As an example, Colón points to the challenge of rendering the much-mythologized figure of Anne as a credible, real-life child and adolescent. For Jacobson, 81, and Colón, 79-a pair of politically aware grandfathers who both came of age in New York City in the 1940s-doing justice to the historical and psychological dimensions of the project summoned all their storytelling craft. The authors’ latest work, published by Hill and Wang in September 2010, is similarly ambitious: Anne Frank, a graphic biography commissioned by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Early on, we saw what comics can be utilized for.” We did work for unions, for cities, we did one on military courtesy, for the Army and Navy. “At Harvey Comics, we had a whole department on educational books. “But this was nothing new to us,” Jacobson says. When The 9/11 Report came out, there was “astonishment,” he says, at their groundbreaking use of graphic techniques in nonfiction.

“It is required reading in many high schools and colleges today,” Jacobson says proudly. The book has found a niche in school curricula, as well. It skillfully clarified a complex narrative, earning the enthusiastic blessing of the bipartisan commission’s leaders, Thomas H. embassies in East Africa), the graphic version was anything but kid stuff. While the authors employed such familiar comic book devices as rendering sound effects (“BLAM!” go the 1998 bombings of U.S.

Jacobson and Colón’s The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, distilled the 9/11 Commission’s 600-page official findings into a more vivid and accessible form it was a best seller in 2006. In recent years, their production has turned from the serials to the serious.

“There’s always the proviso that if you have a better way of doing it, please don’t follow what I’ve done.”

“I write the script,” Jacobson says, “and Ernie does the drawing.” Well, it’s not that simple, he adds. Over time, they came to enjoy a close friendship and creative rapport while adhering to a fairly simple modus operandi. They worked together again at Marvel Comics ( The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk) after Jacobson was named executive editor in 1987. Forty years ago, Ernie Colón was drawing Casper the Friendly Ghost and Sid Jacobson was his editor at Harvey Comics, where they also churned out Richie Rich, Baby Huey and dozens of other titles.

After 9/11 by Sid Jacobson