This weekend, Campfire Graphic Novels, is going to launch their upcoming 104 p
ages title ‘They Changed the World’.
AnimationXpress.com caught up with Jason Quinn- Content Head at Campfire
to get you a preview of the appealing aspects of this book.
Hi Jason, what is ‘They Changed the World’ all about?
They Changed the World tells the story of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and Alexander Graham Bell, three of the greatest inventors the world has ever known, whose lives intertwined and connected to make a fascinating story. I really wanted us to come up with a book that would make science really interesting and yet easy to understand. These guys live great lives and they should be an inspiration for us all. I also wanted us to come up with a book that would sell itself. I wanted something so great that we wouldn’t have to persuade libraries or schools or students to pick up the book. We just say, ‘hey this tells you all you need to know about Edison, Tesla and Bell’ and teachers, students and anyone interested in a cracking good read will bite our arm off for it.
Is the book targeted to mass audience?
I’m never keen on saying who or what a targeted audience is because for me a good book is open for anyone who loves a good book, no matter how old they are. A kids book that can’t hold the attention of an adult isn’t a good kids book and vice versa, but I will say that the key audience is students of 11+
When did you start working on it and in how much time did you complete it?
I think I commissioned this book from the author Lewis Helfand back in January of last year. We got the script in over the summer and Naresh Kumar began illustrating it the day after he finished work on our adaptation of Julius Caesar last summer. Naresh always goes for a photo real look for his artwork and we went for good old traditional colors, slightly reminiscent of the great American artist Norman Rockwell.
Please explain about the look and feel and challenges?
I wanted to capture the time and period of the age and this style seemed to sum it up for me. Well, we wanted to tell three life stories in one book but to connect them all without making it contrived. It wasn’t really a challenge because these guys were connected but making the lives run seamlessly was a challenge. The author had to do a lot of research but then our own editors and artist had to do a lot too to get good reference of the inventors and their peers from all throughout their lives and they did live pretty long lives.
Can we have a credit run down?
Author: Lewis Helfand
Artist: Naresh Kumar
Colourist: Vijay Sharma
Editor: Jason Quinn & Aadithyan Mohan
Design: Era Chawla