Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Agent, dial, Fouad Mezher, graphic novel, marketplace, ogn

Post-Pandemic Beirut In Fouad Mezher's New YA Graphic Novel, Suraya

Published Fri, 27 Nov 2020 13:00:34 -0600

Last updated Sat, 30 Jan 2021 17:28:36 -0600

Lebanese comics artist and teacher Fouad Mezher has a new debut YA graphic novel, Suraya, for publication in 2024 from Dana Chidiac at Dial, acquired at auction, Suraya is set in post-pandemic Beirut, with a 16-year-old physics prodigy and YouTube star dreaming of becoming a rocket scientist, only for her dreams to be interrupted when one of her experiments goes terribly and publicly wrong.

A horror fan, Fouad Mezher's work recently appeared in the Ghost Stories of An Antiquary graphic anthology. You can see more of his work on his website, such as the image below – he has quite an eclectic series of styles.

Post-Pandemic Beirut In Fouad Mezher's New YA Graphic Novel, Suraya

Dial is an imprint owned by Penguin Books USA (but then again, isn't everyone these days?) and which publishes books for children young and old. Established in 1961, Dial Books for Young Readers was an early pioneer of titles for the very young, including the first quality board books published in the U.S., Rosemary Wells' Very First Books line, and some of the first wordless picture books, Mercer Mayer's A Boy, A Dog, and a Frog titles. More recently they have published the likes of New York Times Bestsellers Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri, The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak, the Ladybug Girl series by David Soman and Jacky Davis, the Skippyjon Jones books by Judy Schachner, and the Ordinary People Change the World series by familiar direct market comic book names Brad Meltzer and Christopher Eliopoulos. Bleeding Cool recently highlighted Fernanda Frick's new graphic novel from Dial, formerly a greenlit-then-rejected Netflix cartoon, Raise The Bar.

Anjali Singh at Ayesha Pande Literary, is a New York-based boutique literary agency with a small and eclectic roster of clients, was Fouad Mezher's agent for North American rights.

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