Today in Comics History, May 26: Happy birthday, Raina Telgemeier!

A big smilin' happy birthday to pal Raina Telgemeier, arguably the most important name in comics today (Okay, Dav Piley, we'll count you too)! Her graphic novels (Smile, Sisters, Ghosts, Guts, Drama, The Babysitter's Club) have sold over twenty million copies and have opened the YA GN market to massive expansion and large percentages of sales in bookstores.



cover of (top) Smile (self-published, 2004), by Raina Telgemeier
, and (bottom) Smile (Scholastic/Graphix, February 2010), by Raina Telgemeier

It's not an overstatement to say that Telgemeier has saved comics by popularizing comic/graphic novel storytelling for a new generation. Superheroes may come and go, but love for the comics medium is assured for another few decades.


from Ghosts (Scholastic Grafix, September 2016)
And hey, she draws a handsome bull.


"Bully" by Raina Telgemeier (New York Comic Con, April 2008)
Happy birthday, Raina!