Comic Boom - Comics in Education - Excelsior Award 2024 Special with Paul Register

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Hello and welcome to comic. The comics and education podcast. If you're interested in hearing more about the crossover between comics and education, then this is the podcast for you. My name is Lucy and each week I'll be joined by a fellow educator and academic librarian or a creator of comics to discuss their journey into comics and provide some inspiration to influence your practice and hopefully shine some light on some titles you can bring into your libraries, your classrooms, and your bookshelves at home too.. This week, I'm very lucky to be joined again by Paul Register in a returning episode. As many of you will know from this time last year, Paul is the founder of the Excelsior award, which is the only fully independent nationwide book award for graphic novels and manga where children in schools in libraries around the country, age nine to 18, decide the winner themselves via four age appropriate categories. Paul is going to tell us more about the awards this year and go through the short lists for the white award, which is key stage two. And the blue award, which is the key stage three shortlist. So there's loads of recommendations. In this episode, Paul is a. school librarian himself, also a trustee of the school library association, check out the school library. library. association, they have loads of great resources for your libraries. and it's absolute pleasure to talk to Paul has got great sense of humor and always really loved going through the awards with him. Here's what Paul had to say.

Lucy Sb: 1:33

Hello, Paul. Welcome back to Comic Boom.

Paul Register: 1:35

Hello Lucy, thank you for having me again.

Lucy Sb: 1:37

Oh, it's lovely. You are our first official returner. So welcome. Yeah. Exciting. Yeah. Before we start, anyone who wants to listen into your origin story, to how you became a comics reader, how that love was nurtured, they can go back and check out in season one, your special episode there, and I'll put a link to that, in the show notes of this episode too. but it'd be really good if you Could just outline for people listening in for the first time to one of your episodes. Tell us a little bit about the Excelsior Award and how it works and how schools can get involved.

Paul Register: 2:11

Okay, well, the Excelsior Award, put very simply is a book award, and it's the biggest book award in the UK for graphic novels and manga, in which children and students decide the ultimate winners. so it's very democratic. it really takes on board what kids think and feel. it's done via a rating form, not a website. Um, they don't go online and just take a vote on things out of five. They have to fill in a rating form and give us their honest opinion as soon as they've read the book. cause that's, that's kind of what we want really. We don't want just people. Voting for things that are familiar or, or big or trendy or fashionable at the time. We actually want students opinions. So I think that makes it stand out from the market a little bit really.

Lucy Sb: 2:56

yeah. There's a, there's an element of criticality in criticality, shall I say that again? in there. And really getting them to engage and think about what they're reading and whether they like it and why.

Paul Register: 3:07

Yeah, definitely. and that's what we want. And we're, we're also very much bear in mind, the role that librarians and teachers play in, setting it up and in running it and delivering it. and I always say it's, it's not, it's, it's as much a reading scheme as it is a book award. You know, ultimately we are trying to sort of narrow down a short list into one winner. But it's, it is also a reading scheme. It's, it's, it's, it gets kids reading things they might not normally read.

Lucy Sb: 3:33

So what's the process? you create a shortlist with a team of judges. How does that, that process work? If you can give us a quick overview of that and then how it ends up into the hands of the children and young people who are, voting.

Paul Register: 3:45

well we spend every, calendar year, we spend, uh, collating a long list. and that's, that starts in January, so I mean really it's already, it's already started for next year.

Lucy Sb: 3:54

Crazy.

Paul Register: 3:55

I know, it never stops. so yeah, we collate a long list. And, we, we are on quite good terms with a lot of really good comics publishers. not Marvel and not DC, I might add. I'm not sure we'll ever be big enough to peak their interest, to be honest. Um, but we, we, we invite our authors, and publishers to send us their material. the publishers that don't want to do that, we tend to just get involved and buy their stuff anyway. and then as a group of judges, we sort of, spread the reading around. Because it is a lot of reading. I mean, we do, the long list does tend to be roughly 70, 80 books, I would say. Um, so it's far too much work for me or any one person I think, to, to take on board. So again, it's a democratic process and we sort of, we're not all in the same city, so I end up posting books all over the UK to the different judges and they read them and they gimme their honest feedback. And we have a little WhatsApp group where we share opinions and views and it's all kind of, works quite nicely with, it's quite a well-oiled machine at the minute. And from that long list, we end up coming up with four shortlists. And we have five books now on each shortlist. Each shortlist is a colour, white, blue, red and black. And each colour covers a specific age group.

Lucy Sb: 5:13

is there a peak age group of people that are involved at the moment? Where do you get most of your feedback from? Is there some, an area they're trying to grow more?

Paul Register: 5:23

The, the blue and the red awards, the blue is for basically Key Stage 3 and the red is basically for Key Stage 4, roughly speaking, will always be the most popular awards. And that's fine, I can live with that. I mean, that's how I started it, with that age group in mind, the secondary school age group. but as it's grown and evolved, first of all I started putting a primary school award in there, which is the white award. and eventually I added a black award as well, which is for sixth form, college libraries. and, uh, also you can have things on that. That's, um, even the other librarians might want to read as well. So it gives us a lot of flexibility again with, with what we put out there is shortlist. I suppose that there's certain books that I put on shortlist now that I would have had to chuck out of the award 10 years ago, because they wouldn't have fit into that secondary school environment.

Lucy Sb: 6:11

Yeah, that's brilliant. I think it's, I think it's perfectly placed for primary schools to get involved. I think it'll be a brilliant, club that you could do. You could run at lunchtime with children that were really engaged and wanted to read more graphic novels. That would be a really cool way to do it. You could open it out. definitely there's a lot, there's a lot of primary schools really keen on getting more graphic novels in. And I think the titles that you have on your shortlist are. They're not the typical run of the mill titles that people would necessarily have come across. I think it's a great way to engage with a more diverse range of titles as well.

Paul Register: 6:43

Yeah, definitely. I mean, in some ways the white award is, probably the most difficult one to put together every year. Um, just because the, the, the market doesn't cater as, as strongly for that age group as you might

Lucy Sb: 6:59

Mmm,

Paul Register: 7:00

Um, it does for the teenage market. It certainly does for the adult market, but for kids aged like eight, nine, 10, it's, Yeah, there's not quite as much out there. What there is out there is actually quite good, really. but yeah, it is the most difficult shortlist we have to put together. because we also want some balance on there, so we don't want just, you know, three Batman graphic novels and a couple of Spider Mans, you know? We want, we want a range, we want some breadth.

Lucy Sb: 7:26

you are going to take us through some of the shortlists and talk through the titles, maybe pique some interest in some of the titles on the shortlist. But before we do that, just if there's a teacher, librarian, anyone working with children interested in getting involved, how can they get involved in this year's award?

Paul Register: 7:45

basically just go on the website. registration for this year is still open. it's been open since December but I'll probably leave it open for a few more weeks yet. and the website address is www. excelsioraward. co. uk and then when you go on there you'll find all the different, pages in a blue column down the left hand side. And if you click on the one that says Registration 2024, you click on that, fill in some details, send it off, and then I will send you your resources. And your invoice as well, obviously.

Lucy Sb: 8:13

I will make sure that that. Uh, website addresses in the show notes as well, and, uh, do my best to get your episode out as soon as possible so that we, people have time to get involved. Brilliant. Should we start with the whitelist then?

Paul Register: 8:24

Sure, why not.

Lucy Sb: 8:25

I've read hardly any. I think there's only one, you know, but that's good. This is an exciting journey through the, into the unknown. Um, would love to, find out more about them. So, go for it.

Paul Register: 8:39

Thank you. I must admit that I'll be quite interested to see how the White Award goes down with kids this year, because we've got some things on there that we've never really had on before. Um Last year, probably the last couple of years, the White Award, there's been some very obvious kind of books to put on there. Books that are definitely aimed at that age range and feature popular characters. And this year, we've tried to extend ourselves a little bit. In some regards, this is almost an extension of the Blue Award. this year. which it doesn't tend to be. but anyway, I'll start with, the individual ones. I'm going to start with Starcat, A Turnip in Time. which is a beautifully packaged book and, published in the UK by David Fickling, who also produced the Phoenix. Yeah, they also produced the Phoenix comic, which is a wonderful weekly, I think it's a wonderful weekly,

Lucy Sb: 9:34

It is. Yeah.

Paul Register: 9:36

for, for primary school age children, actually. and it's a real sort of a hark back to the sort of Beano and Dandy kind of era. but really in a 21st century kind of way, it's very modern. and there was a previous Starcat from a few years ago. I wouldn't call it a sequel quite as much of a follow up because these stories kind of stand on their own ground. but this one is Starcat, a turnip in time. And it's very much a humorous kind of cartoony, almost adventure time kind of approach to, space exploration in a Star Trek kind of way. I mean, Star Trek is something that lends itself rather well to parody in the first place. and you've, you've, you have basically got a, uh, uh, a ship that flies through the galaxy exploring aliens and different, Space phenomena, and it's shaped as a giant cat. and it's all about the, the sort of ensemble cast that occupy the ship and it's really funny and it's dead good. by a fella called James Turner and an artist called Yasmin Shaikh.

Lucy Sb: 10:35

watch this space because James Turner, later on in the year, will be coming on to the podcast to talk about a different project. but, James Turner on Twitter. Every year at Christmas, it is the highlight of my festive period. he does this game where you have to try and guess what picture is going to be behind the advent calendar door. And it is the funniest thing on, uh, Twitter slash X. It really does make me laugh. So, yeah, he's a very funny man.

Paul Register: 10:59

He is, yeah, and his book reflects that, I would say.

Lucy Sb: 11:01

A slight aside there to talk about advent calendars.

Paul Register: 11:06

In February as well, well done.

Lucy Sb: 11:07

I know, what am I thinking?

Paul Register: 11:09

I know, even Asda and Tesco wouldn't try

Lucy Sb: 11:11

But you know, people can, now people have got ten months notice. okay. Onto next title.

Paul Register: 11:17

Next title, right, um, which one should we go with next? I'm going to go with this one. Uh, Magical History Tour. Now this is, published by Papercuts, and it is what I would describe as quite a European approach to, comics and graphic novels. it's basically, it's a very simple kind of premise of two children who travel back in history to look at very specific, historical eras. So this one, it's actually three stories in one, and they go investigating the Great Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and a story called Hidden Oil. Which is about the sort of oil rush, uh, in the States.

Lucy Sb: 11:50

Interesting.

Paul Register: 11:51

yeah, and it's, uh, it's quite, I'll be honest, it's quite wordy. it's a smallish, hardback book. I'm just looking at it now, about 125, 130 pages. It's quite wordy, but it's also quite cartoony, and it's quite, educational.

Lucy Sb: 12:03

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It seems like something that would link really nicely to a lot of the kind of primary curriculum areas and actually be quite a nice thing to be able to dovetail in.

Paul Register: 12:12

Yeah, and it's, it's, it's full of, optional historical data that you can add to it once you've finished reading the comic part as well. so it sort of backs up the, it backs up what it's, it's telling the story of, and it's really good.

Lucy Sb: 12:25

That's really interesting. That sounds quite, quite different. I like the sound of

Paul Register: 12:28

and when I say European, one of the areas I'm really talking about are sort of France, Belgium. Luxembourg, Holland, these kinds of areas where comics are, are very different to how we might be used to in this country. comics we produce in the UK, the comics we import from Japan, the comics we import from America, are all of a very specific type. I mean, manga is obviously something that's very different to An American superhero comic by Marvel. And this again is different in itself. last summer, me and my family went on a, a sort of driving holiday across Europe. and as part of that, we stopped, we had three nights in Brussels in Belgium and we stopped in a hotel. I don't think it was called a hotel. I think it was called an urban lodge, which it wasn't. It was a hotel, but, We stopped in this place called Yuma, and it was, everything about it was themed around European comics and European comics characters. Every room was themed around a specific character. So you had a lot of Tintin, you had a lot of Asterix, certainly. You had a lot of the Smurfs, even.

Lucy Sb: 13:30

Hmm.

Paul Register: 13:31

So these would be characters that we know in this country, but we don't really know too much about their publishing history. We know them through other mediums and other experiences. So it's definitely part of, that kind of ethos and that kind of culture.

Lucy Sb: 13:42

That's fascinating. That's really interesting. and it's readily available in the UK, this title though.

Paul Register: 13:46

yes, yes, we always do that. We always check, we always check that every, every book we put in a shortlist is available. It might not be available everywhere. I'm not going to lie and say you're going to be able to buy it at your, your local independent bookstore down the street or even in Waterstone sometimes.

Lucy Sb: 14:01

You can get hold of it somehow.

Paul Register: 14:03

yeah, I don't want to go around giving free adverts to the biggest, online book distributors in the UK, but if, if they, if they stock it, then you can obviously get it, you know,

Lucy Sb: 14:13

Yeah. That is good. Okay. What's next?

Paul Register: 14:16

and I also want to point out as well, the, the, the Excelsior award is designed to be extremely flexible. So if you can't or don't want to get hold of any of the books on the shortlist, you can still run the award. You don't have to have all five books.

Lucy Sb: 14:28

That's really good. There's no risk then, is there? You can, you can do it, you know, you can dip your toe in.

Paul Register: 14:32

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's absolutely fine. And even if you find that, you might want maybe three books off the white list and maybe top it up with two or three off the blue list, you can do it that way as well. It makes, it makes no difference to what we do at our end when it comes to choosing the winners at the end. You know, we do accept that sometimes schools can't. Get hold of a certain title and it's fine. You can still do the award.

Lucy Sb: 14:52

That's brilliant. Okay. What, what title would you like to discuss next?

Paul Register: 14:57

well, I was going to move on to, while we're talking about the European style, I was going to move on to the Hades book, Hades, the horn of plenty. which is based on Hades as he's represented in the Disney film. Oh, was it Hercules? I think he was in,

Lucy Sb: 15:12

Yeah.

Paul Register: 15:13

I haven't missed. Yeah. I haven't misunderstood this. I thought, yeah, it was in Hercules, which is quite a long. Well, it must be 25, 30 years ago, Hercules now.

Lucy Sb: 15:19

No. Oh yeah. Actually. Yeah. I forgot I'm old. Yeah.

Paul Register: 15:24

yeah, I'm, I've got to be honest. I'm thinking of the girlfriend I went to see it with. And that's a long time ago because I didn't marry her. So, so yeah, and, uh, I seem to remember it wasn't a great movie and I don't think it stood up to the test of time very well,

Lucy Sb: 15:38

Yeah, it's not one that I, I don't, I'm not even sure I've seen it, I think maybe I've, maybe I've wandered in and out as my children have watched it, I, I, because I can recall parts of it.

Paul Register: 15:46

Doubtless, it'll, it'll be available on Disney plus somewhere. If you were so, if you so wanted to watch it.

Lucy Sb: 15:52

I think I'll be alright.

Paul Register: 15:54

yeah, yeah,

Lucy Sb: 15:55

But,

Paul Register: 15:55

Um, but however, this, it tells me because it's got nothing to do with that film in many respects, apart from the main character of Hades. so it's, it's, it ties very much into Greek mythology, which I think a lot of primary schools love teaching. A lot of primary school kids love hearing about, certainly my eldest daughter did when she was a primary school. I believe it was originally published by a publisher in Sweden and the main creators of it, the people who did the pencils in it and the painting in it, are Italian. And then I think it's been adapted via a London publisher, to fit our market. So you've, to me, it still has a slightly European flavour to it, which it should, because it's about a Greek god, you know? so it's, it's, it's really, really nice to look at the depiction of the colours in it is something that really caught my eye when I first looked at it. There's a lot of style to it, there's a lot of softness with the colours. it doesn't give you a headache looking at it, it's just a, it's a very gorgeous book, and it's an inroad into Greek mythology as well, which is always a

Lucy Sb: 16:56

I like the focus, it's part of the Disney villains, kind of, they've got quite a few different books, chapter books, prose books, as well as graphic novels. I like the focus on the villain, I think that's quite nice, them being the main character and focusing a little bit more on them. I think

Paul Register: 17:12

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, Yeah, Because, you know, there's, there's, it's not everything's good and evil and black and white, is it? There's always shades of grey.

Lucy Sb: 17:19

exactly,

Paul Register: 17:20

There's always motivations behind what people do, even if they do horrible things. next one is a book that very, very nearly ended up on the Blue Award, but we got a bit overloaded with the Blue Award, to be honest, and we, we struggled to sort of nail it down to five books that had that breadth I was talking about earlier. So I decided, because it's easily accessible, we moved it down to the White Award and it'll be very interesting to see how well it goes down. My boy has read this actually, my boy's 10 now, and he read it and he's obviously 10 so he's not going to give me a full essay about it. But he says it's great, you know, it's fine, it's great dad, thanks, you know, cheers, enjoyed that, you know. It's Groot.

Lucy Sb: 18:06

character.

Paul Register: 18:07

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, great visual as well. if you, if you love Groot, you will love trees eventually, which is no bad thing in this day and age.

Lucy Sb: 18:15

So what's the plotline of this particular

Paul Register: 18:18

it's it's featuring, a very, very toddler like version of the first Groot that we see in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, so it's a story about how He lives on a planet that is basically populated by sort of trees and plants and fauna an invading alien comes along who wants to burn and floor all that. and he links up with the original Captain Marvel, not the one we see in the Marvel films today, but the original one who made his debut in the And it shows you him as a young person as well. So Marvel are actually doing quite a lot of these interesting kind of standalone books where they've sort of, they've looked at their decades long canon of stories and they've sort of picked gaps in the past where they could set a new story that didn't, that didn't upset everything that's come before and sort of just sits on its own. So you could quite happily read this without having any idea at all who the original Captain Marvel is or even having watched any of the Guardians films or read any Guardians comics. so it's very much a sci fi. ate lots of aliens, lots of fighting, uh, lots of noble sacrifice. so I'll be interested to see, uh, how that goes down with primary school kids. Obviously the main character of Groot, the only three words he ever speaks, if you don't know, are I am Groot. and it's a sort of ongoing joke that he says I am Groot and then other people who actually speak his language will hear what he's actually saying. Um, but all he ever says is I am Groot, in various ways. Yeah.

Lucy Sb: 19:52

that you'll get detailed feedback about what, what the primary age group think of this title as well. And presumably you would then be able to feed that into how you select titles next year and that you get that kind of circle

Paul Register: 20:04

Yeah, definitely, definitely. like I said, it could have just as easily sat on the blue award. but we had other things on the blue award that probably fit a bit better for that sort of 11, 12, 13, 14 age group. so we decided to stick it on the white and we'll see what happens.

Lucy Sb: 20:19

Brilliant. And I think we've got one more in the, in the white category

Paul Register: 20:23

We are, we have, yes, this, this one is probably the biggest risk I've ever took, uh, with the White Award. Um, that sounds like a threat, doesn't it? Um, I didn't mean that. Uh, I only meant in terms of its, its style, because it's, called Superman vs. Meshi. And it's a manga title, which means it's from, Japan originally, and it's printed in the Japanese format, which is where you read it. backwards, as people like to say, which is from, hang on, right to left, left to right, left to right.

Lucy Sb: 20:55

No, right to

Paul Register: 20:56

No, No, I swear, yeah, you're right,

Lucy Sb: 20:57

Yeah. LAUGHS so something maybe potentially for younger readers to get, to get to grips with that they might not have experienced before and also the panel flows that way round and everything, isn't it?

Paul Register: 21:11

Yeah, yeah, um, we've had a lot of manga titles on the blue award, the red award, the black award in the past. But we've never had one on the white award before.

Lucy Sb: 21:19

it's quite hard to find manga there's not a lot for that, for that age group, is there?

Paul Register: 21:24

No, there isn't really. and again, this, this could have easily sat on the blue award as well. I think there's something very sort of sweet and innocent about it that lends itself well to a primary school age group. the whole premise behind it, I mean, it's deeper than this, but the simple premise behind it is that Superman can obviously fly at very high speeds around the world. And so. When he's with the Justice League and it's lunchtime, he flies to Japan. And he's almost addicted to a specific kind of food in Japan. And because he's Superman, he will very nicely queue up with the other Japanese patrons and wait to get his food. And then he will fly back to wherever the Justice League And then he starts trying to persuade all the other superheroes how fantastic this Japanese food is.

Lucy Sb: 22:09

And that's it.

Paul Register: 22:10

That's, yeah, yeah, I mean it's, it's volume one, so

Lucy Sb: 22:13

sounds quite delightful.

Paul Register: 22:16

Yeah, it's, it's an ongoing series, so, we'll

Lucy Sb: 22:18

Something's gonna happen as well, but I love that. Just what is Superman having for lunch?

Paul Register: 22:24

Yeah, it's, to be honest, there's, Japanese manga has a lot of weird genres, one of which is they have manga that is very much obsessed with food and will present recipes during the story of what's being portrayed within the story. a perfect example is a series that's just started recently on Netflix called Delicious in Dungeon, which is based on a manga title from several years ago, which the whole premise behind that is, it's a fantasy series. It's going adventuring in dungeons and how you can eat whilst you're down in a dungeon killing monsters and trying to find treasure. so if you get attacked by like a giant mushroom it shows you how to kill the mushroom and then eat it. But it will show you in very specific, in a very specific recipe format.

Lucy Sb: 23:11

That's very funny.

Paul Register: 23:13

absolutely bizarre.

Lucy Sb: 23:14

And interesting with this one as well is that You get characters that we might be familiar with being drawn in a very, in a, well not very different, but a slightly different style. I'm just looking at the cover, more of a manga style. people will, say. There's lots of different styles of manga, and I know that, but you know, there is a classic kind of look.

Paul Register: 23:33

It's not an overt manga style I would say

Lucy Sb: 23:35

It's not fully, but you can see that slightly different.

Paul Register: 23:38

definitely. And it's, yeah. And it's not, it's not in color. It's, I mean, manga books tend to be smaller to hold than, than bigger graphic novels anyway. but I think that this age group, might be ready for some manga this year

Lucy Sb: 23:51

Yeah, I quite like the look of this one.

Paul Register: 23:54

Yeah. The year sevens we had come up in my school this year were extremely excited to see the amount of manga we've got in our library. which is always nice to see, you know.

Lucy Sb: 24:01

yeah. Yeah, that's great. That seems like a really nice shortlist. there's a really nice range there. Very cool.

Paul Register: 24:08

thank you.

Lucy Sb: 24:09

you didn't need to pat on the back from

Paul Register: 24:10

ha.

Lucy Sb: 24:12

Well done!

Paul Register: 24:17

The first book I'll talk about on the Blue Award is a manga book called Sugar Apple Fairy Tale, which to me, it is cute and it doesn't begin to do justice to the, uh, themes within the book. To my mind, on the surface of it, it is quite sweet and. sugary but there are some deeper things going off in there. not least of which is the relationship in this fantasy world setting, the relationship between humans and fairies, in which fairies are basically, enslaved by humans and humans buy them really. And fairies despise humans because of this. And the premise being that once you've bought your fairy slave, you remove one of their wings, and then they're yours forever because they can't go anywhere without two wings. Um,

Lucy Sb: 25:07

Fairy Tale's not really saying that, is it?

Paul Register: 25:09

not really, no, but you know, maybe that's deliberate, I'll assume it's deliberate,

Lucy Sb: 25:12

maybe it's a

Paul Register: 25:13

you know.

Lucy Sb: 25:14

Yeah,

Paul Register: 25:14

you in and,

Lucy Sb: 25:15

yeah, exactly.

Paul Register: 25:16

yeah, so you've got a, you've got a, two main characters, you've got a young girl in there who, who wants to make sweets, basically. and you've got her fairy bodyguard slash slave. not that she sees him as a slave, but her fairy bodyguard who is a much darker, grimmer character. And again, it's volume one, so it's an ongoing story. And we'll just have to see how that one pans out. But it's, I found it quite, yeah, it challenges your expectations, shall we say. And it makes you look at things that go off in this fantasy world and see the allegories if you're

Lucy Sb: 25:48

yeah, exactly. Metaphors. And these are all titles that were published last year, so have the subsequent ones already been released Because manga tends to come out quite quickly, doesn't it?

Paul Register: 26:00

it can do, I think, I think volume two of Sugar Apple Fairytale is out. it's always worth having a quick check on Amazon and seeing because they'll tell you when the future volumes are coming out as well.

Lucy Sb: 26:11

Oh, that's useful.

Paul Register: 26:14

right, the next one I'm gonna, I'm gonna be brutally honest and say that, I didn't really read it very much if I'm honest. This is, Danger and Other Unknown Risks by Ryan North and Eric

Lucy Sb: 26:24

this is the only one that I've read but I also did read it, I read it as soon as it came out and I can't really remember it that much but I know it's got a talking dog in it.

Paul Register: 26:31

this was a bit of a late one, onto our long list really, and it was recommended by one of my judges, Jane Hill, uh, another librarian who lives, in, oh, I'm just going to say down south. And she recommended it because she loves anything by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. It's published by Penguin, but we were getting a bit close to, to short list time, so I just took a risk and I bought it myself off Amazon. I had a quick look through and I thought, yeah, I can see, I can see why Jane likes this so much. It's a, a girl and her talking dog. It's a dystopian kind of future world, which they're exploring. it's a kind of save the world kind of trip. But to be honest, I, I will admit I, this is why I have a team of judges. I haven't, I did quite the deep dive into this that Jane did. But Jane says it's fab. So if loads of kids agree with her, then I'll know to take Jane's word for these things more in the future.

Lucy Sb: 27:19

Jane, you're under scrutiny now. It could all be over for you. and it's the same team as behind the Squirrel Girl comics. That's right, isn't it?

Paul Register: 27:28

Yes, that's right.

Lucy Sb: 27:30

See, I was drawn in because there's a quote from Tilly Walden on the front as well, and I love Tilly Walden, so I, I also think that's another, that's another good,

Paul Register: 27:38

Yeah, and she says it's easily her favorite book of the year.

Lucy Sb: 27:42

There we go. There we go. We believe in, in Tilly we trust.

Paul Register: 27:47

yeah, I don't wish to brag, but after all the years I've been working in school libraries, I can. Sort of have a flick through something and know whether it might appeal to the kids in my school or not without having to read it cover to cover. Which, to be honest, I think all librarians are a bit like that, aren't we? Once you've been in the job for a certain amount of time, you know, you know which authors are going to be popular You don't have to read every book in your library. I know all the kids think we have, but the reality is, we haven't been alive for 300 years and we haven't read everything. Right, next is, I'm going to go with Verne, Custodian of the Universe.

Lucy Sb: 28:21

Mm. I like the cover of this.

Paul Register: 28:23

yeah, it's lovely, isn't it? no, I did read all this and I found it very interesting. Um, it's published by NoBrow, a UK publisher, and if you've never looked at, if you've never seen a NoBrow book before, I would recommend going on their website and having a look. It's NoBrow. net. Just have a look at what they've got. Their website's lovely as well.

Lucy Sb: 28:44

Mm-Hmm.

Paul Register: 28:45

show you the interiors of the books as well as just the cover and the cost, you know. Now what they publish is more sort of quirky, original, different kind of works. And this one is about a guy who's in America and he's a young fella and He's kind of lost his way in life a little bit and he's decided the best thing for him to do is just get in his car and drive back home and see his parents for a while whilst he figures his life out. and while he's there, he takes a job as a janitor slash caretaker at a, technology factory kind of scientist lab kind of thing. And it throws him into Uh, a variety of different multiple, uh, uh, universes, multiverses. That's the word I'm after a variety of different multiverses.

Lucy Sb: 29:38

How could you forget the multiverse?

Paul Register: 29:40

Oh, yeah, I'll just clearly not drinking enough tea this morning. Um, so yeah, it's, it, it looks great. it's kind of kooky and weird. It sort of harks back to that 1960s and seventies. Jack Kirby approach to showing the universe has been this wonderfully multicolored and melty kind of backdrop for stories. on a simple level, it's one guy's quest to discover what he should be doing with his life. but on a larger level, it's a question of how he fits in to the universe. And fits in with his family.

Lucy Sb: 30:15

Mm. I like that. That sounds good. And I also really think the artwork looks really cool.

Paul Register: 30:20

Yeah, yeah, and it's, it's, it's beautifully packaged as well. It's like,

Lucy Sb: 30:24

Yeah, I think no brow is a really good quality mark, isn't it?

Paul Register: 30:27

Absolutely, yeah, definitely. Uh, and they like us as well, so.

Lucy Sb: 30:31

That's good.

Paul Register: 30:32

thumbs up for that. I'm gonna go with the superhero ones now. Because, you know, we can't have a world without superheroes, I'm afraid. the first book, do you remember what I was saying about how Marvel have been doing a lot of books lately that sort of delve into their past and fill in narrative gaps? Uh, well they've done it again with this one called Joe Fix It. and they've got quite a, uh, a famous and well respected writer called Peter David to come back and work on this character again. And it fits into the Hulk's history where he became a sort of bodyguard for the mob in Las Vegas for a while. and this is a point of his development where he was grey, not green, and where he was intelligent. So it's almost like a third version of like, sort of, Bruce Banner's fractured psyche.

Lucy Sb: 31:21

Right. Okay. But

Paul Register: 31:22

had the

Lucy Sb: 31:23

I

Paul Register: 31:25

Sorry, go on.

Lucy Sb: 31:25

my brain getting confused there. So, so it is still Hulk, but it's just a different version of him Does he go back to human form, or is he just permanent Hulk?

Paul Register: 31:37

No, he's permanently as

Lucy Sb: 31:39

But he's intelligent, he's able to talk and his, in Hulk, in Hulk, form.

Paul Register: 31:42

yeah, yeah. I mean, when, when the Hulk was first published in the 1960s, he wasn't green. He was gray and he wasn't quite so childlike or toddler like.

Lucy Sb: 31:54

he is totally like, isn't

Paul Register: 31:55

he was, not quite a sort of Mr. Hyde character, but the, the whole premise of the story was definitely based on Jekyll and Hyde to a larger degree. And it was only later when they made him green and then they decided the Hulk would work better if he was, basically a toddler who threw tantrums, but obviously threw tantrums where he, he throws a truck or he smashes a tree or something. And in the, in the mid eighties, they went back to this concept of revisiting the grey hulk. Um, so what you've got is Bruce Banner's psyche is like fractured into Bruce, uh, the, the hulk, the green hulk and the grey hulk. And this is very much about the grey hulk. this,

Lucy Sb: 32:34

the Grey Hulk called Joe Fixit then?

Paul Register: 32:36

he decided he wanted to be called Joe Fixit because he wanted to be completely Separated from everything that's gone off in the past, so he went to Las Vegas and he loaned himself out to mobsters to act as an enforcer and bodyguard. Um, and he basically wears pinstripe suits. Um,

Lucy Sb: 32:54

looking quite dapper.

Paul Register: 32:55

Yeah, yeah. You know, lives in luxury suites. where he just gets everything he wants because, because he would, wouldn't he? You know, if you're going to hire the best, you have to pay them the best. So yeah, it's a story from back in his Las Vegas mobster days. and, it features a whole host of other Marvel superheroes, not least of which is Spider Man, who decides to, uh, find out what the hell's going on with Banner, and why he's hiding in Las Vegas. Kingpin, who wants to go and recruit Joe Fixit.

Lucy Sb: 33:23

cool.

Paul Register: 33:24

Yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's just another aspect that you might not have seen and it's a nice little stand alone story again. You don't need to worry about, you don't need to worry too much about having read the previous Grey Hulk comics and you don't need to worry about anything that goes after this story. it's just a bunch of fun, really.

Lucy Sb: 33:38

And when's it set? I can't, because he's dressed quite, kind of, 1940s, but is it in the 80s? When is this? When's this stuff happening?

Paul Register: 33:46

Oh, well Marvel Time is a very fluid concept. Um, in publishing history, it would have been the mid 1980s, mid to late 1980s. in Marvel time, I don't really know if I'm honest, because the time is just stretched out so far. he dresses this way because he's obviously got some idea that this is how a gangster dresses.

Lucy Sb: 34:10

yeah,

Paul Register: 34:11

so it's all very Al Capone,

Lucy Sb: 34:12

Yeah.

Paul Register: 34:13

yeah.

Lucy Sb: 34:14

Okay, cool. shouldn't question too much. Just go with the flow.

Paul Register: 34:19

Yeah, end of day you're talking about a, you know, an eight foot grey giant in a suit

Lucy Sb: 34:25

Yeah, that's not, yeah, yeah. What time period is this? It's not what it's all hanging on. Quite right.

Paul Register: 34:36

The last book is Batman Beyond. which is a concept that's been going on for a while. It's the idea is it's set in the future. and it's, so it's very much sci fi. It's kind of dystopian. And the idea is that Bruce Wayne is an elderly man at this point, obviously can't continue as Batman, but he still wants to protect Gotham. so he's recruited, a young lad called Terry McGinnis to act as Batman on his behalf. And this is very much the story of how, I mean, it opens up with Bruce Wayne, uh, dying. And it's very much the story of how Terry McGinnis has to take on the Batman mantle on his own.

Lucy Sb: 35:11

I feel the name Terry McGinnis just really makes me want to laugh. I really do.

Paul Register: 35:14

Oh, it's fantastic, isn't it? I was talking about this with this kid at my school last week. And I just love him, the fact that he's called Terry McGinnis. It's It's, uh, it sounds like he should be in the Sweeney or something. It's like Never mind Bruce Wayne, I don't know anybody called Bruce or Wayne I don't think, but

Lucy Sb: 35:32

yeah,

Paul Register: 35:33

fantastic.

Lucy Sb: 35:34

Yeah. Love it.

Paul Register: 35:36

So yeah, it's all very technologically driven, there's a lot of, again, allegories about how we adapt AI in our lives. And yeah, I won't bang on too much about it because we haven't got much time left, but I really really like that one, and it's by a couple of authors. Who I rate, as well. The artwork looks super. I think anybody who likes superhero comics will get a lot out of that book.

Lucy Sb: 35:58

That's interesting. Is it, lengthy? What's the sort

Paul Register: 36:00

it's, yeah, it's not the shortest book on the list. but yeah, it will, it will require some, Uh, dedication, shall we say. But, if you're enjoying it, you will fly through it as well, so.

Lucy Sb: 36:09

yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Okay, brilliant. And, Do you disclose any that you're, you said you'd liked that one? have you got favorites?

Paul Register: 36:17

you're doing that thing again. You did this last year, weren't you I try so hard to not show my own biases, but,

Lucy Sb: 36:25

Well, well, you've

Paul Register: 36:27

um,

Lucy Sb: 36:27

like Batman Beyond.

Paul Register: 36:28

okay, yeah, I did enjoy Batman Beyond, I thought it was great. I'll leave it at that, shall I?

Lucy Sb: 36:32

Yeah, let's, let's leave it at that. We don't wanna. I don't want to upset anyone. Okay, so, we don't really have time to look at the red list, but, I will put the links to that in the show notes so people can check out the red list and the black list as well, if that's appropriate for the age groups that they're working

Paul Register: 36:48

Yeah, I will say as well, Batman features heavily in both of the lists as well,

Lucy Sb: 36:53

does it?

Paul Register: 36:54

choice, but it's

Lucy Sb: 36:55

been a strong

Paul Register: 36:56

It has a bit, yeah, and sometimes the shortlist just reflects what's out there, and how publishers are dedicated to a certain character or style of storytelling in any given year.

Lucy Sb: 37:07

Because it hasn't been in, it hasn't, I mean, I don't, not that it would necessarily be this way around, but it's kind of gone off the boil in the film side of things. Um, but it's interesting that it's still thriving in the comics side of things.

Paul Register: 37:21

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm just looking now, we've got four books that feature Batman in one form or another. But, saying that, not a single one of them is predominantly about Bruce Wayne. Yeah, so I feel happy that I'm not being silly and just forcing my choices on people. These are all quite different books.

Lucy Sb: 37:37

yeah, I'd actually be fascinated to get hold of all four of them and just see the breadth as well, the types of story

Paul Register: 37:43

It is fascinating to see how, yeah, four different writers, well, five or six different writers can all interpret that same core character in so many different ways.

Lucy Sb: 37:52

Yeah, doing that at the same moment of time, because I feel like you could, you are adding another element in if you go back into kind of how that's been done over time, but it's like all books that have been created relatively recently. That's quite interesting.

Paul Register: 38:05

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's not just a Batman thing, is it? I mean, this is what authors and writers have been doing for a very long time. You know, going back to Shakespeare times, you know, we can all take a character like Richard III or Romeo and interpret him how we see fit, as long as you can make the argument as to why you're doing it.

Lucy Sb: 38:25

As this is your second appearance on the podcast and as this is an Excelsior Awards special episode, I thought for our ending maybe your top tips for teachers and librarians would be if someone's listening and think, Oh, right. This is great. I am going to do Excelsior Award for the first time this year. Have you got any top tips for how to Help that go smoothly. Best ways of that you've heard of people implementing it, a few

Paul Register: 38:49

Yeah, I'm going to come back to that word flexibility again, because I don't think I, I don't think I flog it enough, this idea. I do make it as, as flexible as, as I can. I'm very much aware that every school and every librarian is different and I don't want to be prescriptive about how it should be done and the, and the best way to do it. Because, you know, everything is different. You know, the schools are different. The kids are different. I know some librarians would, would rather just get the books in and have a presentation on their desk and invite people to come in and, and take one of the books away with one of the rating forms. My personal way of doing it is I prefer to collect a reading group together, which I will be doing after this half term. and we sit down every week and we read the books on the shortlist and then the week after we come back and we swap the books around. That's my preferred way of doing it. But that doesn't fit for everybody, you know. So again, there's no right way of doing it. At the end of the day, what we really want is, is we want our students to read more. That's, that's basically the simple message. And if that means that we, we mix and match shortlists, if we, if we have a reading group, or if we don't have a reading group, whatever works for you. I mean, for the librarian, I want them to enjoy it as well. I want them to have fun doing it. Not just the kids. I think we've probably all been involved in book awards sometimes where it's been a bit of a, like, pulling teeth trying to get kids to do anything with it. so I want librarians to think, you know what, I enjoyed that and I'll do it again next year.

Lucy Sb: 40:13

Yeah. That's Fantastic, thank you.

Paul Register: 40:15

You're welcome.

Lucy Sb: 40:16

so, to wrap up, I think, I could check back to see what you said last time, on the podcast, um, but I think if you, I feel like you said, did you say Watchmen as your recommended book?

Paul Register: 40:30

I, yes, that does sound like something I'd say, yeah. Ha ha

Lucy Sb: 40:35

if we were, let's move on from that, a new one. If we were to add one comic or book to our To Be Read piles tomorrow, we've all read Watchmen last year, on your recommendation, what would

Paul Register: 40:46

Okay, I've got a, I've got a book here that was on The Black Award list last year. and I'm thinking of reading it again, actually, this year. Because I'm having a bit of a, um, I'm having a bit of a fixation with George Orwell again at the minute. As I probably have done for the last 30 years. so I've got a book here called Orwell. And it's a, it's a graphic biography of George Orwell. And it's published by Self Made Hero. Who are another fantastic publisher. Um, if just again, have a look at their website. It's incredible. They were, they built their reputation and name on the manga Shakespeare series, but they've pushed on since then. It's the stuff they've got out there is yeah. And biographies. Their biographies are fab. and this one is terrific. Really shows you George Orwell's was life as you'd expect, but also Gives you an idea about why someone from his background was so interested in notions of equality and inequality, for that matter, and class structures and, socialism. so it's, it's fabulous. To be honest, if you ever saw it on a bookshelf, you'd never miss it because it's all bright red. and it's written by, and I'm going to say this in my best Yorkshire accent, Pierre Christan. and Sebastien Verdier. They're obviously French, but I'm not going to try and butcher the French language by pronouncing their names correctly. so yeah, it's, it's, um, yeah, that is my recommendation. If you've ever had any interest in George Orwell or his works, uh, and George Orwell as a person,

Lucy Sb: 42:18

Yeah, I mean I do, and I really like his, essays and nonfiction writing. so yeah, I think I'd really like that. I'm gonna check that out but yeah, thank you so much for that. Brilliant. I think that's a really useful episode I really hope people listening have found something that piques their interest. I'm sure they will, because there's a real range of titles. And thank you for coming on and sharing that with us.

Paul Register: 42:39

Thank you for having me again. Always a pleasure.

42:44

Very very lovely to talk to Paul. It always is enjoyed listening to all of those different recommendations. I think really different to the kind of books that I normally gravitate to. not really somebody that looks into the superhero genre very often. I don't know very much about manga. I just find that the Excelsior award shortlist really opened my eyes to, to what's out there beyond my quite small scale. Got a reading preferences actually, and makes you realize, how you can diversify your own reading. so I find that really, really valuable. Thank you, Paul, for coming on the show. I'm on a bit of a mission to get more primary schools. involved in the Excelsior award. I just think it would be brilliant. So, actually, whatever part of the education system you're working in do, go onto the Excelsior awards website. There's link in the show notes. You'll also be able to find it really easily by Googling. And just check out what they've got an offer is only going to be open to sign up to for another couple of weeks. So make sure that you check it out soon. and see if you can get your school involved, as Paul said, it's really flexible. So I'm sure you can find a way of doing it. That works for you. I've had a great fun. I'm starting to dip into that shortlist. I'm going to talk a little bit more about a book in particular that I have enjoyed next week on next week's episode of comment. Boom. My recommendation this week though, is something a little bit different? I'm hoping that the creators will come onto the podcast. One day I am recommending. Julian Sedgwick and Chie Kutsawada's. A hundred tails from Tokyo guest cafe. it's a combination of manga and prose writing. it's absolutely stunning. Lots of storytelling around, Japanese mythology, two kind of parallel stories running next to each other. It's loosely a sequel to that tsunami girl. which was also a prose and manga combination, I'd say great for key stage three reader, some individuals in key stage two in the upper key stage two, you might think it's suitable for, but I definitely. Recommend that on a case by case basis. I wouldn't say it's one to just pop on your shelf in key stage two for everyone to read. There's no inappropriate content, but it just feels like it's aimed at a slightly older audience, but definitely recommend it. I thought it was beautiful. And I love just finding out all about something that I didn't know about at all Japanese mythology. So yes, highly highly recommended for me. Read that one over Christmas. And then it also read it out loud to my daughter as well. So I've read it twice now. It's that good? That's it for me for today. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can do so as a ways by logging into ko-fi.com. Forward slash Lucy SB that's K O hyphen F i.com. Slash Lucy SB. there, you can buy me a comic or you can buy one of my comics to support the podcasts and help funds that kind of the systems and the processes that are needed to get the podcast to where it needs to be. And onto the airwaves that. Much appreciated. So thank you for your support. You can also support me by leaving a review on whichever platform you listen on. And by sharing really important by sharing with your colleagues and your networks, it's always really appreciated. You can follow me on at Lucy underscore Bradley on Twitter to find out what's coming up on each episode of the podcast. And here's some reviews occasionally as well. also follow on the podcast on Instagram, on at comic underscore boom. Underscore podcast. We've got a special episode next week. shining a light on some exciting activity coming up to celebrate world book days. We're just getting ahead of world book day. So you can hear about that and have time to hopefully put it into your plans. I hope you're planning on involving comics in your world book day celebrations in some way shape or form. And next week's episode, we're going to try and get out a little bit earlier in the week. So you've got extra time, to build into your planning as well. That's it from me. My name is Lucy Starbuck, Bradley producer, and host of comic. Boom. Thanks for listening..