downthetubes: Classics
Illustrated has been around since 1941. Why did
you decide now was the right time to re-launch it?
Jeff Brooks: The continued interest from original collectors
as well as the resurgence of graphic novels that is taking pace, with
Central Government support, convinced us that the time was right to bring
them back.
downthetubes: What does the publication have that appeals
to you personally?
Jeff Brooks: I love them but I am biased. I grew up
on this artwork, spending hours upon hours reading and re-reading the
adaptations. But I also think that the artwork sets the benchmark upon
which every other graphic adaptation of a classic novel that is being
produced is measured. This is some the best artwork ever done.
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The first issue of the US
edition of Classics Illustrated. |
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The new Classics Illustrated
Junior: five years olds didn't want to give back to the market researchers. |
Although much of today’s artwork is avant-garde
and edgy, Classics Illustrated adaptations are fantastic, bringing to
life characters and stories as the author wrote them down.
downthetubes: What sort of market research did you do
before re-launching the title?
Jeff Brooks: 800 Vintage collectors were encouraging
me to get them going and we undertook a series of classroom tests which,
while unofficial, convinced us that this series still had legs... five
year olds didn’t want to give
the Junior series back!
We also sensed that the retro feel of the product
would play well. There are a very great many people out there that remember
this series from their own childhood in the 1940’s , ‘50s and ‘60s (when
over one billion were sold worldwide!) Grandparental recognition will be
vital in our success...
downthetubes: How did you go about approaching the major
book sellers, WH Smith and Borders, about stocking CI?
Jeff Brooks: We approached several newsstand distributors
all of whom were keen but Comag, out of West Drayton and Coventry, were
the most responsive and impressive. They, in turn, promoted the products
to WH Smith and Borders.
We wanted
front of store, newsstand distribution to get the publications profile up
-- they can sit in Books or Magazines, but we decided on newsstand to begin
with. Since agreeing that deal, we now have Waterstones taking them, so
we are covering both retail channels – Magazines and Books - and each product
has an ISSN and ISBN listing, meaning that they can be sold through each
channel.
downthetubes: Do you have any say over where the booksellers
place the publications? My own WH Smith has the main CI with comics for
older readers such as Batman and 2000AD, whilst the junior version is
with the comics for younger readers.
Jeff Brooks: This has been a source of concern but we
stipulated that the Juniors should be with the general comics – Beano,
Dandy, Postman Pat etc - and the Regulars should sit within the Pre-Teen
section, next to Batman, Wolverine etc. So your experience outlined in
your question is exactly how we perceived the launch and we are seeing
very good sell-through as a result of that product placement approach.
downthetubes: Are you anticipating an adult readership
as well as children? These are timeless stories after all. The
War of the Worlds has some quite sinister undertones such as when it is speculated
that some humans might aid the aliens in hunting down other humans - I
thought that was a really clever, quite dark element of the story.
Jeff Brooks: As per previous answers, we are seeing
great enthusiasm from former CI collectors who are delighted by the quality
of our re-prints and they want to share them with their young loved ones...
but we have added essays at the back of the artwork to challenge the reader,
wherein we draw attention to areas that the author may have wanted us
to consider. Your question highlights this – we
go even deeper.
For example [in the first issue, which reprints War
of the Worlds], can we compare the Martians attempts to "colonise" the
Earth with the colonisation of Africa in the 1800s? Challenging stuff, but
we want to take the young reader into the social dynamics of the story and
the time. That's why we have added other information such as a Timeline
of the events taking place in the world at the time of the original publication – including
a Credit Crunch in 1893!
downthetubes: The first issue is an important one for
any publication. How did you go about choosing War
of the Worlds as the
first one?
Jeff Brooks: We needed impact and recognition, but also
bear in mind that Lou Cameron’s
adaptation of the story is superb – a tremendous work of art in its own
right. Others may try but how can anyone equal those clear lines, that menacing
artwork – fantastic! So we needed it to jump off the shelves. It's a highly
recognisable story, recently adapted in the Cruise vehicle on film and involving
Sci-Fi readers. A great choice we think!
downthetubes: Like the original publication, you have
not run any advertisements in the new version. Is this something you felt
strongly about?
Jeff Brooks: We will never run ads in these publications
and we are absolutely four square behind that decision with First Classics
Inc., out of Chicago, and JLPI in that view. We provide a fantastic adaptation
of the original work and we won’t be dissuaded from that decision. Next
question!
|
Doctor No - a rare UK Classics
Illustrated based more on the film than the on the James Bond novel,
adapted back in 1963. More about the comic here on the brilliant
JJ's
James Bond Comics Site |
downthetubes: Are there any stories you can't re-issue
due to copyright problems? The James Bond story, Doctor
No for example?
Jeff Brooks: Well, Doctor No presents a problem for us since
it was originally produced by DC in a Showcase Comic with a different
cover from the UK-only one. We are trying to resolve that and I would
love to bring Dr No out as soon as possible.
We have our first twelve issues nailed on but watch
this space – if we can
get agreement on Doctor No, then we are looking
at November 2009.
Fingers crossed! That’s the only one that poses significant
problems.
We are looking to bring
the original Joint European Series into the new series. These were published
in Mainland Europe in German, Dutch, Swedish etc.
There are some very interesting
adaptations there – Alexander the Great, The
Quest for the Grail (Parsifal),
The Scarlet Pimpernel… We would expect to
have them available to publish within this new series.
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Above: the original Robin
Hood cover to the US edition of Classics Illustrated (#7) and the
upcoming third issue of the new edition (#3)
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Panel from the original
edition of War of the Worlds. Click the image or here for
the full page. (Will open in new window) Page courtesy Classics Comics
Store. |
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Panel from the restored
edition of War of the Worlds. Click the image or here for
the full page. (Will open in new window) Page courtesy Classics
Comics Store. |
downthetubes: Does scanning and reproducing the artwork
present any particular technical challenges? And how is the colouring
done?
(Here, Jeff hands over
to the JLPI team. Jaak Jarve, President of JLPI is overseeing the actual
restoration of the strips in North America.)
Jaak Jarve: When Jack Lake Productions Inc. bought the
international publishing rights to the entire CI line in 2002 there wasn’t even one art file available
through First Classics Inc – the copyright owners out of Chicago. Over the
course of the past six years JLPI has redrawn and re-coloured over 50 Classics
Illustrated Junior covers and individual art panels.
JLPI’s dedicated team
of freelance artists do not compromise on the original black line art of
the original Gilberton series. Using Photoshop and Illustrator software
these artists re-colour and in some cases, enhance the colouring of each
panel (adding gradients, highlights and shadows) to give it a more crisp
and brilliant rendition.
In a sense, we're preserving an American post-war artwork
form and re-mastering them by adding enhanced colouring schemes.
We have also taken the liberty of adding a different font style (Garamond
Bold) for the lettering on the Junior series, so as to provide easier reading
to our young readers. The original series were printed in upper case. Tests
have shown that the early readers can process text easier and faster in
both upper and lower case styles.
The ‘regulars’ are the flagship of the CI line, with
169 North American titles available. These are being distributed in the
UK following the detailed re-colouring as described for the Juniors.
It's great to announce the latest
technical developments: we have recently come across a collector who has
about 95% of all the original copper printing plates for all of the original
Gilberton covers. We are currently retrieving the digital data off these
covers which will in fact be a historical coup with regards to recovery
of these fine artwork covers.
We have also been in contact with many collectors
who have made original high-res scans of their CI artwork
covers available to us and we will continue to re-colour the black line
artwork that we are sourcing across the world.
Back to Jeff!
downthetubes: Will you be keeping an eye on which films
are released to see if you can get the appropriate CI title out at the
same time as the film? If you'd released War
of the Worlds, for example,
at the same time as the Tom Cruise film it would presumably have been
good for sales.
Jeff Brooks: We are already doing it. We will have A
Journey to the Centre of the Earth in stores in February - just
about coinciding with the DVD release of the 3-D film with Brendon Fraser
released in Summer 2008. We have Wuthering Heights out
in 2009 – we expect a general release of a new
interpretation of this classic with Sienna Miller next year and we expect
a new BBC interpretation of Jane Eyre (with Ellen Page as Jane) next summer
and that’s in our releases
next year... so we are trying to co-ordinate with these events.
We are also
trying to lock on to Jeff Wayne’s new touring version of The
War of the Worlds in June 2009 – we can see tremendous commercial potential of these
wonderful adaptations.
downthetubes: On a similar note would you try and release
some titles at appropriate times of year -- for example, Frankenstein in
October to tie in with Hallowe'en or A Christmas
Carol in December?
Jeff Brooks: We are committed to bringing A
Christmas Carol into stores in December 2009, with the fantastic painted cover that
was only released in the UK. But although we had planned to put Frankenstein out there in our 2009/10 releases you have hit the spot – we will release
Frankenstein in October next year. Thanks!
downthetubes: If the two publications are a hit and
run for years and years, might be see some new adaptations at some point?
Jeff Brooks: Wouldn’t that be fantastic? I dream of
the time when the success of the series demands that new titles are brought
into the catalogue. I am sure it will happen but it will be true to the
original artwork.
Just think,
though, the potential is huge – Dracula, Of
Mice and Men, The Grapes of
Wrath. And modern classics – The
Da Vinci Code, for example... but the Holy Grail would be Harry
Potter. J. K. Rowling, what do you think?
Our thanks to Jeff and Jaak for their time.
• Comment
on this interview in the downthetubes forum (membership required but free)
• Classics
Illustrated web site:
www.classicsillustrated.co.uk
• Classics Illustrated Junior (US Site): www.jacklakeproductions.com
• Classics
Illustrated Reference Guides
• The Complete
Guide to Classics Illustrated (Web Companion to
the book by Dan Malan)
• For a complete listing of Classics Illustrated titles:
www.tkinter.smig.net/ClassicsIllustrated/list.htm
Classics
Illustrated (originally Classic Comics) was an American comic book series
which ran from 1941 to 1971 and featured comic strip adaptations of literary
classics ranging from The
Time Machine to Moby Dick and Romeo
and Juliet to The Jungle Book.
Each issue featured stunning artwork and benefited from superb scripting.169
issues were published in all, along with a Classics Illustrated Junior
title featuring fairy tales such as Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs for younger readers. 
