Broken Frontier

Cracking the elusive children's market is something of a Holy Grail for comics publishers but a new project from Army Ant hopes to do just that. Pitting nature's greatest predators against each other in a series of one-shot editions, writer Sean J. Jordan is seeking to provide a comic strip experience that both excites and educates a younger audience. In the first part of a two-part interview Sean tells Broken Frontier about Code of the Wild... 

BROKEN FRONTIER: Let's start with the basics. Tell us a little about the genesis of the project and your own comics background.

SEAN J. JORDAN: I read comic books as a kid, but I never really got interested in the medium until 2001, when I took a class on comic books as literature at the University of Illinois. It sounds like one of those joke classes, but I swear, it was one of the most worthwhile courses I've ever taken, because it exposed me to the history of the comics medium and a lot of the less popular and well-known stuff, like the comix movement, the Carl Barks Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics, the Fantagraphics books, and high-concept books like Moonshadow. We even got to use Understanding Comics as our textbook. I walked out of that class wanting to create comics. but of course, nobody warned me what a tough thing that is to do!

I made some contacts, and I landed a position in 2002 as the PR Director for a company called Roaring Studios, which later became Dabel Brothers Publishing. I was asked to be the editor for a book called "Legacy." The writer on the book wasn't able to finish the series, so I took over scripting the series on the fourth issue. Unfortunately, the book wasn't very good, and I persuaded everyone that it would be best to bring the story to a close. So, I killed off most of the characters and let the bad guy win. I think I'm the first person in the history of the comic book industry to end a series in his debut book.

I worked with the Dabels for many years, and I was with them through their many ups and downs. We were producing adaptations of bestselling fantasy novels, and it was neat to hear from retailers that we were bringing new readers into the industry. But during that time, I was really bothered by the fact that the comic book industry really had moved away from producing books for kids, and the creators who were making an effort often weren't getting a lot of support from the retailers.

So, I started doing some research on my own to see if it would be possible to create comics for kids that wouldn't rely solely on the comic book retailers for their success. I found out that there was a huge demand in schools and libraries for educational graphic novels. and that most of what had already been developed wasn't anything kids were interested in reading.

With that in mind, I talked to kids, and asked them what they wanted to read. I was surprised to learn that grade school kids really aren't as interested in the cartoony stuff as most people would think - they actually tend to gravitate towards photographs and realism from the age of 8-12. Grade school kids are also extremely interested in the natural world, and animals in particular. They love the idea of animals battling out in the wild, and they always want to know which animal will win. So, I took all of that information and used it to develop a series called Code of the Wild, where every book features an epic clash between two predators while teaching the kids a little bit about each animal.

BF: The "mission statement" you've set yourself with Code of the Wild – to find a way to make the comics format appeal to its missing younger demographic - is a daunting one in the current climate. After all, kids supposedly have no interest in comics anymore. How much of the problem do you think is down to the plethora of other media that consume children's leisure time these days and how much is simply down to the fact that comics are no longer perceived as accessible to a juvenile audience?

SJJ: When I hear statements such as, "kids have no interest in comics anymore," I'm naturally skeptical, because I've worked around kids, and I can tell you - they'd much rather read comics than picture books or chapter books. But there are a few obstacles in their way. First of all, they're taught from a young age that comics are somehow inferior to other books, and that they need to read books without pictures if they want to grow up properly.

The problem is that while some kids can move on to chapter books with no problem, a lot of them struggle with reading and have trouble comprehending unfamiliar words. In the old days, when there weren't a lot of options for entertainment, kids had a motivation to fight through their difficulty and learn to become strong readers anyhow. But today, there are lots of other media for kids to consume, and it's far easier for them to watch television or play video games than to struggle through reading a book they're not that interested in reading in the first place.

But if you hand them a comic book that's telling a story they actually care to read, you'll find that kids get very engaged in reading, because it's actually fun. When they come up against unfamiliar words, the pictures help them place the words in a different sort of context, and they're less likely to get frustrated and more likely to keep reading.

Unfortunately, there's another barrier - it's really hard for grade school kids to find comics that are appropriate for their tastes and reading level. Manga is popular with tweens, but grade school kids aren't as interested in the cartoony style and angst-y stories. There are some great graphic novels out there, like Jeff Smith's Bone, and while the Scholastic editions of Bone are doing really well, the story delves deeply enough into fantasy that it's still a bit much for many of the 10-and-under kids. And sadly, the rest of the comic book industry is so bent on producing books for adult audiences that there really aren't a lot of alternatives left for kids. (You might bring up Marvel Adventures, but I know far more adults who read those books than children.)

So, to answer your question, the problem is not that kids aren't into comics. The problem is that there aren't a lot of comics out there that kids can get into in the first place.

BF: When you were initially investigating the viability of the concept how did you go about attaining that all-important market research as to what would appeal to the 8-12 year old age range?

SJJ: I approached the situation from several different angles. One of them was to talk to kids directly, and another was to talk to the decision-makers, like parents, teachers and librarians. I tracked down some articles, and I talked to a few people in the book industry. I even spent some time browsing the children's section at a few different bookstores to see how kids approached book-buying, and how retailers approached bookselling when it came to kids.

But I also approached the problem from a psychological point of view. There was a Swiss scientist named Jean Piaget who spent most of his life performing observational experiments on children so he could learn more about the stages of development. There's a very big difference between how a 10-year-old sees the world and how a 12-year-old sees the world, and a lot of it is related to the way they are able to think about the world. The 10-year-old will be very logical and concrete, while the 12-year-old will be just beginning to be able to think about the world in a more abstract way. There's a difference, too, in self-image. If you ask a room full of fourth-grade kids how many of them can draw, most of them will raise their hand. But if you ask a room full of sixth-grade kids the same question, fewer hands will go up.

While those differences might seem daunting, it actually helped me to understand what sort of story kids in this age group would find interesting. Code of the Wild isn't just a book of facts about animals; it's a story about two predators that are trying to survive in a harsh and dangerous world. Younger kids will be able to read the book and enjoy it for the action, the facts, and the enjoyment of seeing which animal will win. But older kids - and really, tweens, teens, and adults as well - will be able to read Code of the Wild and spot some of the subtlety to the story, such as the complex relationships that exist in nature between predators, prey, and competitors.

BF: Obviously your target audience is for the book is very self-evident but to what degree are you also thinking about the potential educational market? I could see Code of the Wild being a hugely popular series that could lure children into their local public libraries to check out the latest volume for example.

SJJ: I've watched a lot of small press publishers rise and fall in the comic book industry, and I realized when I was building my own business plan that the reason it was happening was because they were relying on the comic book direct market to do something it's not designed to do - sell independent books in large quantities. A lot of people come into this industry thinking that the reason that independent books fail is because they lack quality.

That may be true for some of them, but for many, it's really that they lack retailer support. And you can't blame the retailers, because they are constantly getting burned by small press publishers who put out two or three books and then can't scrape enough money together to continue the series. I think the retailers are the unsung heroes of the comic book industry, because they often stick their necks out to help books they want to believe in and often wind up taking a loss as a result.

I realized that Code of the Wild was not going to be a book that the retailers were going to want to take a lot of chances on, though, because it's a graphic novel that's meant to appeal to children. So, I built my business plan with the academic market in mind, and hoped that the comic book industry would be a secondary sales channel. I'm sure that if the book does well in other markets, comic book retailers will be eager to carry it too. I hope they do, because I'd really like to see the industry embrace this series and point to it as an example of how comic books can be a positive experience for children.

Join us tomorrow for the second part of our interview on Code of the Wild when Sean talks about the interactive elements of the series and working with artist Jason Maranto