Cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, creator of the popular satirical cartoon/comics strip Too Much Coffee Man, has signed a three-book deal with Boom! Studios and Boom! Town, its literary comics imprint. The first book to be released under the new deal, Grandpa Won’t Wake Up, an original graphic novel written by Simon Max Hill with art by Wheeler, will be released this fall.

In Spring 2012 Boom! Town will release a sequel to I Thought You Would Be Funnier, which will contain an all-new selection of Wheeler cartoons that have been rejected by the New Yorker magazine. Originally published last year, the first volume of I Thought You Would Be Funnier sold out its original print run and will be reissued in the fall of 2011 in a new hardcover edition. And finally, in the Winter of 2012, Boom! Town will publish, Too Much Coffee Man: Cutie Islands and Other Stories, a new collection of Wheeler’s TMCM cartoon series. Originally self-published by Wheeler in the early 1990s, TMCM has been published by Dark Horse since about 1994.

“There are few names in the indie comics scene bigger than Shannon Wheeler,” Boom! Studios’ editor-in-chief Matt Gagnon said. “We’re excited to have Shannon’s signature creation, Too Much Coffee Man, and his other projects join the Boom! Town line and we’ll be putting a lot of muscle into making these books something comics and humor fans will not want to miss.”

Boom! Studios marketing director Chip Mosher, said he’s known Wheeler since living next-door to him in Austin, Texas. “I’ve known Shannon for over 20 years and even helped him staple some of his first TMCM mini-comics. To be working with him again after all these years is truly an honor.” And Mosher said that Boom! Stuidos will have more information about the complete Boom! Town list, “We have a full line up set up for Fall 2011 and 2012 that we will be announcing over the next several months!”

Launched in 2010, Boom! Town is an imprint of Boom! Studios and specializes in literary-oriented independent comics. So far the imprint has released works by such stars of independent comics as Denis Kitchen (Denis Kitchen’s Chip Board Sketchbook), R. Crumb (Heroes of the Blues and Early Jazz Greats trading cards) and Harvey Kurtzman (The Gross Hopper and the Ant) among other creators.

Asked about the move to Boom! Studios, Wheeler was typically droll, “I'm so excited to have Boom! Town publish these books it's almost as if I've had too much coffee.”