Story behind the Story: The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:02:08 GMT

Chipman, Ian (author).
FEATURE. First published October 1, 2009 (Booklist).

The Past, and Future, of Comics

When it comes to kids’ comics, there is no bigger presence than the husband-and-wife team of Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman. Since launching in 2008, their early-reader TOON Books imprint has redefined how comics are used as a literacy tool to teach kids how to not only read but also love to read.

It’s fair to assume that by now most people will admit that comics are viable (which is to say, grown-up) literature. “But it’s one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for moments,” says Spiegelman. “After years of saying comics are not just for kids, we sort of have to say, ‘But wait, they’re also for kids!’” The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics is a resounding reminder of just that.

As with TOON Books, the idea for this compilation came from “a missionary zeal of wanting comics for kids to be considered really important,” says Mouly. Yet, while this collection does carry the TOON moniker, it’s really for those kids who have graduated from picture books but aren’t yet hopping into Potter. “You don’t have much literature for that kid between the time he’s read to and the time he’s a 10-year-old avid reader. The Treasury fills those really important gap years,” Mouly says.

At the same time, Mouly and Spiegelman see these comics as ideal for reading aloud with younger children. “Nowadays, learning to read, unfortunately, means moving away from pictures,” Mouly says. “That mind-set is counterintuitive.”

“The thing that I really resent is this notion that pictures are somehow training wheels,” says Spiegelman. “The comics thing works because enough of the story is told in pictures, and once they’ve heard it, kids can reconstruct what is happening in the balloons before they even know what an alphabet is.”

So how better to introduce kids to the delights of comics than with the early masters of the form? “The minute we started talking about it, we looked at each other and said, ‘We have to do this,’” says Mouly.

The process was long, fraught with arguments and rights negotiations, and a complete joy. “This couldn’t have been done as thoroughly five years ago,” says Mouly. The enormous caverns of information unlocked by electronic media made it possible for the couple to range far beyond what they already knew of classic comics or could dig up in hard copy. They also set up an online discussion group of comics scholars who could articulate what made a certain story so special. “Those were surreal conversations,” laughs Mouly. “We’re thinking of trying to find some way to post our very high-falutin’ conversation about the virtues of this story versus that story online.”

After sifting through thousands of comic books, they came up with a list that in a perfect world would constitute their book. “Surprisingly,” says Spiegelman, “we got every single thing we wanted.”

“We’re definitely of the mind-set that having more readers, especially young ones, is the only way that there will be a future for comics,” says Mouly. Spiegelman, right on her heels, adds, “I’m actually more concerned about the future of the future, and I really believe that literacy is urgent. It’s just ironic that the same comic books that were being burned in the 1950s for leading to juvenile delinquency are now becoming the gateway to thinking citizenry.”

Booklist Online - Story Behind the Story

Story behind the Story: The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics.