This Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and former journalist is jumping into a new medium: graphic novels. Rick Atkinson is delving into the new form with the first adaptation of a six-book series. Adapted by Nora Neus and illustrated by Federico Pietrobon, it brings his acclaimed Revolutionary War trilogy into graphic editions.
It’s full of vividly rendered history covering the period through 1776 around Boston and the Northeast — General George Washington with his ragtag troops in Cambridge, the British storming through Lexington and Concord, what looks like an ill-advised two-pronged venture into Canada to take Quebec, the siege and liberation of Boston.
Atkinson joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: Rick, I went back to the original book. The text is so vivid in the detail, the characters. In retrospect, it makes it feel like it was made for a graphic edition. When did the idea for this come up?
Rick Atkinson: I think we’ve been kicking it around for at least a couple years, Arun. The publisher, Ten Speed, is the graphic publisher for Penguin Random House, and they pitched the idea to me. I had no experience at all with graphic editions. I was an avid comic book reader when I was a kid, but this is not the comic books of my childhood.
And they kind of walked me through the industry. It was an education for me about how this has sprung up as an adjunct to trade publishing. And they talked me through the process, which is quite intricate. [Then they] gave me a portfolio of potential artists to pick from, gave me a portfolio of potential adapters to shrink a 500-page book into something that’s more manageable, digestible.
So we’ve been at it for two years. They’ve allowed me to be part of it every step of the way — reviewing the drawings, the colorization of the drawings, the adaptation by Nora Neus. And I’m really pleased to be partners with them.
“When I’m writing, I see things in my mind’s eye — see scenes of the Boston Tea Party, for example, or the Battle of Bunker Hill. And then I see their rendering of it, and I think, ‘Yeah, that’s exactly how I see it.’”Rick Atkinson, author of the Revolution Trilogy
Rath: Tell us a little bit more about that process, as much as you can condense it. Because it’s fascinating to think about turning even just a part of this work into a graphic edition. There’s a lot you managed to get into this.
Atkinson: Yes, and all credit to them. I’s a very dense book and it covers a lot of ground. They’re doing it in two parts, so this new graphic edition is part one of my first volume.
The intent is to have it appeal to everyone from avid readers who are in middle school to even college kids. I think that we see a potential audience that’s pretty wide-ranging. They didn’t dumb it down — which is something that I insisted on, and they were certainly inclined to be as sophisticated as they can. They’ve told the story, I think, accurately and comprehensively while shortening it a lot.
And the intent here, obviously, is to educate people who are reading this about the origins of our country, and particularly the beginnings of the American Revolution. And perhaps to intrigue them further, make them full participants in what I think is the greatest story ever told, which is the story of the American Revolution.
Rath: You said it doesn’t dumb it down at all and it’s really amazing that way. I mean, it almost feels like a different genre in a way. It’s not a graphic novel, obviously, it’s a graphic edition — but I have to tell you as a reader it didn’t supplant your original book. It actually had me going back to the original for more.
Atkinson: That’s good. Yes, obviously, as a narrative writer, I’m trying to provoke the reader’s imagination. They have taken my efforts to provoke the imagination so that you can see it, you can hear it, you can smell it. And they’ve converted it into a visual thing, I think, quite amazingly.
So obviously, when I’m writing, I see things in my mind’s eye — see scenes of the Boston Tea Party, for example, or the Battle of Bunker Hill. And then I see their rendering of it, and I think, “Yeah, that’s exactly how I see it.” In some ways, they’ve enhanced my own imagination of how this all played out.
Rath: One of the things that works so well in this medium is being able to show multiple things happening at once, like everything happening around the siege of Boston alongside that crazy push into Canada and all the other events.
Atkinson: That’s right. It’s a war, so there’s a lot happening. There’s a lot of raw emotions to try to capture. And you can see the concomitant events so that there is a siege of Boston that’s going to last for many months. It’s one of the first parts of the American Revolution.
At the same time, we launch an invasion of Canada in 1775. A two-prong invasion, it’s fairly complex — and they are able to convey the fact that these things are happening simultaneously. They’re actually interconnected. One of the leaders of that invasion of Canada is Benedict Arnold, we’re going to run into him a lot in the future, And of course, George Washington is presiding over all of it.
So, I think it’s a quite remarkable way of being able to tell the story in a refined succinct, accurate way.
Rath: It’s a graphic edition, and there’s a lot of graphic violence in the story. Of course, it’s during a terrible war, but I had got to say, I was impressed by how the violence was depicted. You get the horror, but it doesn’t turn into war porn.
Atkinson: Yes, and I think that’s important too — particularly since you’re hoping that your readership will include teenagers. I don’t want to offend teenagers or their parents. I’m pretty graphic in the way I depict the violence of the American Revolution. It is not a faded lithograph, it is really nasty and bloody. It’s a civil war on several levels. But I think that they have accommodated the violence and conveyed the violence without smearing blood all over the pages.
Rath: It works so beautifully. I was wondering if there were any comparable renditions of the Revolutionary War. I did some searching around, couldn’t find it. I confess, I asked even ChatGPT, and it basically said, “No, there’s nothing at this level.”
Atkinson: Well, if ChatGPT says “no,” then I guess no, it is! No, I don’t know of anything comparable to it. It seems like a fairly obvious idea, doesn’t it? It’s our origin story. It’s one of the most dramatic events in our national history.
It’s very topical because we’re really coming up on the semiquincentennial now, but I think that with all of the graphic books, novels, nonfiction that have come out, somehow nobody ever thought of this before.
