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On April 1st, Scholastic published Ann M. Martin's
The Summer Before, a new prequel to the wildly successful Baby-Sitters Club series, and re-released updated versions of the first two books:
Kristy's Great Idea and
Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls. For those unfamiliar with the series, here's some background from a December 30, 2009
New York Times article by Motoko Rich:
"The Baby-Sitters Club," which ran from 1986 through 2000, garnered an ardent following among preteenage girls throughout its run of 213 titles, with the publisher ultimately printing 176 million copies. The series, which followed the baby-sitting adventures and friendships of four 12-to-13-year-old girls — Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia and Stacey (the cast expanded to eight main characters later in the series) — spawned several spinoffs, including a mystery series and a collection of books about Kristy's little sister. All of the books are now out of print.
It's difficult to estimate how large a role Raina Telgemeier's graphic-novel adaptations of four books in the series (2006-2009) played in this decision. They were well-received critically, and according to a librarian quoted in the aforementioned article, popular with beginner readers.
Telgemeier's b&w, 9" X 6" gns, at the very least, tested the waters. In a pitch meeting, Telgemeier had described how much she admired the books, and was contracted to do four. Martin herself was initially contracted to do four — although not the same four that Telgemeier adapted. Eventually, Martin and a small team were putting out about one a month.
Serial fiction aimed at girls played very much the same role as comic books did for boys (due to distribution and technological advances, I doubt this is the case any longer): an inexpensive periodical, which, in the case of the BSC books, had just the right ratio of continuity to accessibility for new readers. Every BSC book opened with two chapters that established the characters and described their clothes at great length. This is one of the reasons that the series requires an update: not many girls born this century could puzzle out the semiotics of Claudia's pushdown socks. Each book was narrated in first person from the point of view of the titular character, and Telgemeier maintained this technique in her adaptations.
Telgemeier, in fact, does an admirable job of translating the flavor of the books. her adaptations succeed aesthetically because they play to the same strengths that Laura Vanderkam outlined in her March 19, 2010
Wall Street Journal essay on the BSG, "How to Pay for Your Own Uggs," namely, that the stories stress independence, responsibility and entrepreneurship. Materialism in the BSC series is mostly confined to accessories and junk food. The plots are driven by problem solving (one scene that becomes particularly inspired in the graphic-novel format is the designing of the club's building-block logo) and coping with issues with the support of friends. In light of this can-do spirit, Telgemeier did a "Making of" for Book 4,
Claudia and Mean Janine, in which she showed her process.
Telgemeier'
ligne claire drawing style is minimalist, which has the effect of foregrounding the characters and plot, making the medium almost transparent, and is also desexualized, which matches the wholesome yet not cloying tone of the books. One also has to wonder if this cartoony style, coupled with breezy, six-panel- at-most layouts, helped speed up the production of the books as she released more than 660 BSC pages over three years. Telegemeier is also a bit shaky in terms of character design. She doesn't really get a handle on Mimi, Claudia's Japanese grandmother, until the third book. In the first book, too, Telgemeier struggles with backgrounds: they're too angular, or drop out altogether.
Even so, she has a sense of what kind of details to put in (readers of the original series will be pleased to see Kristy perched in Claudia's director's chair). For example, the economic disparity between Kristy's mother Mrs. Thomas and her beau, Winston, is clearly expressed by their respective homes. Kristy turns on an old-fashioned window air conditioner unit to cool down; later in the book, when Kristy goes to Winston's house to babysit his children from a previous marriage, his house is markedly more spacious, with much more updated lighting fixtures.
Of course, the devil is in the details; at times, Telgemeier's gns come across as dated, rather than timeless. Kristy's and Mary Ann's bedroom windows face each other, so they communicate in flashlight code, which is charming, but would probably seem unnecessary to a generation that's always grown up with texting. Ditto the use of Claudia's room to set up shop: having a phone in your room simply doesn't have the same meaning in 2010 as it did in 1986. Promotional material for the reprints said that the technology will be updated: it'll be interesting to see to what extent.
It's quite evident that with the novel reprints, Scholastic is gunning for the nostalgia market (another similarity to comics): parents, educators and librarians who grew up with the books and who want to share them with the next generation. However, though there are only four of them for the foreseeable future, Telgemeier's gns may be a better option — with their tubular-limbed characters and pastel packaging that screams "comics for kids" — for introducing young readers to these beloved characters.
©2006-2008 Text Ann M. Martin Art Raina Telgemeier
Kristy Valenti currently works for The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
Uncharted Territory is © Kristy Valenti, 2010
