Happy 200th birthday wishes to the author of one of the most influential books of the modern era, Charles Darwin, born February 12th, 1809 (a birthday he shares with another great historical figure whose words have come down the centuries to us, Abraham Lincoln). As we’ve mentioned here before Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr created a graphic novel biography of Darwin and his ideas as part of the Darwin 200 events and the Lost World Read (see here on Simon’s site for details of how to find a free copy) to make his story more accessible to a wider audience (after all, not everyone will pick up a Penguin Classics copy of On the Origin of Species). The Lost World Read site has an interview with both Simon and Eugene up, where they discuss how they collaborated on the writing and the art, what they found most interesting about Darwin and also the advantages and problems of telling his story through the graphical medium:
(a scene from the Darwin graphic biography by Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr)
“Advantages: It’s easier to engage readers of all ages. Though we’ve always thought of this as something aimed at secondary school age kids, I hope a lot of grown ups will look at it as well. You have an unlimited special effects budget. You can do anything you like in a cartoon. You can illustrate all the events you’re talking about, if only from imagination. You’re not limited by the photos and paintings that are available. It’s easier to use humour. By which I mean if something obviously silly is happening in the picture, the reader knows you’re trying to be funny. This doesn’t always work when you’re using just words. You can explain quite complicated facts and ideas graphically. Though usually only after causing yourself an immense amount of tiring brain work. With Darwin of course you have access to a vast supporting cast of flora and fauna, which you can have all sorts of fun with to tell the story, and to try and explain the ideas and the science. With this one we decided to use a group of apes and monkeys making a TV wildlife documentary in and out of the story to move it along and to illustrate various points. We had a lot of fun with them!”
“Pitfalls: You’ve got to do twice the research. Not only do you need to find out what happened, but you have to find out what it looked like. This means you’ve got twice the opportunities to get it horribly wrong, though in the case of Darwin and his contemporaries, there’s plenty of photographic material, so it wasn’t as difficult as, say, doing the ancient and medieval sections of The Bristol Story,” Eugene Byrne talking to the Lost World Read site about the Darwin graphical biography.If you can get your hands on a copy then pick it up and if you can share it with younger readers then so much the better.
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