Interview with Jim Gownley July 15, 2010
Kathie Josephs: Good morning. This is quite a pleasure to be talking to you. I am glad that you have the time to talk to me. I can't believe how close our hometowns are. Since we are both from such small towns, I am interested in how you like growing up in one.
Jim Gownley: Where were you from? Latrobe?
KJ: Yes...that was about 4 miles from where you grew up. [Girardville]
JG: You know I liked it a lot. I didn't know any better, but that was just my experience, but it was great! I had tons of friends and it was really a nice place to be when playing outside. You know, one of the great things about growing up in a small town, even if you don't have access to cultural events or access to a lot of things you might have in a big city, however, you do have a community that tends to support you. When I started creating comics when I was a teenager, all my friends and their families made a really big deal about it. I know if I had been in New York, what I was doing wouldn't have registered at all. Or even in a town like ah...
KJ: Pittsburgh
JG: You are right.
KJ: You are absolutely right; it wouldn't have registered.
JG: That is really the upside of living in a small town. Plus you know I have lots of (laughter) strange memories of the things we did as kids then, and that sort of pays the mortgage now.
KJ: When I was growing up in Latrobe, I lived at the library. Did you go there much?
JG: No, we didn't have one and we didn't have a bookstore either. There was a library in Ashlyn and that's about 3 ½ miles from Girardville. You couldn't even ride a bike to it because it was too dangerous a route. So I never went to the library. Sometime I could go to a bookstore that was even further away, but that was in the mall. In Girardville there was a very small convenience store. When I was really little, there were some candy stores and a newsstand, but essentially when I was growing up we had only the one store and that is where I bought all the comic books, but my parents were always hugely interested in getting me to read and to read early. When I was only 3 years old, my Mom was teaching me to read. And one of the first things she read to me was Charles Schultz's, "Peanuts." My whole life I remember those things. Another way she would teach me to read was by making flash cards. It was hilarious because that was in the 1970's which I know sounds like a million years ago. She could have gone to the store to purchase them, but she made her own for some reason. She can't draw, but she made little stick figures and stuff like that. One day when I couldn't have even been four, because I know we were still living in the apartment that we moved out of when I was four, I started taping the flash cards to the door of the apartment. I was making a story out of it. Boy got in his car – drove to his house. You know, I was just a little kid and I made my first comic strip by using my Mom's flash cards. What's nice about that is whenever people ask me, "How did you ever become a cartoonist," I can say, "I blame my Mother."
KJ: There you go, a perfect answer.
JG: Our school had a library and I could take books out. I remember that I was obsessed with one called Harriet the Spy.
KJ: That is a great book! You know kids still read Harriet
JG: Yeah! Yeah! They have made a few attempts at sequels but they are sort of sad. The original Harriet the Spy was absolutely mind blowing; I just took it out again and again. For all I knew, this was a lost, forgotten book, because I had never heard anyone mention it... ever. I couldn't find a copy to buy, so I took my notebook and I was trying to copy it so I could have a copy to read. Of course I gave that up after the first charter. There was a Scholastic Book Fair at my school and that was where I was able to buy my own copy. You know, I still have that copy today.
KJ: My next question you have already answered, because I was going to ask when you realized you wanted to be a writer. I am going to assume it was when you put the flashcards on the door.
JG: It wasn't just writing; it was being a cartoonist. That was what I wanted to be from as early as Kindergarten. There was a brief time when I thought I wanted to be Jedi Knight, but it turned out when I would stare at items across the room and try to will to come into my hand nothing happened. I went back to cartooning.
JG: In fifth grade I had a teacher named Miss Klinger, and she was the first person that said that I had writing ability. I remember very clearly. She was a very good teacher. We would read stories from our readers and there were a couple of instances when we were assigned to write sequels. And I wrote one for a story called The House of Dies Drear, but I can't remember what it was about now. It was some kind of ghost story, and when I wrote my sequel, I can remember my teacher saying, "You could be a writer someday." And she actually gave me some extra assignments to foster that talent. It was fun, and kind of weird because it was fun, but didn't count toward my grade. I was thrilled that somebody thought that I could possibly write stories.
KJ: When you had to write something like a paragraph, no comic books or anything, or to write a short story what did you choose to write about?
JG: Honestly we never had anything like a story or something without any guidelines.
KJ: You mean you never had to write a three-paragraph paper?
JG: Everything we wrote was very structured. Like, write a page about the Greek Gods. It was always within a ridged parameter. It really wasn't until 8th grade when we had to do our own autobiography.
KJ: I bet that was interesting.
JG: Yes, I think my natural default was to always try to do something funny. I remember being very, very pleased with it and I got a good grade on it. This assignment was much more free form. You could use any style that you wanted and take whatever tone you wanted and mine was funny or at least an attempt at being funny. You know when you are a boy and you are a comic book fan that you want to create a piece of fiction you will somehow try to combine "Star Wars" with the "Lord of the Rings." And if you can get it to happen after a nuclear war, that's even better. That is the kind of book I would try to write on my own just for fun. It never really got anywhere. I remember by the time I was 14, I went to my very first comic book store. All I had ever been exposed to was what was in the school library and at the newsstand. It was an amazing store. I really had a good time. It had all these alternative comics that were self-published and it made a huge impact on me. I decided that I wanted to self-published comic book. After I wrote my first comic, I showed it to my friend Tony, because Tony was a very smart kid, he was very sophisticated, and more importantly the girls liked him. So I thought if Tony gave his blessing to this book it would be cool and the girls would like it. He didn't. He hated it. He said, "This is such a geeky thing to write about. Why would you write about something like this? No one wants to read about this."
KJ: How devastating.
JG: Yes, but you know what? All of us spoke frankly to each other. Growing up in the coal region you had to learn to take it and sometimes you had to dish it out too. So that was just his blunt assessment of how he felt. So I said, "Okay, if you are so smart what would you write about?" And he said, "Why don't you write a book about us?" It just didn't connect with me because comic books are big events with larger than life figures. But that is actually what I did. I took his advice and wrote this comic book called Shades of Gray that was based on people like my friends and me. It was amazing, because I think most people spend their whole lives as writers or a big chunk of their lives trying to find their own artistic voice, and he handed it to me when I was a teenager. I am hugely grateful for that, because it is sort of what I am still doing to this day. Even though my artwork was terribly crude and the writing was completely amateur, three pages into the Shades of Gray, I thought, "this is something different and this feels like me." There was no looking back after that.
KJ: I am an educator and I just love graphic novels in the classroom because they really do reach a wide variety of reading abilities. Especially if you have one that is a biography, because if you have a child assigned to write about an individual some of the books can be overwhelming. Graphic novels still give these kids a lot of information. I don't actually have comic book in my room, because I think they are too short, and the other thing that bothers me is that many of the comic books state at the end, "to be continued."
JG: Oh, I'm glad you said that because when I read the question you wrote I didn't quite understand it and now I see what you are saying. Many people are prejudiced against the comic book art form.
KJ: It's not the art form I am prejudiced against; it's the length of the comics and the fact that they continue that there is no closure at the end of the comic book.
JG: I think you are dead right about that. It's unfortunate that the serialized comic became so dependent on "to be continued." When I was a kid, a big epic in a super hero comic book would be covered in four issues. Now, they go on forever. There was a comic book that had over a thousand pages and was then was serialized over years, but then they are usually collected as graphic novels and you can read them all in one sitting. It is tough though, because short stories are a great medium and comic books can do short stories. I saw Frank Miller who was famous for the Dark Knight Returns and Sin City and he talked about how the past format of the comic book has to be replaced. If your story is 100 pages it should be a hundred pages...if it is five hundred pages it should be 500 pages. And then I thought, "What if it is only 32 pages? What if that is your story?" You know, I think I did a story in the 4th Amelia book called The Things I Cannot Change. It was about a girl who had to deal with her father who was in the military being sent overseas to a dangerous place, probably Iraq, and I could have stretched it out to be a 200 page graphic novel. I could have created three panels on a page, but on the other hand, I think it has an impact and a structure that is perfect for the short story format.
KJ: Does it end at the end?
JG: Yes, it ends at the end
KJ: See that's good to know and it is too bad that comics are not really accepted, and I am not trying to knock comic books, but if administrators walk into a classroom and see kids reading comics, they are going to talk to the teacher about that. They would not be happy seeing a student reading a comic book, but they don't have a problem with a graphic novel.
JG: Do you have the "Bones" series in your classroom?
KJ: Yes, I do.
JG: Now, you know that is a comic book that was serialized.
KJ: I did not know that.
JG: It was self-published.
KJ: What is the difference then. I thought that was a graphic novel. How would I have known that? Tell me the difference.
JG: Does it really matter?
KJ: No
JG: Okay, in 1991 or 92, Jeff Smith was a person who owned an animation studio. It did piecework for movies like All Dogs Go To Heaven and stuff like that. I think he also did some commercials. Jeff sold the company and said that he wanted to self-publish a comic book, because he had a story to tell. He could have gone to every publisher in the world ten times over and there is not one publisher who would have ever published Bone. So what he did was he took his money and established a company called Cartoon Books and started publishing his comic series called "Bone." It was initially met with lots of resistance, but eventually found its audience and took off and because a successful black and white comic book and was sold only through comic book stores. Almost all of these graphic novels are collected books. Amelia is collected comics. Watchman is another.
KJ: I am so glad I am talking to you. You are really changing my whole perception.
JG. You know Watchman was one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century by Time Magazine.
KJ: Well, I am going to go shopping. I really am. I have a very large classroom library...very large. I have over 600 books.
JG: Wow...just for students.
KJ: I love reading and I want students to love to reading and not read because they have to. I will go shopping this afternoon.
JG: Back to "Bone." It wasn't until it was a proven success within the comic book world that a publisher like Scholastic would take it on. As a matter of fact, "Bone" was completed between 1992 and I think 2004...maybe 2003. It was about 60 issues and then it was collected into these graphic novels and Scholastic then published it as a series, but is had already been proven to a large extent. Different audience. It really wasn't kids who were reading "Bone," but comic book fans. And that is true about "Amelia" too. There were no kids reading "Amelia" when I first started out. It was people who liked "Calvin and Hobbs" and "Peanuts" and they were going to the comic book stores because that is where they were sold. But even "Maus" which won a Pulitzer prize was serialized.
KJ: I do have that one.
JG: That was serialized in a magazine called Raw. If there is a difference, I would say this, "Graphic novels are usually done by one person or a team of people who do the full series. There is a seriousness of intent and generally when the series, whether it is one graphic novel or ten graphic novels ends...it ends." I would say that when you are talking about a traditional comic book, something like "Spiderman" which has been done by millions of people and if you start with issue one and read each issue, it wouldn't make sense. It is not a continuous story and it doesn't make sense. Spiderman has aged two years, the comics are drawn in different styles. It is more like a soap opera on television.
KJ: Exactly. That is an excellent comparison.
JG: Yes, but that is for more mainstreamed comics traditional comics like "Batman" and "Superman." The man who created Superman has been dead a long time, but the "Superman" series keeps chugging on.
KJ: You really explained that well to me. I am going to explain that to my students. I find it fascinating.
JG: Oh, good. I am actually useful. You know it's actually a shame I loved the time when you could go and for 75 cents, you could buy a comic book that brought you an afternoon's entertainment, but that doesn't exist anymore. That is really disappointing to me. You know, I was sort of fighting against the grain a little. All my original "Amelia" stories were self-contained. Hopefully when they built up to five comics, it would make a satisfying book when it was eventually collected. I really wanted them to be single- issue stories. That's just tilting at windmills; that's not ever going to come back.
KJ: How did you come up with the name of Amelia?
JG: I was working on that book called Shades of Gray and had gotten it to the point where I could just sell it out of my high school locker. My friend's mom owned a video store and there was that little convenience store and that one comic book store in Wilkesboro, PA and they all sold Shades of Gray.
It was one of the greatest comic book stores. He sold some of my books. Eventually I learned that I had sold 55 copies, then 100, and then 200. Eventually I learned how to self publish on a national level so I could just send it to comic book distributors and it would reach comic book stores all over the country. That is what I did as a side job, but it was never going to become the thing that I make a career out of.
I was sort of frustrated one day, so I just took the page I was working on and flipped it over. Without think about what I was doing, I just started to doodle and I doodled this little girl who I thought looked very cute. I showed it to the person that was sitting there with me who at the time--my long suffering girlfriend who is now my long suffering wife and I said, "What do you think of her?" She also thought she was cute and I asked her what she should be called. We both thought for a second and at the exact same time we both said Amelia.
So I thought that was a cosmic sign that I should be doing something with this character Amelia.
KJ: How did you decide to have Amelia face real things in her life? Your books give good messages to young people.
JG: I think it goes back to that conversation I had with my friend Tony back in high school. My initial intention when I started writing "Amelia"...the first thing I did was write a really, really short story called "Freeze Tag". It's in the first chapter of The Whole World's Crazy. It was to be unbelievably light-hearted and nothing serious, but it just didn't feel like that was my voice and what I was best at doing. I had written a number of stories and it was more humorous than having anything serious in them.
Then the September 11th attack happened in 2001. I was having dinner with a friend named John Trogner and he said, " What are you going to do about this? In the book, how are you going to address this?" I told him I wasn't going to address it. And he said, "You have to." I wanted to know what he meant by I had to. He said, "Your audience is kids and kids will read this; they relate to Amelia and they are going to be thinking about this and it is your responsibility to write about this." And I thought, "Wow, that's farther that I ever thought I'd go".
But I wrote the Christmas story called, Amelia and the Other Side of Yuletide. Mostly it's about Amelia's trying to scam her parents. Using their divorce guilt to give her more presents. At the end of the story Amelia gives a monologue. If you read them now, it seems like she is talking about people who have difficulties and then there are people who have great difficulties and we should be grateful. At the time it was very obviously a reference of what happened because she is from New York and her dad still lived in New York. Once I did that, then all bets were off and it became a real world. Amelia had always felt like a real character to me, a real little girl.
KJ: You know it has been my experience that girls like reading where something is real more than boys.
JG: You know, that may very well be true. Okay, you want to hear a horror story?
KJ: Sure, Go for it.
JG: All right. Many years ago, an executive at one of the large kid type networks that will remain nameless approached me. She was a woman, this executive. She contacted me and "I think I would like to do an Amelia Rules television show." I said "okay" and she said, "what would your show be like." I said, "You have read the comic book, it would be like that, but on TV." She told me to send her everything and then she calls back a couple weeks later and says, "Here's the problem. There is too much content in "Amelia" and we consider this girl's property and girls don't need content
KJ: Gasp!
JG: I can hear the gasp. "Girls don't need content, girls just need a cute icon they can latch onto and then they buy all the stuff." And then she said, "Any story you add to a girl's property just takes away from it. So that is why Barbie is a veterinarian, and a rocket scientist, and a secretary because it doesn't matter because it is just cute. So these are the things we would take out of "Amelia." I said, "Well have a nice life."
KJ: That's hard for me to accept. I have taught 27 years. Recently, 7th grade but now I'm moving down to 5th grade. The books that kids search out do have "real" in them and they like talking about it. Books like this are great for literature circles.
JG: Well, you are not wrong. Interestingly, this executive is not in that position any more. And do you want to know what she told me. She told me that the next big craze would be wrestling babies.
KJ: I'm speechless.
JG: That's just terrible. My thought with Amelia is the hokiest, corniest thing is the world. This is sort of what I think. I came out of self-published comics in the mid nineties, black and white, and very alternative. The point of it was to express yourself regardless of whether or not someone wanted to hear what you had to say. They were all about what you had in your mind and in your heart. That was great, but I started thinking, if you don't start thinking about an audience, there won't be one. People think of picking an audience as pandering, but it is not the same thing. What I think of Amelia is I imagine that there is a little girl and she is the saddest little girl in the world. Maybe she doesn't have any friends; her family life is a wreck, or whatever. But she is going to go into a library someday and she'll pull Amelia off the shelf and that is my chance to talk to her.
KJ: You should be a teacher.
JG: Oh, I do all the time. I love going around talking to people. Anytime I get a chance to pontificate about myself and not to just my poor wife and children, I take it. Thank you. I'll tell you that when you are working in a void, which I was in the comic book market, I was just putting things out like messages in a bottle. But now, that I meet these kids that actually read my books and I hear that it actually means something to them, it is hugely gratifying. It is the greatest thing that ever happened.
There was a little girl that came to one of my book signings, and she was essentially being bullied at school.
KJ: That's a big problem today.
JG: Oh yeah, I've witnessed it. So her mom said, well look, we will put you in a private school, but you have to get through this semester. We just can't do it right now. You have to wait until January. So she came to my signing and said the way she got through those last few months was by adopting Amelia's persona.
KJ: Wow!
JG: She would think, "What would Amelia do, what would she say? Would she let this bother her? And she got though it.
KJ: What a compliment!
JG: Exactly. Everything I have done over the last few years is now legitimately worth it.
KJ: That must make you feel like a hero.
JG: Or at least like a productive member of society.
KJ: Often, young people don't think of famous people as "real" so I am going to ask you a few questions about you as a person. What is the most interesting activity that you do other than writing?
JG: You know what I like to do? I like to play the guitar. I've been playing since I was in 4th grade and I don't think I have gotten any better, but I like doing it.
KJ: What is your favorite food?
JG: That's easy. Cake! I wish I could say something more sophisticated like I have developed this great pallet. Oh, escargot is wonderful, but I like cake...most any kind of cake.
KJ: What's the best movie you have ever seen?
JG: You know, when I was very little, I would have thought the best movie was the Muppet Movie, and then Star Wars, and then it would have been Anne Hall, and then Pulp Fiction and now it is the Muppet Movie again.
KJ: You have come a long way.
Contributor: Kathie Josephs is a teacher in Arizona and a reviewer for Children's Literature. For more information about Jim Gownley, please visit http://www.ameliarules.com/
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Reviews
The Tweenage Guide to Not Being Unpopular: Amelia Rules
Jimmy Gownley
Wow...I sure wish I had had a book like this when I was a "Tween"! I had several good "belly" laughs when reading this and am amazed at how well the author hit problems right on the head. I especially like when a boy stated, "Sometimes I think it's easy to judge the past. But I think one of the hardest things in the world to do...is to look honestly at ourselves." This is certainly food for thought. Included in the story is the importance of Amelia's mother and aunt in her life. Amelia and her friend become outcasts so with a self help book, the two of them to do what is in the book in order to get back in the "in group." They try everything from new hairstyles to new friends. Of course nothing works. In fact, things become disastrous when a mob of angry students chases them. This story shows the reality of difficulties young people have when going from a child to adolescence. Children will be able to identify with the information provided and will be able to talk to a friend about the book. Books written in graphic format are favorites of mine! It makes it perfect for students who are reluctant readers and never seem to finish a book on their own. Young adults who want to read anything they can get their hands on will enjoy the graphics, exhilarating story, and fast paced text. This book would be a great addition to a classroom or school. This would be a great gift to give a child going into the intermediate classes. It is must for school libraries. 2010, Atheneum/Simon & Schuster, Ages 8 to 12, $24.99. Reviewer: Kathie Josephs (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 978-1-4169-8610-2
Jimmy Gownley
One look at the book cover and you know you are going to love this story! Amelia is a nine-year-old girl who is trying to deal with her parents' divorce, being the new kid in school and growing-up pangs. Can life get any worse? Not really, but at least Amelia has good friends, her mom, and Aunt Tanner. The best part is that Aunt Tanner is also a rock star. This is certainly adds powerful leverage to her role as the new kid in school! Initially, Amelia receives permission to bring her aunt to school. Then, just like that, Amelia can't bring her, because Aunt Tanner's new song is controversial. What did that mean? If you read the first book in the "Amelia Rules!" series, you already know that G. A. S. P. stands for Gathering of Awesome Super Pals. This group seems to be able to get more information about Amelia's aunt's past, as well as much about life. It isn't easy being nine and having to deal with confusing grown-up "stuff." I laughed out loud in some places and honestly couldn't answer some of the questions that Amelia tries to figure out. After all, what does make a super hero? How should she feel after her first kiss? And what does make a person happy? The title certainly fits the story. Written in graphic format, this book is especially well-suited to those who are reluctant readers and never seem to finish a book on their own. It is also a wonderful way to introduce a less well-known genre to young people. Young readers who want to read anything they can get their hands on will enjoy the graphics and fast-paced text. The full-color graphics make an enormous impact on the story. The book is fun to read and will be read over and over again. 2009, Atheneum/Simon & Schuster, $9.99. Ages 9 to 13. Reviewer: Kathie M. Josephs (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 978-1-4169-8605-8
ISBN: 1-4169-8605-7
When the Past is a Present: Amelia Rules! Vol 4
Jimmy Gownley
Ten-year-old Amelia Louise McBride is the smart-mouthed (but sweet) narrator of this graphic novel that showcases her daily misadventures through the endless visual possibilities of comic book storytelling. Whether we are watching Amelia spy on her newly divorced mother's date (who is so boring Amelia sees him as a men's room sign), imagine running away to Alaska (and dealing with a talking polar bear), or comfort a friend whose father is being deployed overseas (as dad leaves, the background fades to white, reflecting the girl's sadness), Gownley's clever dialogue and visual choices never fail to surprise or tug at the heartstrings. Nowhere is this better shown than in the final chapters when Amelia, confused by the changes in her life, asks about her family history. As Amelia's aunt delves into their heritage, each generation's story is drawn in the style of a classic newspaper comic strip--from Little Orphan Annie to Terry and the Pirates to Peanuts. Later, when Amelia falls asleep, she sees panels from each strip come together to form a collage about her family, and remarks, "Just for a second there, it was like everything made sense... like everything fit." Presenting real-life dilemmas in such creative ways demonstrates a deep love not only for children's literature but also for the comic book medium, earning this fourth installment in the "Amelia Rules!" series an honored place on library shelves. 2008, Renaissance Press, $11.99. Ages 8 to 12. Reviewer: Michael Jung (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 978-0-97121698-3
Jimmy Gownley
Nine-year-old spitfire Amelia Louise McBride makes her graphic novel debut in this award-winning comic that has been described by Comics Buyer's Guide as "a Peanuts for the twenty-first century." After her parents' divorce, Amelia moves with her mom from New York to a small town where she must adjust to her dad's absence, a gym class that has much in common with boot camp, and the revelation that her weird new friends are (gasp!) nerds. Still, it is not all bad as Amelia gets to hang out with her Aunt Tanner (a former rock star!), take out some bullies with the aid of a sneeze-barf (do not ask!), and even discover the meaning of Christmas by becoming Santa Claus (really!). In this hilarious series of comic book vignettes, cartoonist Jimmy Gownley shows he is at the top of his game in creating not only comics but also great children's literature. He introduces readers to an engaging cast of characters--from superhero-obsessed Reggie to silent Pajamaman to cranky Rhonda--whose great chemistry with Amelia leads to stories that are simultaneously silly and poignant. An excellent pick for fans of Beverly Cleary and Charles Schulz. Book three of the "Amelia Rules!" series. 2006, Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster, $9.99. Ages 7 to 12. Reviewer: Michael Jung (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 978-1-4169-8604-1
ISBN: 1-4169-8604-9
Added 07/13/10
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