>> David Betancourt: Hello.
How is everyone?
>> Good.
>> David Betancourt:
Welcome. Thank you for coming.
Hopefully we're going
to have a good time today.
We've got 25 minutes. We're
going to get started right away.
My name is David Betancourt.
I'm a comic book culture
reporter at The Washington Post,
also a D.C. native.
So this is an event
that I'm very familiar with.
We're here today to be
talking with Alan Gratz.
[Applause]
Alan is the author of a very
cool, graphic novel that I had
the pleasure of reading
this week called
"Captain
America: The Ghost Army."
This this is a graphic novel.
It was written by Alan Gratz,
and it was illustrated by
Brent Schoonover, who
is not here with us.
But Alan is going to be
talking to us about the book.
Alan, my first question for you
now, one thing Alan and I have
in common, besides being
devilishly handsome and wearing
Captain America
shirts [Laughing]
Is that we've both
written for Marvel.
The Ghost Army is Alan's
first Marvel project.
Alan is a frequent writer of
historical fiction, but this is
his first foray into Marvel.
I myself have written my first
book, "The Avengers Assembled,"
which will be in stores
August 29th.
I'm also a writer
for Marvel Comics.
I write frequently for a
character you may have heard of
named Miles Morales.
>> Alan Gratz: Maybe heard
of him. Maybe. Yeah.
>> David Betancourt:
Slightly popular guy.
But this is all about
Captain America today.
Mr. Steve Rogers.
I want to make it very
clear. This is a Captain America
conversation. That's why
we're wearing the shirts.
Alan, as someone who has
frequently written historical
fiction, when it came time to
your first chance to write for
Marvel because you
were allowed--
you're well known in the writing
community. You were allowed to
take your pick of characters.
Why did you
pick Captain America?
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah, when I saw
that Scholastic and Marvel
were doing this partnership
where they were doing books
for middle grade
readers using Marvel characters.
So they had Miles
Morales, Spider-Man, they had a
Ms. Marvel. They had a Shuri
from Black Panther.
And I saw these and I was like,
Wait a minute, I already do
historical
fiction for Scholastic.
How can I get in on this?
Because I'm a huge Marvel fan.
And so I started talking to some
folks and they said, Well,
what character do you want to
do? And I was like, Oh my gosh,
there's so many great
characters. But they were also
trying to skew him younger.
They were trying to make sure
that these were stories about
these heroes when
they were young, when they
were middle schoolers or
when they were teenagers.
And so that took some of
the people out of the running,
like Iron Man doesn't get his
suit until he's an adult.
Right. So I could write about
him, but then he wouldn't be
like Iron Man, right?
So I kept thinking, well,
there's some characters that
would have been around
in the past, you know, like
Who had their powers as kids?
But then I thought, Wait a
minute, I already write a lot of
books about World War II.
And Captain America
famously served in World War II.
What if I wrote a story about
young Captain America, like
right after he gets the super
soldier serum as a teenager
fighting in World War II.
And of course, the thing is
that he gets that when he's
like 18 years
old and he looks--
>> David Betancourt: A lot
of people don't realize that
how young he is like
him and Bucky,
who was also in this story.
Bucky, of course, is
a teenage sidekick,
but they're really the same age.
>> Alan Gratz: They're
about the same age.
And the thing is that he just
looks like a grown man because
he got that super soldier serum.
>> David Betancourt: Because
Buffy was probably buffer
than Steve before
he got the serum.
>> Alan Gratz: Just about.
>> David Betancourt: Buffy's
probably like, Hey,
where's my needle?
What's going on?
>> Alan Gratz: So I know, right?
Well, you know, and that's part
of the story is that they were
going to use it on other people
and then it gets sabotaged and
caps the only
person who gets it.
And so he
becomes this solo hero.
But yeah, Bucky is a
big part of this story, too.
And I know you're
a big Bucky fan, too.
>> David Betancourt: Huge Bucky
fan. I'm a big sidekick guy.
And that kind of leads into--
The first thing I want to ask
you before I get to Bucky is
there's kind of a double meaning
to this title, The Ghost Army.
Now, having read this graphic
novel, I can say there is this
kind of like zombie ghost like
army that kind of comes up from
the dead and is fighting against
Captain America and the
American forces. But the
Ghost Army actually has a double
meaning historically when
it comes to American history.
Can you get into that?
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah, sure.
So there was always this part of
World War II that I really
wanted to get into a novel, but
I didn't have a good way
in because it was all adults.
It was all adult soldiers
who were doing it.
So during World War II, when
people were drafted, they
would have to list what they
were good at and what skills
they had and what
their previous job was.
So the Army got this sort of
genius idea to pull out a lot of
creative people who'd been
drafted and they took people who
were writers. They took people
who were artists, they took
people who were
musicians or sound engineers.
They took advertising
executives, they took stage
magicians, and they put
them into a group called
the Ghost Army. It
was a real U.S. Army unit,
and their job was
to trick the enemy.
Their job was to
fool the Nazis in particular,
because this unit was stationed
in the European theater, to fool
the Nazis into thinking that
we had more troops in one place
than we did, or that we
were invading in a place
that we weren't invading in.
And they did all kinds of really
amazing stuff, like--
>> David Betancourt: Kind of
like military play action fake.
>> Alan Gratz: Right. Right.
They were supposed
to fake everybody out.
They made inflatable tanks out
of canvas that they would blow
up with big fans and they would
leave the inflatable tanks out
in the field. Now, if you walked
up to them, you'd realize
it's a big balloon.
>> David Betancourt: The effect
they had from a distance.
>> Alan Gratz: Right,
Right, right.
And so if you were flying a spy
plane over and you were trying
to figure out where the
U.S. Army had tanks, you'd see
a whole bunch of tanks in
the field and you'd think,
oh, my gosh. They've
got a huge force here
and then they would just
deflate the tank.
>> You're thinking
they're locked and loaded
and ready to go.
>> Alan Gratz: Right. Right.
They would
record the sound effects
of armies on the move, and then
they would drive by villages
with huge speakers on the
top of their trucks,
playing the sounds of armies
marching to make the local
villagers think that there was
an army moving by.
And then the spies and the city
in the village would be like,
Oh, the American army is here.
They made fake airplanes.
D-Day. They dropped dummies
on the wrong beaches.
They dropped dummy paratroopers
that had tape decks in them, big
reel to reel tape decks that had
sound effects of machine gun
fire. And they dropped them
on beaches where we were not
invading. So the Nazis would
think, oh, that's where the
invasion is coming and
spread their forces thinner.
So this was a real army
unit. The Ghost Army.
And I loved this story and I
wanted to get it into something.
And I thought, oh, what if
I have Cap and Bucky fighting
alongside the Ghost Army?
And then, of course, because
it's a comic book, I got to put
real ghosts in it, too.
So there's two ghosts.
There's the literal ghost
army and then the
literal ghost that rise
from the ground as it goes dark.
>> David Betancourt: And one
thing you get into in the story,
one of my favorite parts
is when Cap meets
not the scary Ghost Army, but
the U.S. military Ghost Army.
They're surprised at
how young the soldiers are.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah, so a lot
of these guys were super young.
They were right out of middle
school or junior high.
You know, you had to be
technically 18 to join the Army.
But really, toward the end of
the war, the Army and the Navy
were both kind of looking
the other way at people's ages,
trying to get as many people
to the front as they could.
So Cap himself is 18 years old.
When he joins up and gets
the super soldier serum.
And, you know, when I
was 18, I was in high school.
I was, you know, you know,
I was not doing anything as
serious as fighting Nazis in
World War II, but a lot of that
generation were just like Cap.
They they were drafted as soon
as they became 18 or joined as
soon as they became 18
and went to fight.
They were kids.
>> David Betancourt:
What would you say is the
age range of this book?
>> Alan Gratz: Totally wrote
this for like middle school.
So if you're like ages
eight and up or...
It really depends on,
of course, you know what
your reading level is and what
kind of stuff you like to read.
But I totally wrote it for
that middle school audience, and
Bucky was a way into that.
So Bucky is still really in what
I would call junior high,
maybe like an eighth grader.
And the thing about Bucky is
that a lot of people know the
Bucky Barnes character
from the movies where--
>> David Betancourt:
Captain America Winter Soldier.
>> Alan Gratz: Right. Yeah.
Where he's the same age as Cap.
But in the comic books,
he's a little bit younger even.
He's almost like
a younger brother.
And that was a way into the
story for younger kids.
That's the whole reason that
he was a sidekick back when
he was first written
in the 1930s and '40s.
>> David Betancourt: So this
is for middle school and up,
I can say as a 43 year old
man, I highly enjoyed this.
So if you're older than
middle school, feel free to
pick this up and
read it as well.
Especially if you, like me,
love Captain America and love.
We talked previously
about a week ago
before this event, and I let
you know I'm a Bucky guy.
I've always been
the sidekicks guy.
I know this is a Marvel thing,
but, you know, on the DC side,
I'm a big Robin the
Boy Wonder fan.
But I always loved
that Bucky was kind of like
Captain America's Robin,
his sidekick,
but also fascinated
by the fact that
really, they're the same age.
Like you said, Cap's
18, Bucky's maybe 15, 16.
So if you don't know
Bucky Barnes story, his mother
dies and then his dad is solo
parenting him on an army base.
His dad dies in an accident,
a military training accident.
And then Bucky basically grows
up on a military base.
He says he doesn't want to
be a ward of the state.
He wants to stay on the
military base where he's
basically spent his whole life.
So he kind of unwillingly
becomes a U.S. super soldier
because he's been trained from
childhood by some of the best
military minds there are,
which made that combination with
Captain America so special.
But there's really a
point in the book where Bucky
kind of takes a turn
and he becomes kind
of the central.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah. So what
I wanted to make sure of was
that if Bucky was going to
be in the book, that he had
a huge central role to play,
that he wasn't just the sidekick
who was doing the side job.
I kind of looked at it as though
Cap is the guy who knocks
the front door down, right?
Like when Cap wants to go into
a place, he kicks the door down.
I mean, the guy is wearing
the U.S. flag as a uniform.
>> David Betancourt:
Not very stealthy.
>> Alan Gratz: Not
very stealthy. Right?
So he's not exactly going to
be skulking about in a castle.
But when they need to go and
investigate a castle but
don't want to let the villain
know that they're doing some
recon, it's Bucky that goes
in and Cap doesn't even go.
>> David Betancourt:
Bucky is the dirty work guy.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah, he's like
the... What do they call it?
The spec ops kind of guy.
I mean, he's going in and
he's doing the recon.
He's sneaky and he even
tells somebody in the book.
I do the stuff that Cap can't
do or isn't good at.
And there are things that
Cap is not good at.
Sneaking around is
not a Cap thing.
>> David Betancourt:
No. It's against his nature.
He's so much of a goody goody.
>> Alan Gratz: He's too
much of a goody, right?
He's so honest, I
want to know how--
>> David Betancourt: He wants to
see you punch him in the face.
>> Alan Gratz: Right?
That's right. Yeah.
He doesn't want to
even hit you from behind.
Right. He's going to tap you
on the shoulder, wait till
you turn around and
then punch you out. Right.
>> David Betancourt: So
we've got about 15 minutes.
I want to ask you one more
question before we turn it to
the crowd in case we have
any questions for the crowd.
But one thing I really enjoyed
about this story is there are
a lot of Easter eggs in here.
And you had an opportunity
to bring in not just people from
Captain America's universe,
but other universes as well.
Did Marvel give you a
full bounty to be
able to just dive in
and use whatever Marvel
characters you want, because
there are a lot
of cameos in here.
>> Alan Gratz: Right. Yeah.
Thanks for noticing.
And if you are a Marvel fan, as
an adult or as a kid, you're
going to see a ton of
references in this.
Marvel was a ton of
fun to work with.
When I first met with them, they
said, Look, you can't use
anything from the movies because
we want it all to be
based on the comics. And I
said, Well, that is not a
problem because I have read
your comic books all my life,
so the research is done.
And then they said, okay, great.
And I said, Well,
what can I use in the book?
Can I pull
characters from other...
Because Cap's got the Red
Skull and he's got his famous
villains and things. And I
was like, Can I pull from other
books and other stories?
And they're like, Oh
yeah, go to town.
They said, Pull in as many
references and cameos as you
want, because they really want
this to be sort of an entryway
into the comic books that
they wrote for adults, for kids.
>> David Betancourt: Not just
a Bridge to Captain America,
but to other comics.
>> Alan Gratz: Right. Right.
To sort of
introduce this Marvel world.
So I went to Doctor Strange, for
example, and got my villain
from the Doctor
Strange Universe.
And so if you read the book,
you'll recognize somebody who
has appeared in movies and is
also a very famous character in
The Doctor Strange Books.
Because this is an
Eastern Europe, I pull in the
map of Eastern Europe, which
includes Latveria, which is
where Doctor Doom is from.
We don't see Doctor Doom in
this, but I had a lot of fun.
>> David Betancourt: But
he's lurking around somewhere.
>> Alan Gratz: He's somewhere.
>> David Betancourt: He's on map
His family is, they
are on the map.
And, you know, I think I also
put like Transylvania in there,
like Count Dracula's Castle is--
not in the book, but on the map.
>> David Betancourt: It's
pretty dangerous map.
>> Alan Gratz: It's
a very dangerous area
of the world, really.
And then there's this mountain
called Wundagore Mountain, which
has this famous history
in Marvel, where all kinds of
mysterious things have happened
and maybe has a connection to
Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet
Witch and her family, who might
just make some cameos in there.
So I had a ton of fun pulling
in lots of Marvel references
and so there'll be Easter eggs.
But look, if you don't know
Marvel, you don't need to know
anything about
Marvel to come into it.
And that was one of the other
things that I set out to do with
this, was that if this is
the very first Marvel comic book
you've ever read,
you're not going to be lost.
It's not like you're going to
be like, Who are these people?
Why do I care about them?
I tried to make sure that I
introduced everybody and gave
them all believable
motivations in the story.
And then if you're also a
marvel fan, there's also a
little bit of extra
in-jokes for you.
>> David Betancourt: So
the remaining time we'd like to
open it up to you guys
if anyone has any questions.
>> Alan Gratz: We got some down
here. How about down here?
Holler it out loud
so we can hear you.
Speak up so we can hear you.
>> Okay.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah. >>
David Betancourt: Oh, okay.
>> Alan Gratz: Come on
up to the microphone.
>> David Betancourt: It's
going. >> Okay. It's on.
So when you wrote this book,
I've read a lot of your books.
Like a lot of your
World War II books.
Just like pretty
much a lot of your books.
Refugee, like Grenade Allies.
>> David Betancourt:
He likes you already.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah. You're
my number one fan.
I appreciate it.
>> And you're an amazing writer.
>> Alan Gratz: Keep
going. I love it.
[Laughing]
>> David Betancourt: Questions
are over after this.
>> Alan Gratz:
That's it. No, go ahead.
We're just kidding with you.
>> And this Captain America
graphic novel, it seems like
so out of like, your
writing zone.
Like all I've had
was seen you write--
>> David Betancourt:
It's very adult question.
>> Alan Gratz:
I know. I like it.
>> My favorite
book is written by you.
>> Alan Gratz:
Thank you. Thank you.
But this graphic novel seems
like so much out of like--
What type of stuff
you write. So...
>> Alan Gratz:
Like how did I do that?
How did I write something
that was
different and try and fit it in?
>> How did you incorporate
your normal writing style like
historical fiction? How
did you take that?
The most interesting parts of
that, put it into this graphic
novel that is action
packed and showed no one you.
>> David Betancourt: Let's have
a round of applause for that.
>> Alan Gratz:
Great question. Thank you.
[Applause]
>> David Betancourt: They should
have had that kid moderate.
>> Alan Gratz: I
know, right? [Laughing]
You're falling down on your job.
No. It's a great question.
And thank you. So one of the big
things for me with this was
I really wanted it to be a
combination of World War II
history and Marvel history.
So in addition to reading a
bunch of Marvel Comics to come
up with backstory for those
characters, I was also reading
a lot about World War II
history, so I tried to make it
a combination. You're right,
of both of the things that I do,
which is write about
real historical events.
But this time I got to
drop instead of my own fictional
character into it,
I got to drop Captain America
into it, which was pretty cool.
So all the stuff about the Ghost
Army that I told you about
and that we
wrote that's in here,
it's all true about the U.S.
Ghost Army, not the ghosts that
come back from the dead.
[Laughing]
>> Alan Gratz: Go for it.
>> I'm curious on what is your
favorite like comic book, like
Marvel, DC or just-- >>
Alan Gratz: Oh my gosh.
That's a great
question. Do you have one?
We were just talking before
about our mutual love for the
Flash. I know it's not
a Marvel property.
>> David Betancourt: We both
grew up on Mark Wade's Flash.
Mark Wade is my favorite writer
ever, and the guy who inspired
me to want to be a
writer when I was 14 years old.
When I was your guy's age,
I was reading Chris Claremont
and Jim Lee's X-Men running in
1990s. That was pretty
much for our age group.
Those guys were rock stars and
those were the comics
everyone was reading.
>> Alan Gratz: I love the Miss
Marvel, the Kamala Khan
from G. Willow
Wilson. That's amazing stuff.
I really like Lumberjanes,
which was another Non-marvel
one. But and then The
Flash has always been a big, big
book for me.
>> David Betancourt: Now, if
you want to ask me my favorite
comic character ever,
it's Miles Morales.
>> David Betancourt:
My father is Puerto Rican.
My mother is African American.
So to see a hero that is
literally takes his mask off and
is me, that's somethinge
I thought I'd never see.
So that character
means a lot to me.
>> Alan Gratz: And mine is Hulk
because I like to smash stuff.
[Laughing]
>> My favorites.
Long Halloween by...
>> David Betancourt: Jeph
Loeb and Tim Sale.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah. Listen, we
could sit here and talk comics
>> David Betancourt: Your
parents let you read that.
No, I'm kidding.
[Laughing]
>> Alan Gratz: Thanks.
Appreciate it.
>> David Betancourt:
Oh, PSG, look at this guy.
Is that Mbappe? Let me see.
>> No, it's Messi.
>> David Betancourt: Messi. Oh.
I don't know if you heard,
but he's in America.
>> Alan Gratz: Does he?
We're just messing
with you. Go ahead.
>> So usually-- I've read
a lot of your books.
So usually you
write chapter books.
And this one is a graphic novel.
Something new.
I've never seen
you write it before.
Why did you change your mind?
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah.
>> David Betancourt: But it is
still broken up into chapters.
Obviously not as many.
>> Alan Gratz: It
does have chapters.
>> Six chapters in this.
>> Alan Gratz: Eight?
>> David Betancourt: Eight.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah.
You're right, it's different.
And it was really interesting
to write this as a
graphic novel script
and not a novel because in
a novel, if I'm writing a
paragraph and I need to say
that somebody out in the snow
and I want to talk about snow,
I don't want to use the word
snow 3 or 4 times
in the paragraph.
I try to use different words,
but there's not a lot of words
for snow, not at least
in the English language.
So like in a comic book, I
can just say to the artist, Man,
there's a ton of snow
everywhere. And that's not the
best writing. But it
doesn't matter because
you guys aren't going
to read that part.
All I have to worry
about is the dialogue.
>> David Betancourt:
But they'll see it.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah, so
you'll see it because Brent,
who is this amazing artist that
I worked with, got to draw
all of that. And so I would just
say like, Oh, Brent, draw these
ghosts. And they have
that like Scooby doo
green glow around
them, you know.
>> David Betancourt: Super
important to signify that it's--
>> Alan Gratz: Right. It's that
Scooby doo glow. And he would
make it happen and so
it was really freeing.
Some parts of it are faster
because you can just say, oh,
like I could even say like, you
know, like that machine in that
one movie, make it
look like that.
And he can do that.
And I don't have to really
worry about how I said it.
But in a novel I have to make
sure all those words are very
pretty. So it was freeing in
that sense, and made me focus
more on action and
dialogue, which was pretty cool.
So I learned a lot about the way
I write my prose novels from
writing a graphic novel.
And I can also tell you
guys that I've got more graphic
novels coming, so I
don't know about Cap.
I'm hoping to write more Cap.
We'll see.
But we're doing a
refugee graphic novel.
That one's written and it
is being drawn right now.
I'm very excited about that and
I'm currently working on another
original one, which I can't
talk about yet, but, got it.
So got more on the way because
I loved writing them so much.
Let's get to some more questions
before we have to
get out of here.
>> Speaking of your book,
"Refugee," in your book,
you use three very seemingly
different stories of three kids
to convey that
history is repeating.
Do you think that it's important
that more countries
adapt their policies to
not repeat the past
and current
treatment of refugees?
>> Alan Gratz: Woo
Yeah, good question.
And good. Yeah, yeah.
And listen, I
segwayed into that.
That's amazing.
So great question.
Thank you. Yes, absolutely.
So a rogue refugee
at a time when--
Well, I'll tell you right now
there are more refugees in the
world right now than at
any time in human history.
Right? And there's not
a world war going on.
During World War II, most of
Europe was displaced by a war.
And yet we still today have more
refugees in the world than
at any time in human history.
Yes, I wrote "Refugee" because
I wanted to say, look at these
stories of the past
and the present.
If we keep making the same
mistakes that we made yesterday,
then tomorrow, manyana is
gonna be the same as yesterday.
And we have to make changes.
And I'm hoping that book,
it sounds like it did with you.
I hope that that book opens
hearts and minds to the people,
of the people who read it
so that this young generation
that's coming up will
make those changes that our
generations that came before
haven't. We haven't learned
the lessons of the past.
So I hope you guys will.
I know because we keep
dropping the ball.
[Applause]
>> David Betancourt: Do we
have time for another question?
Okay. We have time
for one more question.
>> So about the Ghost Army
thing, the actual ghosts,
aren't they, like, already like,
buried just random people?
Or are they like, soldiers that
just randomly fell on the field
and then they get up
and they're like, I'm alive?
>> Alan Gratz: They're both.
They're both.
That's a great question.
So my idea is that villain,
he creates this ghost machine
and the first time he cranks
it up, the most immediate
soldiers who died that day in
a battle, they come back to life
as ghosts. And then when he
tweaks it and he makes it go
farther, they think that
he's making it go farther
in a larger area. And he
says, No, no, I'm going
farther back in time.
And now instead of just
World War II soldiers that are
resurrected, World War I
soldiers are coming back
from the same place.
And it's me getting back a
little bit into that stuff about
the past, right, that we
keep making the same mistakes.
World War I was
fought in Europe.
It was supposed to be the
war that ended all wars.
And guess what? It didn't.
And so when he cranks up that
ghost machine, we start seeing
soldiers from the last
time we did this show up.
So it's both of them.
That's a great question.
Let's try and get another.
Can we do one more?
>> David Betancourt:
Let's get one more question.
>> Alan Gratz:
We'll see how we do.
Come on up.
>> So like what,
like, gives you like, the
inspiration to, like, make these
books? Like, how do you
write them, like, so good?
>> Alan Gratz: Oh, thanks.
[Laughing]
So listen, when I was--
>> David Betancourt: He
calls me up and says, Dave,
how can I-- No, I'm kidding.
>> Alan Gratz: Yeah.
I'm like, David, you got
to help me out here, man.
So when I was a kid,
I wasn't a huge reader.
I was always out playing
kickball in the street or I was
playing on my Atari or, you
know, eventually my Nintendo.
But it wasn't Atari to start.
Or I was watching TV or I was
playing with my friends and
making up stuff, and I had
an action figures for Star Wars
and I was doing stuff like that.
If I read a book, I liked
reading, but it took a really
exciting book to grab
me and to hold me.
And so as I grew up and I wanted
to become a storyteller
and I wanted to write books, I
decided, well, I kind of want to
write the books that kid me
would read, right, the kind that
would keep me engaged.
So I try to write books
that have cliffhanger chapters.
I'm sorry, I know everybody
complains to me about that,
but I know you like it.
I do cliffhanger chapters.
I do life and death stuff.
I do explosions. I do twists and
turns and betrayals because
that's the kind of stuff
that I love to read.
So every time I write a book,
I think would kid me
want to read this?
And that's kind of like,
so if you're a fan of my books,
we have that in common.
We both like the same kind of
books, the kind of books
that I like to write.
Thanks.
>> Thank you.
>> Alan Gratz: I think that is
all the time that we have.
I know it ran out quick.
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]