Working in collaboration with the U.S. Defense Department, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, the creators of The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, have created Coming Home, a comic designed to educate returning service members on the stresses and difficulties of the transition from combat duty back to domestic life. First published in March 2008, more than 180,000 copies of Coming Home are in print after several printings with more printings to come. Jacobson and Colon worked with Military OneSource, an organization under contract to the Defense Department to provide free counseling, information and support to military service members and their families.
The thirty-one page comic presents problems faced by returning military personnel using the story of a returning Marine and his interactions with his family and his friends, who are also in the military and also dealing with their own problems. Kerry Tucker, the project editor at Military OneSource, says the organization decided to try a comic because they were “looking for new and better ways of conveying information on issues faced by service members and their family when they come home, and the graphic novel was an appealing format.” Colon, a veteran of the National Guard during the Korean War, told PWCW that comics were used as educational guides when he was in the military. “The comics format is very potent when used for education.”
Tucker was introduced to Jacobson and Colon’s work through her son, an ROTC member, who gave her a copy of The 9/11Report: A Graphic Adaptation. “It was a tremendous way of getting across complicated information,” Tucker says of the comics adaptation. She contacted Jacobson and Colon through their editor at Hill and Wang to discuss the possibilities of a project. “Sid and Ernie were very enthusiastic about doing something to help the military community,” Tucker says.
To make sure the comic would be authentic and address relevant situations appropriately, Jacobson and Colon consulted experts on combat stress from the Marines and the Army. After consulting with Col. Carl Castro and Maj. Dennis McGurck from Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; and Capt. William Nash and Dr. Thomas Gaskin from the Combat/Operational Stress Control Branch at the Marine Crops headquarters, Jacobson was able to talk to groups of service members at Bethesda Navel Hospital, Walter Reed, and Marine Corps Base Quantico. “We thought the service members thoughts should be approached,” Tucker explains. “Sid wanted to hear the words directly from their mouths; that’s how he got familiar with the people he would portray, and they were very open.” “I had interviews with members of all the different services, the Marines, Air Force, Army, Navy, and National Guard, four or five sessions of groups were led by psychologists; it was amazingly informative,” Jacobson says. He also noted that he was surprised at Military OneSource’s openness to the situations included in the book; including one of the comics’ main plot points—an attempted suicide. “They just instructed that there be more, more information about what would be treated, who would treat it, and who would be qualified for treatment,” Jacobson recalls, “drinking, denial, inability to get along with civilians, inability to get along with a spouse, all these things are shown and utilized in the story.”
And to ensure the comic would appeal widely, Jacobson wanted to talk to people of “different backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds, single and married, women and as much variety as possible.” Tucker emphasized the difficulty in making the comic “accommodate all the services braches,” in particular making it appeal to both the Army and the Marines. Jacobson solved this problem by incorporating the idea of high school friends into the story. One fictional character, Jason Fetterman, is a Marine, while his friend Danny Moreno, is in the Army, and their coach from high school, is a former member of the National Guard. Using this group of varying characters infused age diversity into the mix and served as a voice of reason focused on getting help for reintegration issues.
While Jacobson wrote and shaped a story that would resonate with a variety of services members, Colon made sure the comics visuals reflected a world the service members could relate to. Highlighting the communication power of the comics form, Colon says the “visuals let them know someone else is experiencing the same thing.” Colon did extensive research on everything from the appropriate kind of uniform camouflage for the different branches to tanks, haircuts and even boxers and kid’s shoes. Tucker pointed out that at one discussion a service member noticed a character wearing a bathrobe and was quick to say, “Marines don’t wear bathrobes.” Colon changed the robe to boxer shorts in the correct shade of Marine green. “Ernie paid close attention to details to make it authentic, he was making changes to haircuts to the very end” Tucker recalls.
Coming Home is available to service members of any branch of the military and to their family for free. The comic can be ordered through the Military OneSource website or through their toll free telephone number. According to Tucker, military installations are also requesting the comic to give to service members upon returning from a tour of duty. “By the numbers we can tell there is an enthusiastic response,” Tucker says. He also hinted at the possibility of future comics’ projects with Jacobson and Colon, but emphasized that they are still in the planning stage. “The Defense Department really wants to get the message through that combat stress injuries are like physical injuries, and need to get taken care of and right away,” Tucker explains. The book also includes an extensive list of additional resources.
“We felt like doing something for the service men and women,” Jacobson says of their involvement in the project. “If a service member is depressed or drinking too much or driving recklessly, and they look at the book and it gives them that push to get help, that’s what the book is for,” avows Colon, “maybe the book will give them a push at just the right time.”
Jacobson and Colon have worked together for over forty years, beginning when Jacobson was an editor at now-defunct Harvey Comics and Colon was an artist there. The two continue to work on numerous comics projects together. They are currently working on a biography of the revolutionary Che Guevara; a book on global warming and another on the civil rights movement for Farrar Straus Giroux, publisher of the 9/11 Report adaptation and Jacobson and Colon’s After 9/11, a history of the Bush administrations War on Terror. They are also working on a graphic novel roughly based on Vlad the Impaler for Penguin.
Colon says, “It's nice to do something that makes some kind of difference. [Harvey kids comics] Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich entertained kids, but this is different, I feel like I am reinventing myself. This is a great opportunity to do something that has importance.”
