GU Comics Day: Signing Guinea Pigs (and Hamsters too)

by Erin Finnegan, NY editorial intern

On April 17th our new series, Guinea Pig: Pet Shop Detective had its first official book signing event at Books of Wonder, New York City’s oldest and largest independent children’s bookstore. Our author and artist team, Colleen AF Venable and Stephanie Yue, shared a panel with Art Spiegelman of all people, creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning and market-changing graphic novel Maus, as well as eight other comics creators including George O’Connor, Dean Haspiel, and Mike Cavallaro.

Books of Wonder is famous in New York for the dozens of events it hosts each year featuring local artists at its Chelsea location—and famous for the fabulous Cupcake Café, located right inside the shop and a million miles (figuratively) from Starbucks.

A lot of families were on hand to meet the the panel of comics artists and writers. It was awesome to see kids reading comics, but the large crowd made the artists and authors nervous. (Well, maybe Art Spiegelman wasn’t nervous.)

Colleen prepared a giant version of Guinea Pig #1: Hamster and Cheese to show off the first couple of pages. “When I get nervous, I do arts and crafts,” she explained before things got started.

The giant book worked; as soon as the crowd heard about Detective Sasspants and saw Stephanie‘s adorable art, they instantly turned into fans. The store sold out of the book immediately, and we sold all the copies we brought with us as well.