... Karen Wenborn on Classical Literature, comics and the Tipping Point
... Karen Wenborn on Classical Literature, comics and the Tipping Point
The company is now two years old. Our first
book Henry V, was published a year ago. The founder (and Chairman) is Clive
Bryant, who had the idea for the series. To quote
Clive 'Neither Karen or I have a publishing background, but we're both strong
businesspeople, and are probably overly enthusiastic about books, literacy and
education. Jo comes from a print background, so we rely on her to make sure the
end product is right.'
In October
2006 in a bar, somewhere in London, Clive Bryant was explaining a new business
idea to a friend. On the train journey to the city, he'd been reading "The
Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell, and was inspired by the notion of a zero
tolerance to crime having a dramatically positive effect on the streets of New
York. On reading the book, the question came immediately to mind, "Would
people behave in an antisocial way, if they appreciated fine literature?"
It was a chicken-and-egg question; certainly some people would disregard such
literature regardless of the circumstances.
However, the thrust of "The Tipping
Point" is that the balance changes once a critical point is reached; there is no
need to "convert" everyone, only the need to convert enough people
for the rest to follow. So, how to create that appreciation? Surely it starts at school?
Ask teenagers their opinion on Shakespeare, Dickens and Brontë, and the vast
majority will answer back with a number of variations on the word
"boring"; and that is the major hurdle to overcome: turning
"boring" into "cool".
Theres
more on this subject on our website (Link:
http://www.classicalcomics.com/press/aboutus.html)
Actually it is split 50/50 at the moment between
'normal' bookshop sales and education sales. Because of the pioneering
three text versions of Shakespeare (two text versions for other classics) the
books work incredibly well in the classroom. We also produce teachers resources
providing exercises that cover a variety of curriculum topics. These are VERY
popular with teachers. It is great that any child, whatever their reading
level, can access the classics this way.
We 'tested' the format on a numbers of
readers (and a lot of children). And every child said that the books HAD to be
in full colour. TV is, video games are - so why would they want to read books
in black and white? We took their point!!
Well, Shakespearean English is beyond the
reach of most 10 year olds (that's when we start teaching The Bard in schools),
in fact an awful lot of adults find that having to 'translate' as well as grasp
the story is offputting. This way, anyone can start with Quick Text (which is
simplified English and has around half the wordcount of Original and Plain
Text) and then understand the story. Having done that, moving to Original Text
allows those readers to fully appreciate the beauty of his language.
With
the other classics, such as Dickens and Shelly, we felt that the English was
close enough to today's usage for most people to understand. So we produce two
versions, Original and Quick Text.
Oh, we have a full list! We'd love to have
the full range out now, but as each title takes between 15 and 26 months, it is
a slow process. Coming next year we have Great Expectations, followed by The
Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Dracula and The Canterville Ghost. We have Wuthering
Heights, An Inspector Calls, Richard III, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Sweeney Todd
and the Importance of Being Earnest all in production.
Ah! Being a newcomer to the world of comics and graphic novels, I don't feel qualified to answer that one! But as to history - yes, using drawings to illustrate text is as old as books themselves! In fact we did start to 'write-down' stories by using pictures before we'd got around to alphabets. I can recommend everyone to start at this site and go from there http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/comics.htm
