Jonah Newman
My introduction to Jonah occurred when I was originally participating in Kidlit GN, a pitch event on Twitter for graphic novel creators. It’s a way for editors and agents to see your work even if you are not represented. Jonah saw my original pitch for Woodland Hills and reached out. The person who would become my agent also saw my work there. Talk about a fortuitous event.
Jonah had reached out in his capacity as an editor at Graphix but I also saw he was working on his own graphic novel. A coming of age story based on his high school years, their baseball team, and being gay. I’ve followed his progress ever since. The book Out of Left Field, just came out this past month and so I’m pleased this time around that I got to reach out to Jonah about his work.
When he’s not creating, editing, or reading comics, Jonah enjoys playing in an LGBTQ+ softball league and getting way too invested in his fantasy baseball team. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband (who’s a human) and two kids (who are cats).
What is it that you want people to take away from your work?
There are a couple of messages that I hope readers — especially teens — take away from Out of Left Field. The first is to be your authentic self no matter what others might think. In the book, Jonah the character wastes a lot of time trying to be someone he’s not. By the end, he realizes he’d have been a lot happier had he made more genuine choices from the start. The second message is that it’s OK to make mistakes as long as you apologize to those you hurt and use the experience to learn and grow as a person. We all make mistakes, but it’s how we respond to screwing up or being called out that defines who we are. Especially in today’s cruel and divided world, we could all stand to be more graceful towards and forgiving of others and ourselves.
What is something you do now that you wish you had either figured out or implemented sooner in your career?
When creating a new story, I invest a lot more time upfront in storytelling basics than I used to. I go through several synopsis drafts, focusing on characters’ personalities, backgrounds, dynamics, and arcs. I want to feel confident that the characters and plot are as good as they can be before I start to write my script and make actual comics. My technical knowledge and skills have also come a long way over the years. I can hardly believe that my comics pages used to be single-layer RGB JPEGs! Now, in part because of what I’ve learned from my designer colleagues at Scholastic, I set up layered CMYK files to a template and include plenty of bleed.
What was the book/comic that you fell in love with when you were a kid/teen?
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel! It’s the book that made me fall in love with the graphic novel format and remains perhaps my favorite book of all time. When I read it for the first time as a closeted teenager, I was captivated not only by the queer representation but by the rich storytelling. The way Alison’s words and illustrations work together in this book to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of their parts opened my mind to the magic and power of longform comics. From that point onwards, I knew I wanted to make graphic novels.
You can find Jonah and his work at:
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