Coming April 1st, 2025, Raina Telgemeier and I are proud to finally release our new middle-grade graphic novel from Scholastic: The Cartoonists Club!

Makayla is bursting with ideas but doesn’t know how to make them into a story. Howard loves to draw, but he struggles to come up with ideas and his dad thinks comics are a waste of time. Lynda constantly draws in her sketchbook but keeps focusing on what she feels are mistakes, and Art simply loves being creative and is excited to try something new. They come together to form The Cartoonists Club, where kids can learn about making comics and use their creativity and imagination for their own storytelling adventures!

The project was born years ago, when Raina, myself, and my family were at a Scholastic party at Comic-Con in San Diego, and Raina casually suggested that she and I team up someday to create a sort of Understanding Comics for kids. My family was, like, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and a few years later we all decided to make it a reality.

Raina and I collaborated closely on the book, tossing ideas, sketches, and whole sequences back and forth until it was hard to tell which parts came from which cartoonist—a true collaboration. Once the script and layout were finished (after three intense drafts), Raina penciled the kids and their “real life” interactions and I drew all of the artwork that the kids themselves created. Then it was inked by Ray Baehr and colored by Beniam C. Hollman.

The Cartoonists Club does indeed have sequences reminiscent of my books like Understanding Comics and Making Comics, but in the end, it was the stories of the kids themselves that we fell in love with. It truly is a story about friendship, and about why we cartoonists do what we do. A real love letter to the joys of making stories and art.

And naturally, Raina and I will be going on tour for the book starting in April! Kick-off events at right. (And YES, we’ll be hitting other cities in time; we’ll keep you posted.)

See you soon!