That is a very high compliment to me. I’ve studied the American Revolution since I was a 10-year-old during the Bicentennial, and I view the conflict as a civil war. American colonists spent the years between the French & Indian War and the Boston Tea Party asking to be considered full British citizens. It was the King and the English politicians’ refusal to grant full British political rights to their colonists that led to war. The shifting of the political wind in the 13 colonies happened very suddenly between January and June of 1776 — Full, declared independence from Britain was a move that came a year AFTER the first shots fired in Massachusetts! We held onto our British-ness for a long, long time.

I try to approach all history with a broad view. There are very few dastardly villans and shining heroes in real life, and I resist storytelling that shows real life historic figures that way. Look how complicated Jefferson was! But so was Patrick Henry and James Madison and John Adams and . . .

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about my point-of-view in my comic storytelling — most of it about the 1860s Civil War stories, of course. Amazing how that debate rages on. I own up to my point-of-view. Every human storyteller has one. To pretend otherwise is a lie. There is no one right way — one “unbiased” way — to tell the life of Washington or Lincoln or Roosevelt. I can be accurate with facts, but at some point I have to choose which facts and events to include in a story, and those decisions come out of my point-of-view. But I don’t just shoot from the hip — I’ve learned that my storytelling is better if I listen first. So I listen to as many different points-of-view as I can before I make my Author’s Choices. To those who have objected that I’m changing the historical stories they grew up with, I reply: I’m not changing history, I’m just including EVERYONE’S story now.

And when I listen to 1775, I hear a lot of debate that still echoes through our politics today. That must mean there’s no one right answer

And when I say “episode,” I mean the whole shebang. All five pages, start to finish, the way it was meant to be read when I drew it for the Daily Press almost a decade ago. I’ve included sample pages on this site for seven years so you can get a good feel for the way I build social studies material into my adventure stories (maps, timelines, key words in bold). But I’ve never provided a whole episode.

The North American geography story seems a good choice for the freebie — many teachers cover that material at the start of their school year, and it’s a topic really too broad to fit any of my printed books. I slice off the part of the map that I need to for different stories, but ALL of North American geography applies to many of my books “Exploring the Americas,” “First Americans,” “Revolutionary Rumblings,” “Moving and Grooving,” — heck, almost all of them! How could I pin the North American geograpy lesson to any one of them?

Now I don’t have to. The episode will live here, 365/24/7. And when you have your students check it out, I hope they will find many other interesting things to read and think about . . .

I’ve lived in Virginia for 18 years without making it up to the site of the first major battle of the Civil War — and then there was a last-minute mission to get my boys to the Green Day concert just down Lee Highway from the Manassas Battlefield . . .

(Don’t worry, I got my Cool Dad badge LAST summer when I actually went into the Green Day concert in downtown DC with my boys. But this time the concert was at an outdoor theater, and it hit 101 degrees today, and, well . . . )

Manassas was the site of the first major battle of the Civil War. And the feel of today’s battlefield park is just right. Thank goodness these rolling hills are not covered with condos. Though the Manassas Battlefield is only a mile or so north of Interstate 66, you can stand here and feel the struggle of men and guns up and down these hills (and why holding the high ground was so important). There WAS a modern road cutting through the park, but seeing the modern rush hour traffic jammed on its two lanes did not feel overwhelming — it just reminded me of the traffic jam that came at the end of the First Battle of Manassas, as Union soldiers and spectators rushed over each other down that very same roadway to get back to the safety of DC!!

I love visiting Civil War battlefields in the late afternoon. Battles usually ended at sunsdown anyway, so it’s a good time to feel the peacefulness and consider the bravery and the terrible pain that happened on this ground — and the ideas that brought people here in conflict.

I feel restored and inspired from having walked through the quiet grass of Manassas. Now back to Paneras to wait for the concert to end!

I love the smell of History in the morning!

When I visited last week, I discovered that less than 100 yards  from George Washington’s mansion — one of the most famous and beautiful homes in America — is his OPEN-AIR DUNG SHED!!!! Archaeologists found the brick foundation, so we KNOW it was there, a safe place to keep old crap for later use as fertilizer on one of Washington’s five farms. This is the best proof I know that Washington considered himself a serious and innovative farmer.

This is the kind of lively detail I’ll put in a new biography of the nation’s first president. The folks at Mount Vernon called me up for meetings this past week to discuss how I can help them update their materials for teachers and students, and I’m excited — but not because I will start from scratch.

I’ve certainly drawn a lot about Washington already, and parts of his story are among the most well-known pieces of American history covered in the nation’s classrooms. What excites me specifically is the chance to build on what Mount Vernon already did in 2006 when it opened a state-of-the-art education center. At the time I covered the opening as a reporter, and the center got a lot of attention for three lifelike statues of GW created by CSI techniques. But every time I go back I see more details and bolder storytelling than I noticed before. It’s an amazing achievement for a historical figure that everyone thinks they know.

I hope to live up to those high standards as I embark on The Definitive George Washington Biography Comic Book!!

These additions to the teacher’s area of the website mean almost all my comix now have free teacher’s guides here at Chester’s home on the web. (Because I’m finally running out of the printed versions — and am gaining back some closet space in my house!!) There are many other free teacher resources on the web, but I think the Chester Comix guides do quite well in comparison. Most of the other resources I see are completely text and skimpy on any material you would present directly to students. My guides are broken into distinct sections, have a lot of visuals and have material to directly help both teachers and their students.

Plus, they have quizzes!! I know, I know, the kids don’t like that. But I try hard to craft a light-but-firm tone with them so that these assessments aren’t as heavy as a full-blown standardized test practice but still give the students experience with those kinds of questions. (“Which of the following did Europeans NOT trade for West African gold?”)

These teacher’s guides are packed with the wisdom and work of a dozen real-world classroom teachers who helped me when Chester ran as a newspaper feature for five years. They taught me a lot, and I still hear their guiding voices every time I sit down to draw a new story to help more students.

And their teachers.

Slavery’s Storm

Reconstruction Junction

Lewis & Clark Transportation

Of course there are little tweaks in each of these new editions (Slavery’s Storm is on its third run) — but they’re so small that only I would notice them. Unlike the edits I made to “Jamestown Journey” for its reprint a few months ago, these changes are simpler — a spot of color cleaned up, a word or two trimmed, a verb made more active. I can always make my writing better!!!

It’s fun for me to go back to storytelling I did 8 or 9 years ago to make it better. I’ve learned a lot more about storytelling than I knew then. And I’ve learned more historical details, too. I’m 43, and I’m still learning — I want the books to reflect that, not turn into museum pieces themselves.

If you want to see how I’m constantly working and reworking my storytelling, jump on my Creative Trail through this website. Start here with some rough drafts, then follow Chester’s claws — you’ll see that my books are never completely “done.”

PS – Interesting to me that he is almost exactly my age. I still remain devoted to Sesame Street and the teaching power of simple and bold ideas. Like comix!

In March 2010 my sons and I did our first overnight Civil War reenactment. The first big battle of this year had gorgeous weather and a good location, so it drew thousands of reenactors from as far away as Maine and Florida, and I got a good feel for some of the history I’ll be drawing soon for the 150th anniversary of the war.

Samuel and Truman and I have camped for years with the Boy Scouts. For the Civil War reenacting, it was fun to be in a campsite with no Coleman stoves — cooking over an open fire the way I did when I was a teenager in Boy Scouts back in the distant 1980s. There were so many campfires that by Saturday night the NC woods were thick with blue smoke — I had to go out onto an open field to clear my eyes. Now THAT’S getting a feel for history!

At Civil War events I portray a freelance cartoonist who draws battlefield scenes for the New York papers and magazines — not too big a stretch for me! The Battle of Bentonville was so big that it had a great diversity of reenactors. I mixed in with many women and children in period clothing, and near the sutlers row was a mobile blacksmith! I was fascinated to see him work out of this cart. That must have been a vital skill to bring along with an army, which would have needed frequent repairs to equipment.

The Battle of Bentonville lasted three days in March 1865, just a few weeks before Lee’s surrender to Grant in Virginia. Bentonville was the Confederate attempt to stop Gen. William T. Sherman from getting to Grant to help surround Lee — and the Confederates succeeded, but by the end of the three days Sherman still had about 90,000 men on the field and the Confederates had only about 20,000. Everyone knew the end of the war was near. Sherman was criticized for not attacking harder on the third day of fighting, to completely smash the army opposing him, but Sherman didn’t want further bloodshed.

The Civil War tactic of lining men up shoulder-to-shoulder and blasting away from just a few hundred feet was butchery. The reenactment gave me a good feel for that — and it’s hard for me to watch it even when the men are shooting just gunpowder without projectiles.

Usually I am the Weirdest Thing of The Day when I visit a school — but that was not the case this week at Boonsboro Elementary on the west side of Lynchburg, VA!!!

When I swept in to the office of Boonsboro for a presentation of my “Author’s Silly Purpose” talk, there was a mom steering a Mexican red-kneed tarantula around the shoulders of her son’s first grade teacher!!! Of course I wanted my turn with this lovely female named “Cruella . . . ”

I actually had to make my silly faces for the photos in complete silence because the beautiful Cruella would jump at any sudden motion or sound. I laughed once while she climbed on me, and she didn’t like that boisterousness! She was really lovely — calm and quiet and slow-moving (despite the office folks’ jokes about her going for my jugular vein).

Cruella’s knees weren’t red, as her name implies; they were a peachy kind of orange. Her kind are among the most popular tarantulas available in the pet trade, due to their impressive size, coloring, and peacefulness. Wikipedia tells me they are a slower growing species; it is not uncommon to have females live 25 years or more. (The mom had one plastic container for Cruella and another one full of crickets for her to eat.)

After my fun with the tarantula, it was back to work. I spoke to a cafeteria full of third-, fourth- and fifth-graders at Boonsboro. They liked the crab hat.

One fellow liked the crab hat so much that after the assembly ended he ran to his classroom, grabbed this crab hat and came back to show me!!! I’m glad he was brave and silly enough to share a photo and a fist bump with me — that’s the kind of inspiration I hope to leave at each school I visit.

I’m back in Richmond this week doing artist-in-residency work with 4th graders for the arts organization Young Audiences! This is my third school year of helping elementary students become authors over these 5-part workshops.

When I was in 4th grade I was copying “Peanuts” comic strips out of the newspaper, line by line. By 5th grade I was making my own little chicken-scratch comix by folding a regular piece of typing paper in half and drawing with an over-the-counter black felt pen. My Dad copied the original for me, and I sold the black and white copies to my friends for 25 cents.

I like helping the students today do MORE than I did. I push them to really structure their ideas and practice them through three full versions of their stories (a text rough draft, a thumbnail sketch version and a finished, colored version) — I sure didn’t do multiple drafts when I was drawing “Dyno-Man and the Army of Justice!!” The good news is that their ideas are worth that work. Today I edited stories about Harriet Tubman and John Henry building a freedom railroad to the MOON and about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington arguing about where to have lunch!