And when I did my first graphic novel, Rapunzel’s Revenge, I was shocked at how much information you could dump into each panel, I was coming of course from scientific illustration and picture book illustration. And I thought with all of these squares you can do so much. And I felt like I was kind of reinventing comics for myself. I wasn’t super well-versed in all the superhero comics and how those things worked, and I thought, “Well, that’s okay. I’m going to learn this for my subject matter.” So when you look at my comics they don’t necessarily look like other comics.
They certainly don’t look like superhero comics, nobody has huge bulging muscles. I do a very simple color scheme, one color plus black and white. When I read a super oversaturated color, it’s a little comic with a million colors, and things all over, it’s a little overwhelming. It’s too much information for me. And now I have a hard time reading comics.
To me, it’s harder, if I’m going to read a comic I have to sit down at a table, open it, put a light right on over it, and do it. For me it’s harder to read a comic than a graphic novel than a regular novel. I just into a novel and just grind through it. But with a comic I really feel like I need to take my time and look at each page.
And I think a lot of the teachers and parents who don’t love graphic novels, I think there’s two reasons why. They see like these comics with the muscles and the oversaturated colors, and the violence, and they’re just like, “That’s not what I want my kid to be reading.” But, also, they try to read it themselves and they can’t do it, so they go, “They must not be real reading because this makes me angry.” And I think it’s really they need to take more time, maybe try some more different styles of comic.
But, I love that the kids are so excited about them. And I can’t believe what a great way they are to tell history specifically.
