When New Yorker and illustrator Ernie Colón originally tried to read the 568-page 9/11 Report, he was forced to quit after about fifty pages. The Report, nominated for the National Book Award and widely praised for its unflinching criticism of the government’s failures, was nevertheless difficult to comprehend. “For a government report, it was well written–but still hard to follow,” Colón said, citing “a lot of things going on at the same time in different places.”
And so, a year later, when Colón read that a miniseries based on the 9/11 Report was under consideration, he contemplated making a graphic adaptation of the report’s findings. The 75-year-old illustrator, who has worked for Harvey, Marvel and DC Comics, decided to run the idea by his longtime friend and colleague, Sid Jacobson, who served as managing editor and editor-in-chief at Harvey Comics, and executive editor at Marvel Comics. Jacobson’s reaction was, in comic book terms, “Holy @#$%! What a great idea!”
Jacobson’s experience in reading the report was similar, and his difficulty led to further inspiration. “I had trouble following what was happening on the four (hijacked) flights,” he explained, “and it hit me: Wow! You could show this as a timeline. You could really, really explain it.” Adds Colón: “We’re in the business of clarification.”
The result is a timeline that spans the first 18 pages of the book, utilising a fold-out in the hardcover edition. Not only does it elucidate the events of September 11th, but, like the 9/11 Report, it focuses on the events leading up to it and the failure of governmental agencies to heed the warning signs. Jacobson, working as the author to Colón’s illustrations, took text almost exclusively from the commission’s report. Unlike the recent movies United 93 and World Trade Center, “it’s not a dramatization. It’s the story of an investigation,” Jacobson insists. “It’s graphic journalism.”
But many worry about whether or not the ‘graphic novel’–if not ‘comic book’–genre can support a topic as weighty as the 9/11 catastrophe. Tim Sumner, whose brother-in-law died in the World Trade Center, supports a new wave of “historical reference,” but has his doubts about the graphic adaptation. “While having not read the book,” he said, “it sounds pretty cheap.”
With concern for its appropriateness, no matter how much he supported the concept, publisher Thomas LeBien sent the book to the former officials of the 9/11 commision. The chair of the commission, New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean, admitted that he was “very concerned” when he first heard about the project. “But when I looked at it, it was absolutely accurate.” He and vice chairman Lee H. Hamilton even agreed to write a foreward for the graphic.
And both Colón and Jacobson exercised extreme consideration over what they chose to depict. Some of the images envision the violence aboard the planes, but when the text that reads “as time grew short and desperate, civilians leaped from North Tower upper floors” is left unillustrated. “It would have personally offended me to draw that. I just couldn’t,” Colón stated. “We knew this was not just politically charged but emotionally charged. We didn’t want to do anything that would offend anyone who lost someone.”
But the stigma of comic books may remain, however considerate the renderings, however factual the prose. The authors deeply pondered the effect of employing classic comic book onomatopoeias such as “Blam!” for explosions and “R-RUMBLE” for the collapse of the South Tower, and ultimately decided to use them. “Our feeling was that it would look like a silent movie without it,” Jacobson explained. “You have captions, you have balloons with text, you have sound effects,” Colón added. “Doing without any of that would make it not readable.”
Readability is the aim of The 9/11 Report: The Graphic Adaptation, and it seems an admirable goal. From the advent of widespread printing to our contemporary relationship with television, film, and the internet, we are increasingly evolving into a society of visual learners. There’s nothing wrong with a proclivity towards the visual, as long as the facts are not simplified or obscured. Kirkus’s early review notes especially that the book does not fall prey to this trap, calling it “thoughtful — and by no means dumbed-down.”
And an education of a large portion of the population that the original report could not reach speaks for the potential for the book’s positive impact. The book arrives in time to mark the 5th anniversary of the original attacks, and now is the time for everyone to learn the truth about the government’s handling of the situation, not the time to bicker over the medium in which it is reported. “There are going to be a whole bunch of kids, teenagers and adults that will not read the report,” Colón summed up, pointing to his new book as an alternative. “The educational system at large has resisted them, I think, because of the term ‘comic book.’ I like to think of them as something that has more purpose.”
Read articles at USAToday and The WashingtonPost; visit a blog discussion at Cake or Death.