Reposted by Kelly Leigh Miller
As nice as it is to share a headline with Margaret Atwood, I wish it were under circumstances not as bleak and depressing
www.cbc.ca/books/works-...
cbc.ca
Works by Canadian authors Margaret Atwood and Ryan North among books banned in U.S. schools in 2026 | CBC Books
Nearly 12,000 bans took place in American public schools over the past year, according to a new study from PEN America, the highest total since the free expression organization began tracking removals...
![Screencap from “Novvel.co Produces Graphic Novel Adaptations with AI Assistance” by Ed Nawotka for Publishers Weekly, accessed 9/23/2026. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/101260-novvel-co-pioneers-producing-graphic-novels-with-ai-assistance.html
We came together around the question of how to make reading exciting again in a world of declining attention spans. We spent a lot of time talking to teachers and parents, and looked at literacy data, which shows the biggest drop in reading tends to happen right around the grade level when kids are also getting their first phones, typically middle school.
We landed on the hypothesis that a graphic novel is the ideal format to bring people back to reading, not just reluctant readers.
[Question] Why isn't there more graphic-novel content already, if the format works so well?
[Answer] Production is expensive and slow. The average production cost of a graphic novel runs somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000, and it typically takes 12 to 18 months. Most small publishers and authors don't have that kind of capital to spend on a bet, and even large publishers that do have it have to be very selective about what they commit it to.
[Question] Walk me through what the platform actually does.
[Answer] You put in a manuscript. The system spends time studying the story, including the thesis, the background, the protagonist, and the emotional beats that pay off for a reader, and produces a storyboard that gets you to roughly 60-70% of a finished product.
Then an editor, the author, and an illustrator go in and shape that further, because a purely Al-generated output tends to lack soul and be generic. This is not a self-driving car. It's more like handing a Ferrari to someone who already knows how to drive.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jeti53ozn4dfqx3qvlkfjdty/bafkreidvt4ewqzmm6wfn6tmhi4aukprss7hhrfzqf53n22vif6vy4aa7p4)
![[alt text by NASA] The Moon, seen here backlit by the Sun during a solar eclipse on April 6, 2026, is photographed by one of the cameras on the Orion spacecraft’s solar array wings. Orion is visible in the foreground on the left. Earth is reflecting sunlight at the left edge of the Moon, which is slightly brighter than the rest of the disk. The bright spot visible just below the Moon’s bottom right edge is Saturn. Beyond that, the bright spot at the right edge of the image is Mars. Credit: NASA](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:62gdkmpwa7xme36getyqnem3/bafkreiakufyngycqogzws43gzq5ei2zayvoozx42wmbmyawywxyjqhw2ua)
