BOOM! Box Milestones For Giant Days And Lumberjanes

When BOOM! Studios launched the BOOM! Box imprint in December 2013 with The Midas Flesh, no one could have predicted how successful the line of comics would grow to become. From Lumberjanes to Giant Days, Goldie Vance to SLAM!, the imprint continues to attract new and lapsed readers.

In April, BOOM! Box’s two most popular titles, Lumberjanes and Giant Days, will each hit a milestone in their publishing history. For Lumberjanes, issue #37 kicks off the fourth year for the comic about the girls from Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's Camp for Hardcore Lady Types. For Giant Days, issue #25 signifies the start of the third year of the comic that follows three women who become best friends while away at university.

To mark these milestones, we talked to BOOM! Box founder and Lumberjanes co-creator/co-writer Shannon Watters and BOOM! Box editors Dafna Pleban and Jasmine Amiri about the impact of the line, its formula for success, and what to expect from new issues of Lumberjanes and Giant Days.

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PREVIEWSworld: It’s been over three years now since the BOOM! Box line was created. How do you think it has impacted the comic book industry?

Shannon Watters: The audience for these books has always been out there; it was just getting series out there that were directly made for that audience, and bringing them into comic book stores, which is always a challenge in a market that by its design is conservative. You cannot get a reader into a shop if you’re not making high-quality content specifically for them.

Dafna Pleban: I think we’ve been incredibly lucky. The direct market is always hungry for new content, but they got behind not only new material, but a new audience as well. I think we’ve been able to tap into — along with other companies like IDW and Oni — an audience that is eager to see themselves reflected in the books they love.

PREVIEWSworld: What do you think has been the formula for success for the BOOM! Box line?

Dafna Pleban: I think BOOM! Box taps into something comics has always done incredibly well, which is an artistic expression of enthusiasm. Working on comics is hard; you have to care deeply and want to share that with the world, and BOOM! Box embodies that. Every book is a culmination of talented people who want to share the thing they love with everyone else. It’s inclusive in the way enthusiasm inherently has to be.

Shannon Watters: I attempt to curate a line whose guiding principle is sincerity and an enthusiastic celebration thereof, and I’m very proud that its proven out in comic shops and bookstores. The readership is there for that kind of comic book.

PREVIEWSworld: Lumberjanes has sold over 800,000 copies to date. What does this tell you about the book, about the retailers who ordered them, or the fans who bought them?

Dafna Pleban: I think they recognized there was an audience out there hungry for something other than superheroes or sci-fi or crime, and helped get behind what BOOM! Box was trying to do in a significant, supportive way.

PREVIEWSworld: BOOM! Box is set to launch COADY AND THE CREEPIES and the recently announced MISFIT CITY. How do you choose new projects to publish?

Shannon Watters: BOOM! Box books should, above all, be gleeful expressions of highly specific experiences with universal appeal. I look for projects with a strong, fun, core and a cast of characters you actually want to spend time with every month. Also, that sincerity. It appeals to me.

PREVIEWSworld: What can we expect in the fourth year of LUMBERJANES?

Shannon Watters: We’re really looking forward to more deeply explore aspects of some characters we’ve alluded to in the past, as well as the relationships between our core group of characters. There’s a Parent’s Day arc that’s going to last most of the year, and it’s going to allude to some of the bigger picture that’s at stake for the Lumberjanes. There will also be some intense moments for some of the ‘Janes that don’t have the greatest relationship with their parents, which is something that we’ve been hinting at for a long time, and something that many queer kids will hopefully recognize and take comfort in.

PREVIEWSworld: What can we expect in the third year of GIANT DAYS?

Jasmine Amiri: Year three of Giant Days covers the middle portion of Susan, Esther, and Daisy's sophomore year of university. Secrets, rivalries, political drama, the world of MMORPG's — we even have a "spooky issue" in the works! They're out of the dorms and everyone's going to be growing up a little. In year three, we focus more on progressing character relationships and honing in on exploring their reactions to real-life situations, the end of childhood/beginning of adulthood, all while continuing to blend in the clever humor.