Together, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón have been creating comics for nearly 50 years. Most recently, their efforts have focused on creating nonfiction graphic novels that go far in helping contemporary readers understand historical events and the roles that key individuals played in them. Their first such nonfiction collaboration translated the 9/11 Commission's official report so that a larger community of readers could get a clearer view of the what, how, why, and when of those events.
Commissioned by the Anne Frank House, in Amsterdam, they have now created AnneFrank: TheAnneFrankHouseAuthorizedGraphicBiography, a deeply researched but widely accessible account of Anne's life and death, and the world she experienced. With Ernie in New York City and Sid in Los Angeles, the three of us met via a conference call to talk about their work, their partnership, and their views on learning from books.
Why do you think you've been able to work together so successfully?
SJ: Oh, we met at Harvey Comics years and years ago, where I was an editor and Ernie an artist. How many years ago was that?
EC: Oh, a long time. And I followed Sid to Marvel when he moved there. It's a symbiotic relationship.
SJ: We've cared for each other the years and went through several marriages together. You know, each of us and the marriages. We're close friends.
How did you decide to create nonfiction?
Credit: Shure Jacobson
SJ (left): That was Ernie's doing. About six years ago he called me about the 9/11 Commission Report [Norton, 2004] and wondered if I thought this could be scripted as a comic, a nonfiction one.
EC: He said, "Holy shit," and ran down the hallway wanting us to get started immediately.
SJ: I took a look at the book [the 9/11 Commission's report] and saw immediately how it could be done. The project very quickly went to a bidding contest. That began our tie to Farrar, Straus and Giroux. We knew how comics could be used from our history in the past, a history that had been dead. We met the publicity department for the first time on any of our books. The attitude at FSG was that when the bookcame out, this was something incredibly new. But it wasn't new to us. We knew comics can do this.
EC (right): Well, we got four and a half minutes of fame crowded into a two-month
Credit: Ruth Ashby
period. I felt like a character in a Peer Gynt play. People were coming to my house from Germany and Japan with full TV crews.
SJ: It was great fun.
When was the first time each of you read The Diary of Anne Frank? What were your initial impressions?
SJ: I was in my early 20s and bought it from the Book of the Month Club. I remember being touched by it. As a Jew living in Brooklyn, I remember seeing German refugees in Manhattan [during the Second World War]. The diary underscored how horrible this period was. When I went back to read it more recently, I realized she was born the same year I was.
EC: I read it in my teens. I was a voracious reader. But it didn't make as much of an impact then as it did when I reread it in my 30s. We lived through the war years, a shared experience for everyone. Rereading it brought that back. It's impossible to read it without getting to love this child. Her answer to cramped quarters was to write. She was a remarkable person, which makes it more awful.
SJ: We knew when we first got this assignment that the story had to contain the facts of the war and what was going on. I found that missing in the play, the movie. That became an important part of the book we did. I thought we had to show what was going on outside Anne's place so the reader could really understand her situation.
When you began working on the book, you had access to a huge collection of her family's snapshots. Did you know what scenes you wanted to depict and then search for the right photos or was it the other way around?
EC: I leaned on photos for character and as references for uniforms, for interiors. I was required by the museum to use the one of Mr. Frank showing his camp number [shown on page 131].
SJ: Our first duty was to write the book as we saw it. At the beginning, we were working from our own knowledge. Along the way, we learned a lot about what else we needed to find out and to include.
SJ: I went over when the project began. I saw where she was hidden, the neighborhood. We talked about the book. It was a good experience. I'm going back there soon, and to Berlin, for the introduction of the German edition. There were times when there were things the museum didn't want me to use, and that was fine. They made some changes; some I agreed with and some not.
EC: I opted not to go to Amsterdam because of the tight deadline of the project itself. I relied on the amount of material they sent me and worked from that.
By telling specific individual's stories, you're able to convey a great deal about the human side of both public and political events. What attracts you to a particular story?
SJ: For the most part it is important to me, so I ask, would it be important to the public, would it add something new? Our heads are in nonfiction graphic novels. I love the idea that this format has been accepted. Also, it's a huge learning experience for me to approach these subjects. It's good for keeping this old head alive.
EC: I love history and I love reading about people who live lives outside the norm, so anything that fulfills those criteria I want to do immediately.
SJ: I love working with Ernie. I love his head. He reads more than me.
EC: I feel the same.
SJ: You're a fool.
EC: I love his enthusiasm and his bounce-back ability. I look to him on a constant basis.
SJ: You are out of your mind.
JACOBSON, Sid and Ernie Colón. AnneFrank : theAnneFrankHouseAuthorizedGraphicBiography. Hill & Wang. 2010. Tr $30.00. ISBN 978-0-8090-2684-5. pap. $16.95. ISBN 978-0-8090-2685-2. Gr 6 Up.
This article originally appeared in School Library Journal's enewsletter SLJTeen. Subscribe here.
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