NEWS
COMING SOON TO A CLASSROOM NEAR YOU!
After a busy spring visiting classrooms across the country, we're currently on hiatus during schools' summer vacation—giving us a chance to focus on the final drawings for our second Cartoon Chronicles book on the Civil War.
But we look forward to resuming our school talks in the fall, bringing along the PowerPoint slideshow in which we talk about the Revolution, writing, the process of creating a graphic novel—and how we manage to collaborate without killing each other.
Among other things, we show kids how different a rough manuscript for a graphic novel looks compared with non-illustrated books:
OUR EXCELLENT ADVENTURES
Some wonderfully unexpected benefits have come of speaking to kids in the elementary schools we've visited. At PS 21 in Yonkers, New York, fifth-grader Judith presented us with a picture she'd drawn of Nick and Penny. Thank you, Judith! (Just don't get TOO good, okay? We need our jobs!)
And at NEST+M on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, one of our fourth-grade listeners lost a tooth during our talk. He was kind enough to assure us that it wasn't anything we said.
STAN'S BIO
Stan Mack is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and a former art director of The New York Times Sunday Magazine. He pioneered a documentary style of cartooning with his notorious New York comic strip "Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies," which ran in The Village Voice for 20 years. His Adweek magazine comic strip, "Stan Mack’s Out-takes," covered the New York media scene for a decade.
He has used his trademark style in newspapers, magazines and books, including Janet & Me: An Illustrated Story of Love and Loss and The Story of the Jews: A 4,000 Year Adventure. His latest book, co-authored with Susan Champlin, is Road to Revolution!, the first in a four-book series of historical graphic novels from Bloomsbury USA.
SUSAN'S BIO
The co-author of Road to Revolution!, Susan Champlin is a freelance writer-editor who has also been on the staff of a number of magazines, including People and Bon Appétit. She edited The Bon Appétit Cookbook and The Bon Appétit Fast Easy Fresh Cookbook, and is at work on a third—while collaborating with Stan on The Cartoon Chronicles of America. You can read her blog, "What Would Katharine Hepburn Do?," at http://wwkhd.blogspot.com.
ROAD TO REVOLUTION
by Stan Mack and Susan Champlin
Bloomsbury USA (2009)
Nick is an orphan who gets by on his wits and whatever he can steal. Penny is the daughter of a tavern owner and knows the meaning of honest work. Though from completely different backgrounds—and despite their instant dislike for each other—they do have one thing in common: They both want the British out of Boston! When a chance encounter brings them together, Nick and Penny see a way to help the patriots. But first they’ll have to earn the trust of some of America’s great revolutionaries—including Paul Revere and Dr. Joseph Warren—and muster the courage to confront innumerable dangers.
Action packed, laced with humor, and visually dynamic for today’s readers, Road to Revolution! cleverly intertwines fact and fiction for an unprecedented view of American history.
See what reviewers are already saying about the book:
"...readers get both a lesson in the beginnings of the Revolution and an exciting series of historical adventures. As Nick assists Paul Revere with his crucial midnight ride and Penny engages in dangerous spy work, young readers will get a powerful sense of the high stakes of these pivotal events. Mack’s art, clean and uncomplicated, renders period details and emotions quite evocatively and goes a long way to putting a human face on history." —Booklist
JANET AND ME
by Stan Mack
Simon & Schuster (2004)
In words and drawings both candid and human, Stan Mack follows his 18-year relationship with Janet Bode—a lighthearted fling that beat the odds to become an enduring love affair. The only thing they couldn't beat was cancer. For anyone who can't resist a beautifully told love story, for anyone who is touched by someone suffering from serious illness and looking for emotional and practical guidance, and for anyone who appreciates a life lived to the fullest, Janet & Me will resonate long after the last page is turned.