Comic Book Duio Recreates Unlikely Story: 9-11

[zonkers]

Children's comic-book veterans Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón — age 76 and 75, respectively — seem a most unlikely duo to make it big in the graphic-book medium, a field dominated by manga, superheroes and the avant-garde. After toiling in near anonymity for more than 50 years, the longtime friends have burst into the media spotlight with their recently published graphic adaptation of "The 9/11 Commission Report."

Released to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, "The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation" condenses the original 567-page report down to 131 comic-book pages. Reviews of the book have been mostly favorable, and the Chicago Tribune called it "unexpectedly moving."

http://www.calendarlive.com/books/cl-et-graphic8sep08,0,244733.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[ColonelTom]

1. Hey, maybe Dumbya will read this!

Now if only they'd made the PDBs in comic-book form...

[ClintonTyree]

2. Another fictionalized version.......

of the events of 9/11. The flight 93 sequence, hijackers fighting off the "let's roll" passengers: there's absolutely NO concrete evidence to support that. It just makes for good drama. Reducing the events of 9/11 into comic book form is just bad taste, in my opinion. What next? The Power Rangers take on the forces of evil behind 9/11? :eyes: Puleeeeeeeeze! :puke:

On edit: This WOULD lower the events of 9/11 to a level that freeprs and the bush administration could understand though. IF it was factual and not fantasy :shrug:

[teknomanzer]

5. Comics in bad taste?

I Guess you've never heard of Art Spiegelman's "Maus"? I suppose you think the Holocast is something that shouldn't be reduced to comic form either. But then you probably never read Maus either or you wouldn't have just blindly attacked the medium rather than merely stating you objections to the content. Your just another one of those "comics are just for kids" types. Go... read Maus it will change your opinion about the "lowly" comic.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Teaching through Comic Books

In the 70's, I received a copy of a comic book, entitled (as I recall) Monetary Man and the Fiscal Flash. It was put out by the Federal Reserve and actually did a decent job of helping me to understand the mechanisms behind Inflation and Recession. I'm sure that an economist reading it would have winced and said, "It's an over-simplification!"

I haven't seen or read this comic book, but it may do a better job of communicating the truth to today's "young people" than ABC's Path to 9/11.

Reality is never as simple as history makes it out to be; we can only hope that the history of "9/11" which future generations learn will be a balanced simplification.

[Lisa]

21. thanks for posting!

For the courses I teach, i'm always looking around for interesting readings on things like government policy and statistics ... this sounds like a useful and painless introduction.

[Massachusetts]

3. Unlikely Story

"Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth"
-FDR

We are witnessing historical facts (many), being changed right under our noses. How pathetic and accommodating WE the public have become.



"I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system."
Noam Chomsky

[zbdent]

4. The top panel pictured has been DeWined ...

If the WTC crumbled like that, the tower would have fallen on other buildings ... it collapsed straight down, not tilting (of course, to the left ...)

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. There were 2 towers you know...

Rubble from the towers did fall on other buildings.

[zbdent]

11. Memory faulty ...

I just remembered that the tower collapsed straight down, blasting outward ... my error ...

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. You were half right

(As I said) there were 2 towers. Your memory is of the North tower, which did collape pretty much straight down.

http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.shtml

...

This photograph shows the south tower just as it is collapsing. It is evident that the building is falling over to the left. The North Tower collapsed directly downwards, on top of itself. The same mechanism of failure, the combination of impact and subsequent fire damage, is the likely cause of failure of both towers. However, it is possible that a storey on only one side of the South Tower initially collapsed, resulting in the "skewed" failure of the entire tower.

...

[zbdent]

18. I hadn't seen the pics in a while, and I was going from memory.

and I agree that you were right. That's why I admitted my error.

I also forgot to retract (and probably was too late to edit) my "the pic was DeWined" statement.

[Javaman]

6. Since they took the info from the incomplete 9/11 report..

They probably didn't include the wiring of the buildings with primer cord and c-4 weeks before the "pulling" of the buildings.

Someone needs to put out an alt version of 911 in comic book form.

[w4rma]

7. This could be very good. (nt)

[snooper2]

8. wow, this is bad..........propaganda for your kids....

Does it show chimpy reading about the pet goat, flying bin-ladens relatives out of the country, I wonder if they left out the part about the House of Saud....

[Duer 157099]

13. I am all in favor of comic books aka graphic novels as a tool

for teaching. Many people just love to read this medium, and imho it's an underutilized tool for getting a message out.

I have long thought that somebody needs to make a progressive political version of the "Chick tracts" -- extremely effective medium and easy to distribute.

Almost everybody who picks one of these up will at least flip through it.

Maybe a group of DUers, especially those with drawing talent, would like to take on such a project .... ??

[suston96]

14. Classics Illustrated

Y'all old enough to remember "Classics Illustrated"? Google it.

I loved them, and whenever I could, traded for them as a kid. Long, long time ago.

[Duer 157099]

19. You bet. Still have some.

Not only that, but in college, my favorite textbook was "A Cartoon Guide to Genetics"

Seriously, genetics taught using cartoons. It was fantastic.

[Lisa]

20. I've got a copy of that!

The same authors later published a whole series of books, on topics ranging from physics and math to US history and environmental science. The statistics one looks pretty good (I sometimes teach the subject, so I'm always looking for decent texts.)

http://www.larrygonick.com/html/pub/books/sci3.html

[hedgehog]

15. I've heard good things about this book.

I've also heard that it is an accurate synopsis of the 9/11 Commission Report. I bought it for my family. I figure none of us would sit down and read the entire report. I know my husband picked it up yesterday and read it through in one sitting, cover to cover.

[CJCRANE]

16. It's a start.

It's worthwhile for people to become familiar with the official version because (a) much of it isn't mentioned in the MSM (b) once you know the official version you can start to pick holes in it.

I look forward also to the comic-book version of the redacted 28 pages and David Ray Griffin's New Pearl Harbor.

[anotherdrew]

17. if it doesn't focus on evidence of bush complicity, it's useless

there's a mountain of good reasons to believe MIHOP or LIHOP

[hedgehog]

22. I looked through it since posting earlier.

Apparently it follows the chapter outlines of the report. It is quite clear that the Clinton people and especially Clarke were adamant that terrorism was the problem but that the Bush people brushed that aside. The FBI and CIA weren't working together and the FBI wasn't even listening to its own people. Most of the hijackers entered the country after April 2001 after Bush was president.