Onward to 2009

This will most likely be my last post of the first year I have blogged.

Thank you to those who come here regularly. I appreciate the support you've given. Professionally, 2008 was the year of Siegel and Shuster for me. I am determined to make 2009 the year of...

In the New Year, I will share more research discoveries, promotion gambles, and assorted other adventures in publishing.

The expedition is just beginning.

"Surprisingly poignant"

The San Francisco Chronicle included Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman on its list of book suggestions for the holidays.

School to store to fair to store

On Friday, December 12, I spoke to an energized auditorium of students at an elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia. I got up at 4:30 a.m. to get on the road and believe me, they kept me awake that afternoon.

The next day I signed copies of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman (and ate two pieces of cake for "Superman's birthday") at Hooray for Books, also in Alexandria.

photo courtesy of Michael Rhode

Events in out-of-town bookstores are often opportunities to catch up with people I have not seen for a while, this one being no exception: attendees included a friend I met in a high school youth group and who grew up in Belgium but lives here now, a friend I worked with in college, the friend who got me my first job out of college, and the woman who was once the girl I took to my senior prom.

In this case, I also had the chance to catch up with a person I have never seen—my second cousin (our grandfathers were brothers), who lived one town over from me growing up but whom I have never met. Family business can be funny business for sure.

Sunday I had back-to-back appearances back in Connecticut. First was at a school book fair, second at a Barnes & Noble.

From Superman to salesman.

North Carolinian exposure

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman made the best of 2008 list of the Chapel Hill Public Library.

Hometown advantage

On Friday, December 5, I was among distinguished company signing books at the 3rd annual Literary Lights book event, which happened to take place in my town. In its first two years, I attended as a customer. It was fun to also go as a participant (while remaining a customer). Then I grabbed a burger and beer with two of my fellow signers.

Photos are here.

"Moved me to tears...a huge achievement"

Robby Reed at DIAL B for BLOG posted what must be the most detailed and complimentary—not to mention longest—review yet for Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman.

The message board responses that have started to come in are equally disarming. Here's my favorite so far, from Happy Sam:

...the Man of Steel first appeared 70 years ago...and what did DC produce in 2008 to celebrate it? (cue crickets...) Marc Tyler Nobleman's BOYS OF STEEL (ably illustrated by Ross MacDonald) IS the best tribute to Superman and his creators...this year, and in many years!

"Word travels fast"

I just stumbled across this lovely and humbling comment at The Miss Rumphius Effect, the kind of little story an author would rarely hear before the blog era:

My boys love this book. It is always in someone's book bag. When I first got it, a couple of boys from downstairs came up to me and asked "Mr. Kimmal, can we read your new Superman book?" It had only been in the building for a day. Word travels fast.

Maybe faster than a...well, you know.

First day of filming

Today, to my own great surprise, we filmed the first interview. For what, I can't say yet. Here's a photo taken after:

Who she is, I can't say yet. By name, anyway. But she was Bill Finger's second wife.

(NOTE: I added her name as a label for this post not when it originally posted but later, after I had revealed it in another post.)

"Rousing...enormously appealing"

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer has finally acknowledged Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. I was never given a guarantee that it would but I did assume that if only one newspaper in the world would take notice, it would be that one, the daily of the city where the story took place. It's a nice review.

Today I also learned that the book did not make the holiday round-up in People, though they did consider it.

A best book of 2008

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman was included on the best books of 2008 list at a Washington State library system.

Three C's for "Steel"

On her School Library Journal blog, Betsy Bird called Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman "ultra-cool." (This on top of her kind official review from earlier this year.) Even though kids immediately recoil from anything adults call any kind of cool, I will gladly accept her compliment. (Besides, of course, kids are not reading her blog.)

Random House made flash cards to showcase recent picture book biographies, and Boys of Steel is included. I believe they send these to schools and maybe even bookstores.

Boys of Steel has been nominated for a Cybil. The Cybils are the "premier Web awards for children's literature," run by bloggers. In their third year, they are already established enough that publishers submit books for consideration. A lot of books in my category (nonfiction picture books) got nominations, which makes me struggle to think of a nonfiction picture book released this year that was not nominated...but it nonetheless is an honor to be nominated! If even a fraction of the number of books were nominated, it'd still be stiff competition, so I am eager to see what happens. (I don't yet know how the process works or precisely what it means.)

Perhaps the nation

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman was named to the Kirkus Reviews list of the Best Children's Books of 2008. It's on page 12 of this PDF. [5/18/11 update: This link is now inactive. I am waiting to hear if the list has been posted elsewhere since a quick search didn't reveal it.]

The write-up describes the book as celebrating "the birth of an American icon that reinvented the comic book and, perhaps, the nation itself."

Photos from a mini-book tour

Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, 10/26/08

Top billing: baked goods. Technically, unbaked goods.

Sequoia Middle School, Pleasant Hill, CA 10/28/08

Sequoia interior photos courtesy of Nancy Brenner

Bancroft Elementary, Walnut Creek, CA, 10/30/08—no baked goods!

books to sign

Mazza Museum of International Art from Picture Books, Findlay, OH,
"Funday Sunday" (event held every first Sunday of the month);
Superman theme, 11/2/08;
volunteers wore homemade Superman outfits, author did not

Kids (and adults) "signed in" on a window on a Metropolis cityscape drawing.

I did not drink this.

Superman and Lois Lane

Clark Kent and (another) Lois Lane

This actually gives me a better hairline.

Kids could design their own blue, red, and yellow cookies.

certain Mazza photos courtesy of Diana E. Hoffman

The Cleveland Public Library made a spiffy handbill for my two 11/6/08 talks there.

Flying Colors

When in San Francisco, I stopped by Flying Colors, a comics shop that I'd heard is particularly savvy about marketing. Everyone there was more than nice, and Joe, the owner, was easy to talk to. They have a blog, too, and since you know how much I like proof, here is proof I was there.

Siegel, Shuster, and Obama

On Thursday, November 6, something happened in a small room at the Cleveland Public Library, Glenville branch, that made me even more excited about politics than I already was last week. Except it wasn't really about politics at all.

Glenville is the neighborhood where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster lived when they created Superman in 1934. At the time, it was predominantly Jewish. Today it is predominantly black and poor.

Earlier that day I had spoken at the main branch, downtown. The audience was mostly young black people. I was expecting the same in Glenville. Instead I was ushered into a room where about 35 or 40 members of the adult community leadership organization were finishing up a meeting. They, too, were almost all black. Some of them were holding Obama signs—two days after the election. The purpose of the signs had switched from tool of persuasion to badge of honor.

I gave my presentation, hoping they would feel pride for the seminal event that had occurred in their neighborhood. They did seem moved by the story, which some had not known before.

Then my friend Tracey Kirksey, head of the Glenville Development Corp. and almost certainly one of the ten kindest people in the world, asked if she could say something. I said of course.

She proceeded to emphasize how Jerry and Joe were underdogs who had a vision and worked hard to see it come to pass. In succeeding, they bucked the odds and made history. Then she unexpectedly compared them to Barack Obama in spontaneous words so eloquent that I wish I had recorded them. The essence was that she felt she could tell her children that they could be president one day—only now, she finally fully believed it to be true. The others, of course, reacted with jubilation.

Of all the Boys of Steel experiences I've had since the book came out, this was by far the most profound. I felt so lucky to be in Ohio, in Glenville, for that moment.

Ping-Ponging around Ohio

After five days in California, I flew to Ohio on Halloween morning. This is the state where Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman took place. Highlights so far:

- The Buckeye Book Fair in Wooster on 11/1 was an exceptionally well-run event. Patient and efficient organizers, brisk attendance, even great signage. I sold more copies there than at any other single-day event I've been to so far.

- For months, other writers have told me to expect enthusiasm of a higher level when I appeared at the Mazza Museum of picture book art in Findlay. Despite that, I was still not prepared for what greeted me there when I came to speak and sign on 11/2. I will be posting photos and a rundown next week once I'm home (and reunited with my camera cable).

- On Monday, 11/3, I had my first school visits in Cleveland, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they were all in Glenville, the neighborhood where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster lived when they created Superman. In fact, the host school (two other schools came there for the presentations) runs along Parkwood Avenue, the street Jerry ran down to Joe's apartment in 1934 to share the fanciful idea he'd had the night before. It was so meaningful to me to share the story with these kids. I wish I knew how they processed it. I wanted to know if it meant something to them to learn that they live where America's most iconic fictional character was born.

After, I had the pleasure of meeting the head of the Glenville Development Corp., the tireless Tracey Kirksey, who has done so much for the community and has been a great ear for me this past year as I've pitched her various ideas to assist the Siegel and Shuster Committee in revitalizing the neighborhood and boosting its Superman heritage. She gave me a slate tile from the roof of Jerry's former home, which has been redone thanks to Brad Meltzer's successful fundraising campaign. This tile dates back to the beginning of the house, so it was over Jerry's head the night he conceived Superman.

- On 11/4, I enjoyed being in a swing state on a presidential election day. There's a different energy here than what I'm used to in Connecticut, which of course has not been a swing state as long as I've been voting, if ever. Another first for me today was speaking at a hospital (the Cleveland Clinic) to children in the pediatric ward. This is the only time I have gone into a presentation hoping for a small audience. The kids and their accompanying parents or caretakers were engaged and seemingly wowed to learn that Superman comes from their hometown. I even broke my own rule and drew someone else's character for them.

Guess who.

Say my name

I was asked to add my voice to a site that offers "the first-ever online audio collection of illustrators and authors pronouncing their names." I will have to call a number and introduce myself. They record and post it.

I can't imagine that there was a demand for this but I am happy to join the chorus...

11/25/08 addendum: Here it is. You'll hear that they also ask us to include a little story about our name.

California and Ohio

No, not battleground states...okay, well, one is, but...still no.

From October 26 to November 10, I will be talking...a lot. First I'm appearing at various venues in the San Francisco area, then from Halloween on, I'll be bouncing around Ohio. Please check my list of appearances to the right and if one happens to be near you, come see me.

800 books, 800 volunteers

On October 23, I had the privilege of participating in a special program that shows how nurturing a school district can be. It's called, simply, Read Aloud, and this year's was the 23rd annual. The event takes place in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a city with a significant population of low income families.

A group called School Volunteer Association organizes Read Aloud. Each year, they review dozens of picture books, choose one title for each elementary grade, and buy a copy for every classroom of that grade. This year, they chose Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman for sixth grade, meaning they bought about 70 copies for the about 70 sixth grade classes in the city.

The SVA's generosity doesn't end there and the generosity in general doesn't end with the SVA. With tremendous effort, they recruit a volunteer for every classroom in the city and each volunteer reads a book to a class on the same day. That is 800 volunteers, and yesterday, every single one showed up for duty. I met lawyers, doctors, even a delightful retired commercial airline pilot. Two of the volunteers were the authors of the books they read, and one of those authors was me.

My class at Columbus Elementary was engaged and curious, and I learned afterward that their teacher, Steve Taylor, is up for Teacher of the Year. I am not surprised based on how he welcomed me and interacted with his students. Without knowing the competition, I think he's going to clinch it.

At the lunch that followed, I learned something helpful. The committee members said they chose my book unanimously, which is an honor indeed. However, they also said that it is extremely hard to find a suitable picture book for sixth graders—especially one that appeals to boys. (And yes, that age does still like to be read to.) So though I was the unanimous pick, it doesn't seem I had competition as tough as Mr. Taylor probably does!

This is helpful because I've found the idea of picture books for older readers is still met with mixed reaction from editors, even though it's not a new concept. Hearing that there is a need for books like this is ammo for me as I pitch new projects, many of which are picture books for older readers. I have seen or heard of a section for this category in more than one library, but I suspect there is still some market resistance to it. I believe one solution to that is choosing subjects that appeal to older older readers—adults. I consider Boys of Steel a crossover book and I wrote all my subsequent nonfiction picture book manuscripts with the same intent.

To the 799 other volunteers yesterday, see you next year.

A "Boys of Steel" first

In Missouri, a new library recently opened, and the first book donated was Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman:

David Easter had a surprise he had been saving for more than a month.

“I gave them their first new book in the new library,” he said.

Easter, who owns Not Just Comix, gave the library a children’s book, "Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman” by Marc Tyler. The book tells how the comic book character was created and includes the latest legal struggle over the character’s ownership.

I just hope they don't "alpha by author" it under "T."

Late-night radio interview

This past Friday night, while you were out partying, I was giving a live, thirty-minute interview about Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman for a New York radio show called Destinies. It didn't start that late, but I sure sound tired...

Click here and scroll down to the book cover.

"Impressive, thorough, highly readable"

Earlier this year, the Junior Library Guild chose Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman as one of their titles; now they have reviewed it. They charge to access their reviews online so I hope you'll take my word for it that the following excerpts are from the their October/November print catalog:

"...fast-paced, exciting, and carefully researched..."

"...impressive, thorough, and highly readable afterword..."

"This fine book is a must-read..."

Also, a librarian with pink hair wrote that the book got her "all choked up."

Goodbye, Columbus

Thank you to all at the Mid-Ohio Con this past weekend who bought Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, and thank you again to Gary, Jeff, and Lloyd of Laughing Ogre Comics for partnering with me at the last minute to offer it. More copies sold at this show than at the biggest one, Comic-Con International.

Thank you also to James Henry for bringing me in to speak and sign.

A few notes from this first comic book convention I have appeared at:

- Wearing a button-down shirt probably made me look like the stiffest person there. However, I refuse to wear a T-shirt picturing a cartoon character—yes, even Superman.
- I may know a lot about Siegel and Shuster, but (to the disappointment of some) I know comparatively little about other aspects of Superman. (Sorry, but no idea who wrote Action Comics #729 or how many kinds of Kryptonite exist. My research has its limits.)
- An apple is a more energizing afternoon snack than a cookie, and actually less sticky.
- There are people who have not heard of you or won't buy your book yet still want your signature.
- Superman home state pride: more than I expected, far, far less than for Ohio State.

How you found me: part 1

Lots of click-throughs to this blog result from straightforward searches including "Jerry Siegel," "Joe Shuster," and "Bill Finger."

Here are some of the more fun (or downright bizarre) search phrases—all verbatim—that have led people here:

• superman dog capes
• superman vs. nazis
• marc tyler nobelman
• mark tyler nobleman
• marc tyler wooster
• five letter word that means noblemen
• send multiple noblemen
• how many people normally live in the nobleman's house
• what is the correct spelling of superman
• what is the correct spelling of celebration
• double S superman tattoo
• superman emblems for letters other than s
• why was super man created and why
• fun biography
• three biographies by any children's author or any other people
• picture story book on healthy lifestyle
• companies that give away free books as promotions
• book about the people who sell books on 6th avenue nyc
• all of world war two costumes for boys
• wife of william ross beachwood ohio
• broke her foot

Con one, Con all

I will be signing copies of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman and giving a presentation at the Mid-Ohio Con in Columbus on October 4 and 5. I think this is the largest comic convention in Ohio. Thank you to Gary Dills at Phoenix Comics and Toys for partnering with me on short notice.

In the past ten days or so, I have also been invited to speak at a young authors conference in May 2009, a symposium (my first—what exactly is a symposium?) in don't-know-yet, and a chamber of commerce event in August 2009—all in Ohio. Plus in early November (this year), I'm spending ten days leapfrogging between Cleveland, Wooster, and Findlay (all Ohio).

I'm all for maximizing the Superman/Ohio connection, but at the same time, is anyone looking for a speaker in a state I have not been to?