Hill & Wang in the graphic novel game

Publisher's Weekly reports that Hill & Wang, a nonfiction imprint at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, will publish a series of nonfiction graphic novels this fall, including biographies and history books, and they've pulled in some industry veterans to help them out:

Former DC Comics editor Andy Helfer has written the Malcolm X and Ronald Reagan biographies with research assistance from Jessica Marshall, a Ph.D. in history and a former editor of the Harvard Lampoon. Artist Randy DuBurke will illustrate Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography and Steve Buccellato will do the art for Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography. The script of The 9/11 Report has been created by longtime comics pro Sid Jacobson, an editor and writer at Harvey Comics and Marvel Comics, and veteran comics artist Ernie Colon will illustrate the book.

And there's more to come, says Hill & Wang publisher Thomas LeBien, the creator of the series. In 2007, LeBien's got plans for a graphical book on the history of the SDS, to be written by Paul Buhle, a Brown University professor and editor of The Wobblies: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World, published last year by Verso. In addition Helfer will edit graphic biographies of Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover and Isadora Duncan that will be published in 2007.