Saturday at NCTE 07

Saturday’s Stuff!

We started the day early- at 8am (that’s 5am pacific!) with an author’s talk from Sid Jacobsen and Ernie Colon, who created a graphic novel from the 911 commission report.

Ernie- the artist
Sid- the managing editor

Both have worked extensively for Harvey comics. Ernie is most famous for his comics Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich. Sid also spent many years as managing editor fro Marvel Comics.

A general history of Harvey comics- the main difference between Marvel and Harvey – Marvel has always had a reluctance to expand into education. Harvey has always found it to be natural, and has created graphic novels for many different things over the last 50 years.

They use the medium to tell a story. This use of comics to increase depth in understanding is what graphics application is all about.

In the book on the 911 report it was the timeline that was the most difficult to tell. In the actual book it was very hard to follow, and it took a long time to actually sort out all of the players and what was going on when and where. This finally turned into the books timeline which is the entire beginning of the book. The timeline is a great example of how graphics can add depth and clarity in understanding difficult things.

This book is the only thing to be endorsed by the 911 commission because it clearly tells the story. Graphics shows and tells in a way that words and photos can’t.

The authors hope that teachers will use more graphic novels as a means of information. At this time movie houses are paying attention to graphic novels because they make great story boards for movies. They also wanted to show that you can use graphic novels with adults, and in an educational setting.

A side note- it was Will Eisner who coined the term “Graphic Novel” when he wrote one called “Contract With God”. He didn’t want to call it a comic book because it wasn’t for children, so he changed the name to graphic novel.

Other graphic novels that they recommend:
Mous I, Maus II – Art Spiegelman
Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
Epileptic -
Palestine – Joe Sacco
Barefoot Gen: Life After the Bomb (four volumes) – Keiji Nakazwa
Fax From Sarajevo – Joe Kubert
The Cartoon History of the United States – Larry Gonick
The Four Immigrants Manga – Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama

We also went to two related sessions, one using graphic novels to map history curriculum as well as creating student graphic novels for better understanding of texts.

Mrs. Benson and Mr. Belveal went to a session on grammar and had to leave because it was putting them to sleep… and as an added bonus Mrs. Benson tried to go to a session on research and was turned away by the fire marshal because there were too many people in the room already (there were guards at both doors by the time she got over there).

As always, Mrs. Anderson picked up tons of free books in the book hall.

In the afternoon we took the subway up to Columbia University, and spent the afternoon there.

Yay for us!