Stephenie Meyer's 'Female Force' is a must for fans

"Female Force: Stephenie Meyer" is a light read and not overly complex; ironically, the same desciption often used by critics of the author's work.

Meyer has written a series of books referred to as "The Twilight Saga." You may have heard of it. The second film adaptation of her work hit theaters a couple weeks ago. You may have heard about that as well.

In all seriousness, this latest bio comic by Bluewater - of arguably the hottest author this side of J.K. Rowling - is a must-have for fans and should even intrigue non-fans.

Readers get to see that Meyer went from someone who didn't even own a car to enormous success by forging her own path and following the road not taken (an attitude that makes Forks, the name of the locale where her saga takes place all the more appropriate).

Whether it was not being afraid to be smart in school, taking a chance on using that intelligence as an English major rather than other professions deemed more respectable and lucrative or having "Twilight" rejected or ignored 14 times before she sold it, it is clear Meyer's tale should inspire everyone to never give up on their dreams.

In fact, we find out in these pages that Meyer was inspired to write "Twilight" by a literal dream that woke her up one night. Tasty tidbits like this, how she got the unique spelling of her name and why she chose Forks as the setting for her tales will be like manna for rabid fans.

The bio comes in regular comic form and in graphic novel form, which includes more pages and includes a neat history of the real town of Forks and some photos that make it obvious how much the town holds Meyer in esteem.

* According to Bluewater Publisher Darren Davis, both editions of "Female Force: Stephenie Meyer" are flying off shelves faster than he can print more.

"We have been swamped with this book! It is insane!" said Davis, who told Comics Guy that the Graphic Novel version has already sold 12,000 copies, making it the top-selling graphic novel for November and justifying a second printing. The regular comic book version has sold more than 9,000 copies, including special exclusive editions with forks. (See www.bluewater.prod) for more information on those.)

With Meyer's popularity, Davis sees the bio as a tremendous opportunity to get young girls and teens into comic stores - and he has made sure the book is available for those who don't have a comic shop nearby.

"[Fans] can get the book on Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble and even Joann's Fabrics," David said. "We have made it easy for people to get. Any bookstore in the country should be able to order it."

Davis had one last piece of advice for comic shops and bookstores regarding Bluewater's bio.

"Make people aware of it," he said. "Put it next to the 'Twilight' stuff. We got the books out a couple weeks before the new movie hit.

"We also did a ton of press to support the comic shops and bookstores and will continue to do a bunch more!"

Zenescope on cancelations

Zenescope, the Fort Washington-based publisher best known for its extremely popular horror titles like "Grimm Fairy Tales" recently announced plans for no fewer than six new books to launch in early 2010. While these releases indicate a shift by the company toward more sci-fi titles (more on that next week), one question on a lot of fans' minds is whether these books will come out in a timely manner and wonder if they invest time and money into them, they will get to see how the titles' respective stories end.

This comes in the wake of what has been a brutal 2009 for new titles at the publisher. Miniseries like the critically acclaimed "Straw Men" and one starring Dr. Herbert West have yet to finish and fans have not seen a new issue in over a year for either. Additionally, a title starring Sinbad was put on hiatus - while "No Quarter" and "The Living Corpse" ceased publication under their banner after disagreements with the creators of those properties.

"Sometimes canceling books that don't sell well is just a necessity as a publisher," Zenescope Vice-President Ralph Tedesco told Comics Guy. "It's not dissimilar to a network canceling a show mid-season because ratings are low. Publishing comics and graphic novels isn't cheap unfortunately - so as a company we need to hit a certain number of sales on a book or we're just losing too much money on it. Needless to say, you can't do that very long and keep the lights on. So even when books like 'Straw Men' get great reviews . . . it doesn't always translate into sales."

"All that being said, we try never to outright cancel a series. Sometimes we do delay it for months and try to resolicit the material through Diamond - our distributor - hoping to get a bump in numbers, or we try to wait a bit so we can afford to put money into finishing a miniseries even if we know we might not recoup. The books starring Herbert West and Sinbad both will continue at some point in time and 'Straw Men' should as well."

Will Crossgen come back?

With Disney's acquisition of Marvel, speculation is rampant that the Mouse House will finally utilize the memorable characters it scooped up when CrossGen Comics went bankrupt earlier this decade.

"I would guess that, at least at face value, Disney acquiring Marvel gives the CrossGen properties a little better chance of seeing the light of day again," said "Witchblade" writer Ron Marz, who created several concepts for the company. "How much of a chance, though, I really don't know. Disney acquired CrossGen mainly for "Abadazad" (a tale of a teenage girl journeying through a magical land to find her younger brother), so everything else was a bit of an afterthought."

"From what I heard through the grapevine, Disney never quite knew what it had in most of the CrossGen stuff or what to do with it," Marz continued. "Disney didn't [have its own comic publishing operation] until the Marvel deal. Now there's at least a conduit if Disney decides it wants to do something. But I've heard nothing concrete and I haven't been contacted."

Next week, Comics Guy reveals which former CrossGen properties are most likely to make the leap to film.

Quote of the week

"I did an interview with NPR yesterday. Nice lady, knew nothing about comics. I didn't know there WERE still people like that."

- Gail Simone (twittering)@Gail Simone.

Hey, Gail! That's why you should talk to Comics Guy more often!

E-mail comicsguy@phillynews.com