Ablaze Buys NBM

Terry Nantier has sold the company off to Ablaze, which makes sense.

I was a much bigger fan of NBM twenty years ago when I first got into Franco-Belgian books. They printed more books at full size, and more books that I actually wanted to read. I’m thinking specifically of Lewis Trondheim’s Mr. O and Mr. I, and Francois Schuiten’s The Cities of the Fantastic books. There were smaller books I enjoyed like Manu Larcenet’s “Ordinary Victories” and Trondheim’s “Little Nothings.”

Since then, the larger books have been missing and the material they’ve chosen hasn’t been up my alley. NBM is more literary. I’m more pop culture, I guess. But, still, it’s good to have as many publishers translating things as possible.

Terry Nantier ran NBM for fifty years. He’s a pioneer and a trailblazer for the kind of work I cover on this site. His time at NBM is an impressive run, and he deserves a break from some of the craziness of the industry. He will continue to work with Ablaze as a consultant and packager.

Ablaze has translated and printed such beloved books as “Harmony“, “The Old Geezers“, “Animal Castle”, and “Kidz”. NBM will be a nice addition as an imprint for them.