Cartoon classic: Classics Illustrated and a shameless plug

The Classics Illustrated version of "In The Reign of Terror" set me on a road that I am on today, quite literally.

I'm not sure whether I read it when I was 10 or 11, because I was in the same cabin both summers, but it was definitely in the summer and definitely in Algonquin.

Classics Illustrated comics didn't have a lot of trade value at summer camp. Parents sent them up because they might improve our minds, but, while they were sure better than Caspar or Donald Duck, it was the superhero comics that guys wanted.

Comics were sort of communally owned and would be traded in stacks between cabins after they'd all been read and read and then re-read.

Getting a Classics Illustrated was kind of like buying Turkish Taffy in candy line. It wasn't so much that you wanted it, but you wanted something that would last awhile.

Anyway, I read "In the Reign of Terror" several times before it went out in a trade, and I really liked the format of the plucky lad holding out against the bad guys. I'm not sure I was all that aware that the French Revolution was history, but the story was good.

Then, a few years later, we moved into a house on which property there was an old garage that had some turn-of-the-century books in it, one of which was by G.A. Henty, whose other books were listed in the back and, by golly, there was "In the Reign of Terror." 

Discovering Henty got me reading Victorian boys' literature, though not for a couple of years. You don't leap into these things, you know. But once I started, I narrowed it down to Henty himself fairly quickly.

Most of the books written for boys were pretty much crap, but Henty wrote with a realism that I quickly realized was not common to the genre.

Small wonder, given that he'd been a war correspondent and had seen plenty of exciting history up close, including being stuck in Paris during the seige of the commune at the close of the Franco-Prussian war, and going into Africa with Stanley, the two of them among reporters covering a punitive expedition. (They rented a boat together for some sailing and nearly drowned.)

So about a dozen years ago, when I started writing children's stories (as everyone must these days. Apparently it's a new law.), I didn't consciously ape Henty's style, but I did consciously emulate his ability to mix genuine research with story telling. 

Henty may have been a loyal subject of his queen and prisoner of the prejudices of his time, but he was also a painstaking historian, and whenever I've looked into the events his plucky lads were part of, the plucky lads themselves have proven the only fictional portions.

I brought that to my own writing, and, bless their little hearts, kids seem to have responded. For the past dozen years, I've produced a story a year, sometimes using vintage illustrations, other times partnering with Marina "Rinacat" Tay, Dylan Meconis or Clio Chiang, but most often with Chris Baldwin, with whom I have produced four historical fiction pieces for the New York News Publishers Association.

The latest of these, "Freehand," Chris and I have just published in book form and I am, as you read this, up in northern New York, where the battle around which the story is based took place, talking to teachers about using the book in their classes.

And, before leaving on this trip, I've already sold out about 40 percent of the first printing. 

So, I'd like to thank whatever mother thought it would be nicer for her little boy to read "Classics Illustrated" than all those dreadful superhero comics.

I don't know if he even read it once, but I did, several times.

(Come here and take a look at "Freehand." It's not appropriate for me to say if it's any good, but I can say that 216 kids have been promised that I'm going to sign their copies in the next 24 hours. It's a start.)

Comments

[Terry LaBan]

Personally, even at age 11, I would've regarded anyone who picked a superhero comic over Donald Duck to be an idiot. My summer camp reading material consisted largely of Richie Rich and Archie--Classics Illustrated I rarely encountered outside the barbershop, which for some reason always had a stack of them.

[Mike Peterson]

Archie did okay at camp, but the Harveys and Disneys were things we read and enjoyed but I think kind of kept quiet about -- we'd read a Marvel or DC more than once, but not those.

The Harvey and Disney comics came from the parents who did things like walking into the cabin during rest hour on Parents Weekend and exclaiming (as Nick Brown's mother did) "Oh, Weasel! I've missed you!"

And we all silently exchanged glances, knowing that, as soon as Mother was gone, "Weasel" was dead meat. It's almost right out of the book -- "I don't care what they call me, as long as they don't call me 'Piggy.'"

By the same token, even if you enjoyed the kiddie comics, you talked about Superman and Batman. Preferably with whatever profanity you could drop into the conversation.