen Doran and will attempt to turn superhero tropes on their head. I asked Levitz what trope his story would be subverting and he told me "I guess you could look at it as a twist on the super-soldier trope. And to keep my old Legion fans interested it takes a look at a future—though a much less pleasant one. It was fun and challenging to try using a different set of writing muscles."

A high-flying YA anthology featuring 13 short stories that turn superhero tropes on their head and offer fresh perspectives on modern mythsTriumph. Tragedy. The empyreal. The infernal. Even the mundane, filtered through the fantastical. Superheroes are, appropriately enough, a sort of super-genre, encompassing all other story types.

This YA anthology features 13 short stories that creatively turn superhero tropes on their head, while still paying homage to the genre that has found fans for more than eight decades. And there will be no mistake—superheroes don't have to just be generic handsome white dudes. Everyone in the world, no matter their race, sexual preference, pronouns, or level of ability, has dreamed of flying.

Contributors include six New York Times bestselling authors, seven multiple award winners, a founder of We Need Diverse Books, and at least one author with millions of books in print in the U.S. alone. The collection is edited by New York Times bestselling author Barry Lyga, and it also features illustrations from Colleen Doran—New York Times bestselling cartoonist, and artist of the legendary Stan Lee's memoir. The full list of contributors includes: Barry Lyga, Paul Levitz, Sarah MacLean, Lamar Giles, Elizabeth Eulberg, Danielle Paige, Varian Johnson, Joseph Bruchac, Morgan Baden, Matthew Phillion, Anna-Marie McLemore, Sterling Gates, and Axie Oh.

"After five hundred comic book stories, I finally tried my hand at prose at Barry's invite," said Levitz. "It's a whole different way of depicting the future, and I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it."

"I wanted an anthology with a diverse range of subject matter and perspectives," said Lyga. "I also wanted people who had never written prose before but had serious super-hero bonafides. Paul fit the bill magnificently."

"I enjoyed doing the illustrations for these stories which were delightful to read, and had a wide variety of viewpoints and ideas," said Doran. "It's always a lot of fun to design superhero costumes and I liked getting the chance to work outside the normal superhero image tropes, and to present characters that many kinds of kids can relate to. I drew the art in pen and ink, but did the tones on computer which is something I don't get to do very often, and I love the richness of it."

Generation Wonder: The New Age of Heroes will be published by Abrams on the 14th of June, 2022.

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