Barry Lyga- Changing Publishing His Way

One of the first books I bought when I got a Kindle e-reader was “The Amazing Adventure of Fan Boy and Goth Girl” by Barry Lyga. I’m much older than the target market for the book, but it sounded interesting. The boy is writing a graphic novel and she is a loner. They sound like misfits and find each other. She makes him confident. He welcomes her into friends. It’s not a sappy story. Its not a love story. It’s got too many accidents and misunderstandings that drive them apart.

A lot of readers liked these characters so much that Lyga wrote a sequel. “Goth Girl Rising.” This was sad. Every male in her life can’t relate to her. You like the character so much that you hope for a happy ending and that is why you should stick with it.

Lyga was on a roll of great books; “Hero Type”, “Bang”, “Boy Toy” and others. He wrote a bunch of novelizations of comic book heroes. I read his book about Thanos. I needed to read that book. It came out just before Avengers Endgame. It made Thanos a better villain and made his motivation clearer than the movies did.

I haven’t heard from Barry Lyga lately. As it turned out, those novelizations and graphic novel ideas made him a name in those circles. He’s written several Flash stories as his own creation Mangaman. The novels haven’t been coming but Lyga has been busy. His book characters were graphic novel artists or had that as an interest so this new field makes sense. It seems like he likes it.

Good luck with the super heroes, Barry Lyga.