Tales from the Slush Pile by Ed Briant has gone on hiatus.
Every Thursday, for over 14 years, Publishers Weekly has featured the comic strip “Tales from the Slush Pile” in their Children’s Bookshelf. There is now a hiccup in that schedule as the March 26, 2020 installment of the strip (above) reveals.
Publishers Weekly tells The Daily Cartoonist that, “It’s a temporary hiatus during the coronavirus outbreak. We hope and plan to resume shortly.”
As PW informs us on their page archiving the strip (and quite an archive it is):
“Tales from the Slush Pile” is an original comic strip that follows the trials and tribulations of a children’s book writer and his friends. Its creator, Ed Briant, has written and illustrated a number of picture books, comics and graphic novels.
Creator Ed Briant also responded to enquiries:
[T]he decision to suspend the strip [was made] citing budgetary constraints due to the coronavirus.
The editor I work with told me it would return in a few months time…as long as I’m still alive—I’m in a fairly high risk category.
The editor has been working with me on the strip for 15 years, and she’s always kept good faith with me
above: the first Tales from the Slush Pile from December 1, 2005
When Publishers Weekly created that great archive page in 2014, they also interviewed Ed:
Tales from the Slush Pile started in December 2005. Once every few weeks I used to meet my editor for drinks. After we’d caught up on our own news we would discuss old friends we hadn’t seen for a while. She came up with the idea of composing comic strips that we could then send to these friends, and we would scribble them out on napkins with an old ballpoint pen. After a while we began making the comics for our own amusement, and never bothered to send them to anyone. I think the idea of doing a comic for Children’s Bookshelf evolved from there.
post script:
During the Covid-19 crisis, ‘Publishers Weekly’ is providing free digital access to all readers. The digital edition of the magazine, the ‘PW’ Archive, and all articles on publishersweekly.com are now available and open to the public.
Learn more at http://pw-ne.ws/fa3ff
hat tip: Mike Rhode