Amazon.com Review
Book Description
The 9/11 Report for Every American
On December 5, 2005, the 9/11 Commission issued its final report card on the governments fulfillment of the recommendations issued in July 2004: one A, twelve Bs, nine Cs, twelve Ds, three Fs, and four incompletes. Here is stunning evidence that Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón, with more than sixty years of experience in the comic-book industry between them, were right: far, far too few Americans have read, grasped, and demanded action on the Commission's investigation into the events of that tragic day and the lessons America must learn.
Using every skill and storytelling method Jacobson and Colón have learned over the decades, they have produced the most accessible version of the 9/11 Report. Jacobsons text frequently follows word for word the original report, faithfully captures its investigative thoroughness, and covers its entire scope, even including the Commission's final report card. Colón's stunning artwork powerfully conveys the facts, insights, and urgency of the original. Published on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, an event that has left no aspect of American foreign or domestic policy untouched, The 9/11 Report puts at every American's fingertips the most defining event of the century.
"Never before have I seen a nonfiction book as beautifully and compellingly written and illustrated as The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation. I cannot recommend it too highly. It will surely set the standard for all future works of contemporary history, graphic or otherwise, and should be required reading in every home, school and library." --Stan Lee
A Statement on The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation
by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón
The cave paintings in Altamira, Spain, tell stories. Mostly they tell tales of the hunt. Drawn during the Paleolithic Stone Age, they still amaze us with their lucidity and directness. As an artist, and as an editor and writer in the graphic medium, we each pay homage to those delineators and interpreters of experience. They offered accounts of what happened and provided a way of remembering, honoring, and learning. When retold by the fire's flickering light, these stories must have lent the drawings a compelling, virtual movement. There is something eerie, but deeply gratifying, in knowing that a direct line runs from our contemporary comic art to these earliest efforts to record and convey what happened. Storyteller, audience, drawings depicting continuity of event: it all sounds familiar. In a culture that has become the most visually oriented in the history of humankind, comics retain the original concept of storytelling and remain a potent force of information. Read more
Excerpts from The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation
Timeline of Terror
American Airline Flight 11 (AA 11)
Boston to Los Angeles
7:59: Takeoff
8:14: Last routine radio communication; likely takeover
8:19: Flight attendant notifies AA of hijacking
8:21: Transponder is turned off
8:23: AA attempts to contact the cockpit
8:25: Boston Center aware of hijacking
8:38: Boston Center notifies NEADS of hikacking
8:46: NEADS scrambles Otis fighter jets in search of AA 11
8:46:40: AA 11 crashes into 1 WTC (North Tower)
8:53: Otis fighter jets airborne
9:16: AA headquarters aware that Flight 11 has crashed into WTC
9:21: Boston Center advises NEADS that AA 11 is airborne heading for Washington
9:24: NEADS scrambles Langley fighter jets in search of AA 11
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–At only 15 percent the size of The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (St. Martin's, 2004) and more than four times the price, is this adaptation worth purchasing? The answer is an unequivocal yes. Jacobson and Colón intend this adaptation to bring to the commission's report readers who would not or could not digest its nearly 800 pages, and they have the blessing, acknowledged in this book's foreword, of the commission's chair and vice-chair to do so. Neither lurid nor simplistic, it presents the essence of the commission's work in a manner that, especially in the opening section, is able to surpass aspects of any text-only publication: the four stories of the doomed flights are given on the same foldout pages so that readers can truly grasp the significance of how simultaneous events can and did overwhelm our national information and defense systems. The analysis that follows in the subsequent 11 chapters cuts cleanly to the kernels of important history, politics, economics, and procedural issues that both created and exacerbated the effects of the day's events. Colón's full-color artwork provides personality for the named players–U.S. presidents and Al-Qaeda operatives alike–as well as the airline passengers, office workers, fire fighters, and bureaucrats essential to the report. This graphic novel has the power and accessibility to become a high school text; in the meantime, no library should be without it.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Never before have I seen a non-fiction book as beautifully and compellingly written and illustrated as The 9/11 Report, A Graphic Adaptation. I cannot recommend it too highly. It will surely set the standard for all future works of contemporary history, graphic or otherwise, and should be required reading in every home, school and library." --Stan Lee
About the Author
Sid Jacobson was the managing editor and editor in chief for Harvey Comics, where he created Richie Rich, and executive editor at Marvel Comics.
The artist, Ernie Colón, has worked at Harvey, Marvel, and DC Comics. At DC, he oversaw the production of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Blackhawk, and the Flash; at Marvel, Spider-Man.
