• Meet the Imprint

Meet the Imprint: Random House Graphic Novels | January 15, 2019

By Molly LoRe (Random House Children’s Books)

Origin Story

Looking at the rapid expansion of the graphic novel market in areas as diverse as contemporary middle grade, fantasy and non-fiction, Random House Children’s Books decided to establish their own dedicated graphic novel imprint. Random House Graphic Novels was founded in 2018 when Random House Children’s brought on Gina Gagliano to lead the imprint. Gina, who had previously worked at First Second, Macmillan’s graphic novel imprint, believes strongly in graphic novel imprint publishing strategy. She is in the process of building a team of dedicated experts in graphic novel editorial, design, marketing and publicity who will have one foot in the traditional publishing world and the other in the comic/pop culture industry.  This dual knowledge, Gina believes, will help Random House Graphic Novels publish a strong graphic novel program from the very beginning. 

Building an Imprint from Scratch

Starting an imprint has been an enjoyable process for Gina. She enjoys switching between the “wildly creative” aspects of establishing a completely new identity for the imprint and the “charts and graphs” that will ensure newly acquired graphic novels make it to the printer and eventually to bookshelves.

The Editorial Vision

Random House Graphic Novels intentionally has a very broad vision for what it hopes to publish. In Gina’s words, “Comics are good at doing just about everything. They are good at doing fiction, they are good at doing non-fiction, they are good at doing mysteries, memoir, history etc. I believe there is a perfect graphic novel for every kind of reader and I really want to be embracing that with Random House Graphic Novels.” Now that graphic novels are less confined than ever to specific genres, Gina is excited to expand graphic novel publishing to topics that have never been brought to readers in graphic novel form.

Final thoughts

With the changing landscape of graphic novels, Gina hopes that more people than ever will come to the format. If readers of this interview have never tried a graphic novel, she invites you to pick up one today!