♪ (heroic music) ♪ ♪ ♪ - Hello, and welcome to "Comic Culture."

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is writer Jason Douglas.

Jason, welcome to "Comic Culture."

- Terence, thank you very much for having me.

- Jason, you are the writer behind the award-winning graphic novel "Jane American."

What is "Jane American" about?

- "Jane American," which is my latest graphic novel, is a World War II coming of age tale.

It's got hints of-- for our deep comic book nerds out there-- of Superman for all seasons, and maybe even Archie 1941.

It takes place in a small town in Michigan called Plymouth, where I grew up, and so did my grandparents.

That's important.

Put a pin in that.

And during the war years, Jane is living a life of family, of stability, of hope, till she's not.

Till the war literally comes to her door, brings tragedy with it, and changes her in unbelievable ways that are better left hidden.

Insert your metaphor here.

End of the war comes.

Reality sets in.

Dad's not coming home.

Society has determined that mom can no longer be a Rosie the Riveter and support her family, and this leaves Jane with a choice.

Stay safe, stay hidden, or embrace who she really is and now what she can truly do for the sake of everybody that she loves.

It's full of those universal relatable themes about identity, self-worth, gender, you being you in a world that tells you that's not OK.

But Terence, this book is also deeply personal to me because it's named after and inspired by my late grandmother who went through all of that 80 years ago.

It is dedicated to every kid who's gone through my classroom-- I'm a public school teacher-- for the last 26 years, still struggling with identity today.

And if you and I are going to be honest with each other today on air, only getting more difficult for them.

And then-- and I got to be careful how I tell you this, or I'll start crying on TV-- it's freshly dedicated to my late grandfather.

He was my research wingman on the book because he lived it.

And just last year at the age of 99, when he realized he was not going to see 100, made me promise that the book that contains the name and likeness of his high school sweetheart, my grandmother, would see print.

So this little dream of mine has kind of been-- the publishing of this book has become me fulfilling that promise to them.

- It's fascinating because the path that creation takes for an artist is always unique.

It's always different.

For some people, it's, I want to tell this great American story.

Some people, it's, I want to honor someone.

In other cases, it's, I want to make a buck.

And they're all valid reasons to get into the creation of making art.

But to have something that's this deeply personal, and to be putting in themes that are beyond just the basic story, it's a balancing act.

So I'm wondering, as you are taking this idea that you have and combining it with elements that happened to your grandmother and your grandfather, how do you sort of find a way to make their story into something more than, but also keep it true to that line?

- This is a very new dream come true for me, OK?

I am five years into this comic journey.

And I am a man well into middle age.

You know, I'm closer to 50 than I am to any kind of thing that was resembling youth.

And this has been a dream of mine probably since I was 12 years old.

And yet, dreams deferred, right?

I didn't start doing this until I was in my 40s.

But if I've discovered one thing about who I am as at least a comic book writer, OK, in the several projects that I've now done, it's that the comic book nerd in me, and the activist in me, and the educator in me are all finding a way to be balanced in what I created.

Notice I didn't say compete with each other, because there's room for all of it.

I mean, the comic book nerd in me, everything that I've written is wrapped in a genre bit of wrapping paper, I like to call it, right?

My first book is dark, twisted, sci-fi, psychological horror.

This is obviously has superhero undertones.

I just wrote a World War I werewolf book, for crying out loud.

But at the core of each and every one of those is those universal relatable truths that I think are important for people to read in.

Because I know for myself as a reader, as a lifelong reader, finding something that you can sink your teeth into, that you can relate to, that you can find yourself in that text, made a world of difference to me.

It's the kind of thing that can save people, that can inspire people.

I mean, I've spent 26 years with kids from the ages of 8, now up to 14, where you can literally watch something that they read be the thing that makes the difference.

And so for this book in particular, doing that balancing act that I do of satisfying the comic nerd in me, the person who wants to get that message out there, who has that story to tell, and then the material, because it's connected to my grandparents, it wasn't a chore to find that balancing act.

It's what the story was.

They complemented each other instead of competed with each other, which was kind of-- look, I probably use this word too loosely, but it was magic.

I'm not saying that the creative process isn't hard.

It isn't like pulling teeth sometimes, that this isn't a long process that sometimes takes years.

But oh my goodness, the creation of this one, it felt really magical to me.

Because all those things came together in a way that, well, produce this.

And the recognition it's got, I think, speaks to how it came together.

- You won a Ringo Award for best graphic novel.

And it's fascinating, because you are not one of the big publishers.

You are you.

And that's fantastic that you're able to sort of cut through the clutter and get that recognition.

So what goes into either getting it to the right reviewer or maybe letting people who are voting know that, hey, this is a really worthwhile book.

Maybe you should read it before you cast your vote.

- So to be able to even answer that, we have to go back a little bit.

Because my very first book came out a little under five years ago.

It was called Parallel.

It's an indie comic, but it was made in a very atypical way.

21st century comics are-- unless you are of a certain stature in the comic book industry, they are self-funded.

I mean, Kickstarter is the comic book creator's friend.

That's how it works.

And maybe that takes 10 years before somebody notices.

Maybe it never gets noticed.

And my first book came into the world like it was 1970.

I wrote a half a script in a bubble.

And I took it to a comic convention in Detroit called Motor City Comic-Con and handed a physical copy to a publisher and said, here, let me tell you about my comic.

Because two of my kind of almost buzz words in the last five years have been blissful ignorance and irrational confidence.

It's like what's totally made everything possible, right?

Had I known better, it would have been too scary, and I would have waited another 20 years to start.

Had I known more, I would have tried to do it the right way, and who knows if it works.

And I got my first book published, picked up by a publisher, not knowing anything about creation, just having the dream of a 12-year-old from decades before.

And it was put in the world, and I got my hand held.

The artist was found.

The editor was found.

The letterer was found.

They took care of everything and helped me sign a terrible contract, too, because they took care of everything.

But this thing existed in the world.

It flopped.

Nobody told me that what you do is you move on to the next thing or you go back to your life, even though you've gotten further than 99% of people.

And what I did over the next 18 months was treated the book the way I treat the other things that I'm passionate about in my life, whether it's my students or tutoring or my family or the movies that I love and the comics that I love.

I gave it everything.

And I spent the next 18 months, and I booked no hyperbole.

I am an eighth grade teacher.

I know hyperbole.

75 interviews across Instagram and YouTube and podcasts.

And the book picked up steam, sold out, got two Ringo nominations for my first book.

And part of that was the publishing company sent in the copies, and then people voted for it and whatnot.

Now, I got slaughtered at that award show by an unnamed author who writes Batman, because you're not defeating Batman.

But when this one rolled around, and I was on my own-- I mean, this one I produced on my own and put out in the world on my own, like literally self-published, partially because the publishing company I was attached to before kind of fell on hard financial times.

This happens in indie comics all the time.

And partially because, like we talked about earlier, this book means something different.

That first book had to be written because I was scratching a decades-old creative itch.

This one was for other people, too.

And I knew that producing on my own, I was taking a really big risk about what could possibly come next.

Because not only was the purpose of this book to fulfill that promise and honor people who came before me, but this is the one that the long-term dream was, I wanted this in schools.

I want this in libraries.

I want this at book fairs.

I want this on shelves.

And anybody who knows anything about comic publishing knows, kind of the accepted knowledge is that if you make something and produce it and it's published on any level, there isn't a larger publishing company, especially the book companies, especially lit agents who will touch you with a 100-foot pole.

But there was this other situation where the book people liked it.

And I took it to shows.

And the Kickstarter was a success.

And the Ringo jury got a hold of it and picked it as one of the five best graphic novels of the year.

And then after that, because of the way it spread and the little tiny foothold I had in the industry, creators voted on it and decided it was the best one of the year.

Am I going to say that it just happened and it was blissful and whatever and I didn't talk to people I knew?

Of course not.

I mean, there's hard work that goes into that and getting it into people's hands and making sure that they can then make their choice.

But again, that kind of-- I'm going to overuse it-- that kind of magical thing where for the reasons that it happened, this resonated with people.

And suddenly, you've got this little self-published book winning the second biggest prize in all of comics out of nowhere.

I mean, if you look at-- if you go to the Ringo website and look at the other books nominated and look at the other people who were nominated for Best Writer-- there's a reason why I didn't write Best Writer.

Why did you choose to use those names?

But like, I mean, there's books published by Scholastic in there, right?

And this little one by me, like first self-published book, it won.

It was a long journey.

It was an unexpected journey.

I'll tell you this little anecdote really quick.

So you and I off air were talking about our mutual acquaintance, our mutual friend, Dr.

Christy Blanche, who edited this book.

And she and I are sitting at the table.

And James Robinson of Starman fame is up at the podium.

And he's announcing the category.

And he announces the winner.

And Christy and I started applauding politely for the winner.

And there was a beat and then probably a second one.

It felt like it could have been about a day.

It was probably like three seconds before it registered that it was the book.

And luckily, we were close enough to the stage where it doesn't look really awkward on camera of us, like, waiting too long to get up there.

But to sit there and say I expected it, absolutely not.

To sit there and say that it was something I dreamed of, that might even be a stretch.

But it happened.

And now the world has changed about where this can be next.

I'm still-- can you tell by the way I'm answering it that I'm still even like a little bit overwhelmed?

And it's now been like a month and a half.

Whether it's joy or trauma, you are supposed to decompress and deal with it, and kind of digest it and figure it out and talk to people about it.

It didn't help that the day after winning the award, I drove the eight hours back to Detroit, straight through Sunday.

And then I got back to school on Monday and had 180 essays waiting to grade.

And I brought back convention crud.

So that normal week time where you're kind of like you're kind of unpacking like the events of the weekend, I don't know that I even have yet.

Because it's kind of been a whirlwind since then.

- So what I find really interesting, first off, the enthusiasm you have for comics is-- it's amazing.

Because we all have-- those of us who love comics, we all have that creative project.

We love to read comics.

But I'm sure everyone who reads comics thinks to themselves, oh, I've got this idea.

Wouldn't it be cool if-- and for you to go back to this, after you've got a career as an educator for 20 some odd years, for you to say, you know what?

I have a story I want to tell.

And then to tell that story and then say, but you know what?

I've got this other story I really want to tell and go into it and win this award, win this acclaim.

And then you're talking about how you want to use this in schools.

And I mean, there's so many different avenues we can go down.

But I'd like to explore just a little bit about you getting this into schools.

I was reading a little bit of Jane American before we started recording today.

It is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel.

It has a really touching story.

I was reading through the first couple of chapters and the events that happen between Jane and her father.

It's really touching stuff.

And then you start getting into what could best be described as historical fiction.

There's events that are tied to real world events that you've woven into this narrative.

So as a teacher, how do you tell a great story but also want to educate at the same time and make it work?

- I told you earlier the one thing I know about myself as a comic book writer, the wrapping paper and the themes underneath.

The other thing I know is that if I am going to ask you to suspend your disbelief about anything, my first book, Parallel World, is a parallel version of you offering you a second chance at dreams you thought left behind forever.

This book, a 15-year-old who could lift a couple of tons of steel above her head.

If I'm going to ask you to suspend your disbelief about something like that, the pedantic history nerd in me, the pedantic get it right in our media nerd in me is going to make sure everything else is as real as it can be.

My first book, there's scenes with doctors.

There's scenes with cops.

I don't know enough about that to make the thing up.

I am the teacher who will never watch a TV show about educators on TV, just like my cousin the doctor will never watch Grey's Anatomy or ER, because as soon as they say something that's a little bit mm, you're out.

I talk to my cousin the doctor to make sure those scenes are right.

I am a history nerd, right?

And so you are not going to find a vehicle from 1955 set in 1946 in this book.

When you look at the icebox in their kitchen, it's like a 1932 model, because not only is that scene happening in 1942, it doesn't matter.

They don't have the money to afford the newest model.

There is a setting in this book.

It's called-- it's a factory.

It's called Wallwire.

It's a real place in Plymouth, Michigan that got a government contract in World War II.

Like, outside of Detroit, if you're a World War II nerd, you know that at the-- Ford and GM were building tanks and bombers.

And then there's all these kind of Detroit suburban factories around there that were getting other contracts.

And Wallwire was this place that got a war contract for these things called Marsden mats, which are these big metal sheets with holes punched in them.

They became temporary runways in the Pacific and the Atlantic.

So you could-- you didn't have to-- you know, you could build your own runway.

And this is a real place that my great-grandfather worked at.

And my grandfather, before he passed away, got us a tour of Wallwire, literally the week before they tore it apart to make component office space.

And so we got in there with cameras and video cameras and I got everything.

And it was stripped down to its bare studs.

It looked exactly like it looked like in the 1940s.

And so there's a scene, just to illustrate how I wanted to get it right and how much the history means to me.

And then I'll tell you why it means that much to me.

There's a scene in here, just one panel.

You see Jane and some of the workers at the factory.

They're kind of lined up to do the classic punch card thing.

You see the punch clock on the wall.

That punch clock is literally, in that panel, where it was in the factory in the 1940s.

Because I saw the shadow of it on the wall.

I got a picture of it and sent that to Annie, my artist.

Those details mean something to me because-- and this goes back to my childhood.

I'm a teacher, but I needed school through middle school, elementary school and middle school.

Couldn't stand it.

Didn't want to get there.

Obstinate child, refused to do stuff, refused to learn at school.

But at the same time as somebody else making those kind of decisions that's falling further and further behind each school year, I was basically only doing a couple of things at home.

If I was outside, I was playing, making forts in the woods, possibly playing Star Wars outside.

If I was inside, I was either playing Star Wars inside or I was reading.

And that's all I did.

I read the way I probably eat now, with gusto.

And what happened was I was consuming so much fiction and nonfiction that I really wasn't falling behind in school.

And once I got my act together and started to apply myself, a lot of that knowledge was there.

And the thing that I now realize as an adult is I learned just as much from the fiction I read as from the nonfiction.

I love my authors who do their research.

And your historical fiction or your realistic fiction, you can trust that as a resource.

And you can get just as much knowledge out of life as you are reading your dry history texts or something like that.

And so for something like this, for this book, it meant a lot to me.

I've got my teacher's guide in the back because I can't help myself.

You've got your Common Core State Standards back there and your Anticipatory Stats and your Socratic Circles.

And in the back of the book, we've got the Easter egg section.

It's end notes with all the historical Easter eggs that you miss on a first reading because I layered it.

A second reading is really enriched because if you don't notice those Tuskegee Airmen in the background at the first read-through, my big blurb in the back, you're going to be like, oh my god, those are the guys who did da-da-da-da-da.

Like, I write because it's something I would love to read.

And this one is just layered with a lot of real history, connected to real events, connected to real events broad and specific.

And if you pick up on them as a five, awesome.

If you learn something from it directly, fantastic.

If you read the end notes and read it again, you're like, oh my god.

I can't believe how much I'm learning here.

I love that.

And you know what?

Kids do, too.

I mean, this is such a cliche, but it's like vegetables that are actually delicious.

It's literally candy-coated vegetables.

I don't know if that's the proper analogy I'm making, but that's the one I'm making here with you.

- Candy-coated vegetables, I think that could be your next career.

- There you go.

- You could be making delicious chocolate-covered broccoli.

But let's talk a little bit about Annie Wright, who is the artist on this book.

What's it like working with a collaborator?

You've got an idea.

You are putting together your script.

You might be going full page, like full panel description.

How is this working relationship like?

- Annie was amazing.

On my first book, I got to-- on "Parallel," I got to live this kind of a very cliched writer's dream, where I wrote the first half of "Parallel" in a bubble.

But the second half, I knew who the artist was going to be, and I'd seen samples and stuff.

So with Adam, it was like I got to do that kind of dream artist thing, where it's like, oh, I'm writing this scene.

I'm adjusting the scene for you.

Annie was a different situation entirely.

Annie-- let's bring Christy back into this.

Dr.

Christy-- Annie was a customer in Dr.

Christy's store in Indiana.

And kind of was like, hey, this kid's got talent.

And when I say kid, we're not messing around.

When we first started working on the one-shot, which then eventually became the graphic novel, she had just barely turned 20.

And did the one-shot at 21, and she did this graphic novel at 22.

And this was her very first-- I mean, she was a talented artist from day one.

But this is her first attempt at graphic storytelling ever.

So it was actually a slightly different process.

I wrote towards her talents for what I knew she could do in a single frame with emotion, with feelings, with facial expressions, with showing pain or joy or whatever on a face.

But anybody out there who knows anything about script writing, you'll know that this is kind of unusual.

So there's 120 pages of art in this book.

My script was almost 200 pages long.

Because every panel layout, every page turn or reveal on a facing or a turn, every panel composition, I had to write.

She hadn't done that before.

Now, one of the most amazing things was how much she grew.

We did a one-shot, which is kind of most of the story beats of the first chapter.

We did that on Kickstarter almost as a proof of concept a year before.

Because my indie creators out there who are watching and listening know that for your first book on your own, a graphic novel that's a hardcover and softcover is kind of cost prohibitive.

So we wanted to prove that we could do this, that this was worth taking the risk of financially trying it.

And some of the same pages-- now, they're told in a different order.

The cliffhanger on page 32 of the one-shot, we burn that in page 10 of this, because it's not the point of chapter one.

But Annie grew so much as an artist from the age of 21 to 22, even the pages and the panels that we reused, she had to redraw them all.

Because it is.

It's breathtaking.

It's one of my favorite things to do at shows, where somebody's still picking up the one-shot.

My last couple copies is a collectible.

And then they're looking at it, like, can I show you this?

Especially when the people come up and they're like, artists, I'm like, I got to show you this.

Wait till you see the growth of this kid.

Like, that, like, makes my heart sore, because she is my friend.

That makes my heart sore, because as a teacher, when you see that growth, ooh, I mean, that's what you live for, you know?

She's been amazing to work with, because she didn't know how hard this would be.

She didn't know what we were asking to do creating this and putting out in the world, that the chances of success were pretty slim on day one.

And yet, put her head down and worked on it and accomplished things kind of in the way only a 22-year-old can, when your whole life is before you.

You don't know the roadblocks that are coming.

And it was.

It turned out to be this gorgeous thing.

And there's a reason, Terence, that later in that same award ceremony, where Christie and I were applauding the winner that was us, Annie won Best Newcomer of the Year, which I could not be more happy for.

I mean, she is an amazing human being that absolutely crushed this.

- When you look at a comic, you know, especially a long project, you can usually see when the artist hits their stride, and when they connect with the material in a way that is beyond just the initial, I'm going to sit down and draw it.

And one of the things that I find really impressive about Annie's work is she's taking the character of Jane from being a kid to being a young woman.

And it's really difficult to transition a face and have it appeared in her style, realistic in that, you know, you look a certain way when you're younger and you tend to thin out, maybe elongate as you get older.

And she did that so, so beautifully, and it really worked with the storytelling.

Now, regrettably, we are about running out of time.

So I wanted to give you the opportunity, if the folks watching at home wanted to find out more about you and your work, where can they find you on the web?

- So it's pretty simple.

Public school teachers know that social media is a good way to get fired.

So I was actually social media footprint free for decades.

Part of that contract with my first company was, hey, Indie Comics, you gotta self promote, okay?

So you can find me, Jason Douglas, you can find me, I've got my Instagram account, @JDouglasWrites.

That's probably what I post on the most.

I'm on Blue Sky.

I suppose I'm on Facebook too, but I hardly know how it works.

You can find me, you can reach out, especially on Instagram, @JDouglasWrites.

Listen, I'll talk your ear off, you drop me a DM.

We will talk about the book, we'll talk about whatever.

I got big news coming up, so you gotta get on there.

There's announcements coming, new book stuff, and really big news that I'm not allowed to speak of in details today, 'cause the ink isn't quite dry, but Jane American, the dream will come true.

It is going to be in libraries, in schools, in book fairs, and in bookstores, nation and internationally wide in 2026.

- That is spectacular news.

Jason, I wanna thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to talk with me today.

It's been a fun half hour.

- Thank you very much for having me.

This was an absolute pleasure.

I know you're not supposed to say stuff like this to the host, but you are very good at your job, and this was awesome.

- Well, thank you so much, and thank you everyone at home for watching Comic Culture.

We will see you again soon.

(heroic music) ♪ ♪ ♪ - Comic Culture is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, giving broadcasting majors professional experience and onscreen credit before they graduate.

(heroic music continues) ♪