Papercutz, a tween-focused graphic novel publisher, seems to have caught lightning in a bottle as demand for its zombie parody of Jeff Kinney’s bestselling children’s book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, is sending the publisher back for a second and third printing. The title has sold about 30,000 copies since early November.
Papercutz publisher Terry Nantier, who published the graphic novel anthology, Tales From the Crypt Vol. 8: Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid, this month, confirmed that the four-story Tales From the Crypt collection, which features the zombie parody Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid, has gone back for a second printing. The first print run was 15,000. The second was bumped to 25,000 and Nantier said he’s ordering a third printing of about 5,000 copies, even before the second printing arrives. “The hardcover is really taking off on Amazon,” he said somewhat surprised, “even though it was really only for libraries.” The title has sold about 10,000 hardcover copies out of the 30,000 copies sold so far.
Nantier, who founded Papercutz in 2005 to target the 8-14 market, called the response “a very nice surprise” although he was quick to point out that it’s not the only popular title in the Papercutz lineup. He also cited their successful licensing of Italian children’s book character Geronimo Stilton, starring a globe-trotting investigative reporter mouse. The series was launched in August and sold out its printing of approximately 50,000. But the Crypt anthology is outstripping sales of previous installments of the series.
Papercutz editor-in-chief Jim Salicrup, a veteran comic book editor, said that that the timing of the parody—the series was released shortly after Halloween—was perfect. He also credits the success of the series to the eternal appeal of skewering hot trends with parodies. “When something becomes so popular, there’s always a bunch of other people who want to make fun of it.”
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a hybrid work combining comics and prose, was created by Jeff Kinney and follows the misadventures of middle school student Greg Heffley; it debuted in 2004 as a Web comic. It migrated to book form in 2007 (published by Abrams) and has become not only a wildly popular series for kids but a publishing phenomenon, with four books in the series and millions of copies in print.
Demand for Papercutz’s Stinky Dead Kid parody had a chance to build over the summer when the character was introduced at a number of comics conventions. The Tales of the Crypt anthology has two offerings featuring the zombie character as well as two other tales, one focused on a werewolf and the other on a vampire. Glugg, the hero of Stinky Dead Kid, is a tween-age kid who comes back from the dead. One of the stories in the collection recounts Glugg’s journey to zombie-hood. The second story, which takes aim at the popular game Guitar Hero, features Glugg battling a demonic guitar. Both are written by Stefan Petrucha. A third story is a take-off on the Twilight series, titled “DieLite,” for which Petrucha shares writing credit with his teen daughter Maia Kinney-Petrucha; and the work is painted by Miran Kim.
This is the eighth installment of the Tales From the Crypt anthology which Papercutz reintroduced in 2007 after licensing the rights. The comic book title, which was originally published by classic 1950s comics publisher EC Comics, went defunct decades ago when the title fell afoul of the controversial Comics Code Authority during the anti-comics hysteria of the late 1950s. Papercutz added the license to a popular lineup that includes the updated versions of classic teen adventure series Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. Papercutz also publishes a revived Classics Illustrated comics series which offers such literary classics as Hamlet, Through the Looking-Glass and The Scarlet Letter adapted into the comics medium.
Salicrup admitted that the Tales series did not have an easy ride initially. A fan of the original 1950s horror series, Salicrup said he wanted to keep the spirit of the original but eventually realized that the first covers were a problem. Although designed to appeal to a new generation of kids, the covers hewed so closely to the original 1950s look that many older fans thought the new series was a reprint of the original. So Salicrup made adjustments. The cover of the digest-sized eighth volume features a Wimpy Kid-inspired drawing by illustrator Rick Parker of the decaying undead Glugg accompanied by a consumer-friendly label marked “parody” in the upper left-hand corner. With those changes, “suddenly people were getting it right away,” Salicrup said.
Much like the original series, the modern version of Tales is solely aimed at the pre-teen set with terror levels to match. Rather than compete with Hollywood on the gore factor, Salicrup said the tone of the new Tales is “more gross and disgusting in a dumb kid way.” And if there are any serious messages found in the stories, he added with a laugh, it’s entirely by accident.
