• Summer Middle Grade Reads • Anticipated 2020 Reads • First Graphic Novels
• New Heroes • Origin Stories • Empowering Stories • Books for Art Lovers
• Books for Reluctant or Struggling Readers
• Girl Power • Diversity • Non Traditional families • Foster Care
• Friendship & Teamwork • Coming of Age • Self-Discovery • Bravery • Trust
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Celebrated television writers Jennifer Muro (Netflix’s The Last Kids on Earth) and Thomas Krajewski (Netflix’s Buddy Thunderstruck) share a canvas with esteemed artist Gretel Lusky to paint Primer, a vibrant original graphic novel, featuring a colorful new superhero. Primer marks the graphic novel debut for Muro, Krajewski, and Lusky.Perfect for middle grade readers ages 8-12, this original graphic novel sketches a portrait of Ashley Rayburn, a rebellious and spunky teenage artist, on her journey to becoming a superhero. This empowering origin story explores themes like bravery, trust, believing in yourself, coping with trauma and bullying, and finding your true family. Primer hits stores everywhere books are sold on 6/23/2020.
Thirteen-year-old Ashley Rayburn is an upbeat girl with a downbeat past. With a father in prison, Ashley has bounced from foster home to foster home and presents a real challenge to the social workers who try to help her—not because she’s inherently bad, but because trouble always seems to find her.
Things start looking up for Ashley when she finds new, loving parents, a best friend, and an outlet for her creative skills. But her life quickly gets more complicated when she also finds a suitcase full of specially enhanced body paints, changing her from artist to the world’s newest superhero. It’s the greatest thing to happen in her life so far, until Ashley finds herself pursued by a government agency that wants those paints back. When a rogue soldier takes her foster family hostage, Ashley has to come to the rescue. But will Ashley be able to master her new superpowers in time to save her foster parents?
Jennifer Muro is the writer of the Lucasfilm series Star Wars Forces of Destiny. She’s also written for Justice League Action, Lego DC Super Hero Girls, and Marvel’s Spider-Man, and she is currently working on the Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina series.
Since 2004, Tom Krajewski has been writing animation for Nickelodeon, Disney, Warner Bros., the BBC, and Cartoon Network. Series he has worked on include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Iron Man, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, and The Fairly OddParents. He is also the head writer on the Netflix series Buddy Thunderstruck.
Gretel Lusky is an illustrator based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she studied visual arts at the National University of the Arts. She started her career in the animation industry as a visual development artist and character designer for 2-D and 3-D animated shorts, TV series, and feature films. She continued working on a variety of projects including editorial work, book covers, and concept art for video games. Nowadays she is pursuing her long-term dream of doing comics.
DC’s middle grade graphic novels introduce DC’s most iconic Super Heroes to a new generation of fans with stories told by some of the most successful authors from the middle grade publishing space. DC’s middle grade titles are standalone stories, not part of DC’s ongoing continuity, and completely accessible to new readers who have no previous knowledge of DC characters.