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A Strong Pulse for Dead Reckoning Graphic Novels

The Naval Institute Press sets a course for graphic novels

By Alex Green | Jun 07, 2019

Naval Institute
Press has a
dedicated
readership for
its detailed
volumes of
precisely told
military history
and
biographies,
and those
readers share
more than taste
in books. They
are also largely
from the same demographic: white, male, and over 65. So when editors began wondering how to reach younger
readers, they knew that they might have to embrace something entirely new.

The result is Dead Reckoning, a graphic novel imprint that debuted in September 2018, and though the imprint’s lead
Gary Thompson says it is too early to reach many conclusions, he is certain of one: Dead Reckoning is reaching the
new readers the press had hoped to find.

“So far what we have seen is that for Dead Reckoning we have a very strong
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25-to-40-year-old demographic, and it’s about 50% women and 50% men,”
PW issue Contents says Thompson, who spearheaded the effort to launch the imprint. “When you
More in News -> Comics have a readership that is constantly aging out, you always have to think about
new ways to innovate and get involved, and with graphic novels you can do
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that. It’s not like there aren’t young people out there who don’t like military
permissions. history, it’s just there weren’t really getting it the way that they wanted it.”

Dead Reckoning has entered uncharted territory both as a press accustomed

FREE E-NEWSLETTERS to publishing academic nonfiction and within the graphic novel trade. “There’s
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just not a lot of great content out there when you’re reading Dog Man and then
moving to superheroes,” Thompson says. “But once you get tired of seeing
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people punch things really hard, is there something that fills the gap between
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A Strong Pulse for Dead Reckoning Graphic Novels https://www.publishersweekly.com/paper-copy/by-topic/industry-ne...
More Newsletters punching really hard and the really naval-gazey super-out-there indie comic
stuff?”

The greatest difficulty for Dead Reckoning has been adapting precise historical research to a story-driven format
while remaining true to history. “Even when we publish fiction it needs to have a truth to it,” Thompson says. “There
needs to be some kind of genuine element there that keeps people involved. When you’re doing what the Naval
Institute Press does, it’s strictly what happened, when it happened, who said it, but when you’re trying to make a story
out of it and you’re trying to make people want to pick up and read for the fun of it, you can’t be dry. You can’t be just
a textbook that has pictures in it.”

If the fictional Katusha is an example of a successful balancing between fact and story, then Thompson is pleased.
The book tells the tale of a Ukranian teenage girl who becomes a partisan during World War II and then joins the
Russian Army, fighting Nazis as a tank commander.

Though the story is fiction, Thompson says, “Katusha is based off of lots of things that really happened.” He adds,
“There were lots of female tankers in Russia. Lots of women did go off and do these things in that time.”

Thompson says he was delighted when the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum placed orders for copies of the book,
and he says that museum bookstore orders have been strong overall since the press first launched. “We like seeing
people be able to see the educational qualities of it,” he adds, “even if it isn’t a super-hardcore history.”

Along with the younger demographic, some of the press’s core readership have come along to Dead Reckoning too,
including the chairman of the board of the U.S. Naval Institute, retired admiral James Stavridis, who fired off an email
to the press after spending a Saturday morning reading Riff Reb’s Men at Sea, which includes eight classic seafaring
stories. Thompson says Stavridis wrote that “when he was teaching all of his students, he would teach these stories
all the time, so he loved seeing them made so accessible.”

After launching with four titles in 2018, Dead Reckoning will publish seven by the end of this year, and eight in 2020.
Among the forthcoming titles are Once upon a Time in France (fall), the story of a Romanian Jew who hides his
identity in wartime France to funnel money to the Resistance, and Smedley (Oct.), which follows the life of Marine
Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler.

Thompson says that he can see a day when he will be open to exploring more unconventional forms of storytelling as
the press grows: “If someone came to me and said, ‘I’ve got this really awesome idea for a super-classic military sci-fi
thing à la Robert Heinlein,’ I would be like, ‘Awesome. Let us see it.’ ”

But not yet: “It’s too early for us to make monumental changes,” Thompson says. “This is my baby. I’m acquiring for it.
I’m having to trust my gut. As I’m looking forward I know I have this block of things I find interesting that I think other
people have found interesting, and I know what’s coming out for the next couple years. I think everyone here is okay
with saying, ‘Let’s see what shakes out.’ ”

A version of this article appeared in the 06/10/2019 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: A Strong Pulse for Dead Reckoning

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