Jack and Jill at the Toxic Dump

Doug Wheeler’s Classics Desecrated combines young people’s love of comics with the tradition of using new versions of classic tales to critique contemporary social concerns and conditions. A statement at the beginning of this book says that “Doug Wheeler learned the old classics stories, fables and fairy tales as most Americans do – by watching parodies of them on Looney Toon cartoons and various sitcoms. At age 30, however, he took the unusual step of actually reading a few of them, and this is the result.”

A few of the tales in this volume are based on nursery rhymes. For instance, here Jack and Jill [Illustrated by Doug Wheeler and Ian Akin] get their water from a toxic dump and suffer the deadly consequences. In the first frame, the title characters walk happily toward an idyllic looking well on a hill, ignoring a chain link fence with a warning sign. In the second frame, Jack drinks water from the well and immediately “totters.” Then Jill, foolishly, also drinks the water. The final large frame shows a nuclear plant and smoke-spewing factories behind the hill dumping their toxic waste into the water and Jack and Jill falling to the toxic waste dump of human bodies at the bottom of the hill. The black and white comic format and the use of the children’s nursery rhyme add to the impact of this environmental warning.

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack drank quick and began sick
And soon began to totter.
Jill drank next and coughed and wretched,
Felt something inside rot her.
Both did frown and tumbled down
And joined the human slaughter.

For additional background on the graphic novel you will find the following of great assistance.

How Comic Books Can Change the Way Our Students See Literature: One Teacher's Perspective -- Contributed by Rocco Versaci

Graphic Novel Roundup -- Steve Weiner

http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/seworkspace/aspisak/Home.htm A brief exploration of Graphic Novels.

Manga (Japanese Graphic Novels) vs. American Graphic Novels -- quotes provided by the members of the Teen Advisory Board (grades six through ten), Princeton (N.J.) Public Library