Sarah wrote about the graphic novel deals for Karin Slaughter and Meg Cabot earlier this week, but even before then, while we were running around the Javits Center, DC Comics was announcing that its Vertigo line, aimed at mature readers, had acquired The Green Woman, an original graphic novel co-written by horror master Peter Straub and soap opera star Michael Easton, described by executive editor Karen Berger as “an epic psychological horror story.” Vertigo also picked up Aaron and Ahmed, a post-9/11 thriller with an intellectual twist from Jay Cantor, perhaps best known for his literary take on the classic Krazy Kat strip. Vertigo did not mention any artists attached to either project.
Right around the same time, Touchstone was announcing that it had decided to award two book deals in the Gather.com “First Chapters” publishing sweepstakes. So now, in addition to publishing grand prize winner Terry Shaw‘s murder mystery The Way Life Should Be in September, they’ll also put out Fire Bell in the Night, a historical thriller by runner-up Geoffrey Edwards, with both novels receiving heavy promotional support from Borders. “It was a pleasant surprise to discover that the Gather.com community had done their job so well,” the press release quotes Touchstone publisher Mark Gompertz on the selection process, wherein the website’s readers voted on which aspiring novelists would be invited to continue submitting pages.