J-Pop Middle-Grade Graphic Novel, They by MariNaomi & Trung Le Nguyen

They is a new middle-grade J-Pop graphic novel written by MariNaomi and drawn by Trung Le Nguyen. “A chance befriending of two members of a popular nonbinary J-pop band They helps Yuko, long othered for being half Japanese in a mostly white school, learn to reconcile the two halves of her American and Japanese identity and embrace her creative identity.”

MariNaomi is an autobiographical comic book creator and also a curator of online databases of underrepresented cartoonists, Cartoonists of Color and Queer Cartoonists databases, and Disabled Cartoonists. Creator of comics such as Losing the Girl, Gravity’s Pull , Distant Stars and last year’s Dirty Produce. and the mixed-media graphic memoir I Thought You Loved Me. MariNaomi’s article It Happened to Me: I Was Sexually Harassed Onstage at a Comic Convention Panel published by XOJane, led to Scott Lobdell issuing a public apology.

Trung Le Nguyen’s first original graphic novel, The Magic Fish, was published in 2020 through Random House Graphic, and won two Harvey Awards. Trung has also worked on comics for DC Comics including Wonder Woman Black And Gold, Aquaman 80th Anniversary, DC Pride, DC Festival Of Heroes, as well as Adventure Time at Boom, Twisted Romance and Fresh Romance at Image, Fauns And Flora at Oni Press and more. Trung recently sold their new contemporary YA graphic novel Angelica and the Bear Prince to Whitney Leopard at Random House Graphic.

Andrea Colvin at Little, Brown has acquired world rights to They for publication in the autumn of 2026. MariNaomi’s agent Gordon Warnock at Fuse Literary, and Trung Le Nguyen’s agent Kate McKean at Howard Morhaim Literary represented the illustrator.

In 2019, Little, Brown had a directive to expand their graphic novel list for years going ahead, and appointed Andrea Colvin, formerly of Lion Forge as editorial director, Graphic Publishing to do just that. Publishing new fiction and nonfiction graphic novels for a range of ages, from early readers to young adults. Little, Brown has been doubling-to-tripling their comic book publishing line each scheduled year since then, with Suggs one of a number of beneficiaries of this publishing plan. It’s another sign of major growth in the graphic novel market in bookstores, libraries and book fairs, as well as the greater range in content and comic book styles being published. It’s a long way until the USA gets to the kind of breadth and depth enjoyed by Japan, Korea or France but it is one of a number of major moves in that direction.