With good reason, Nathan Hale could refute the age-old superstition that the number 13 portends bad luck. Thirteen years after the debut of Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales, the author-illustrator has added volume 13 to the series with Bones and Berserkers:13 True Tales of Terror from American History. Due today from Abrams Fanfare with a 150,000-copy first printing, the anthology continues this Eisner-nominated series of graphic novels that illuminate dark, sometimes chilling events in U.S. history. Hale’s premise has hardly scared off middle grade readers: the series has racked up an in-print tally of two million copies worldwide since its 2012 launch with One Dead Spy: A Revolutionary War Story.

That inaugural title—somewhat eerily—spotlights Continental Army soldier and spy Nathan Hale (no relation to the author) who dramatically and famously declared his only regret moments before he was hanged by the British in 1776. In a wry spin, the doomed patriot, his executioner, and a British officer who witnesses his hanging serve as narrators of the series’ first installment and return to play the same role throughout the series.

Prior to treading on hazardous historical turf, Hale illustrated two full-color graphic novels from Bloomsbury USA, Rapunzel’s Revenge and its follow-up, Calamity Jack, written by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale (again, no relation).

In a conversation with PW, Nathan Hale credited those two books meshing fantasy and history with sparking his interest in the latter. Since his reading taste as a kid gravitated toward the daily funnies and the editorial cartoons in the newspaper, he noted, “The fact that I have stumbled into being a history buff as a comics guy is really funny to me now!”

Before illustrating Rapunzel’s Revenge, which is set in the Wild West, the Utah resident boned up on the era extensively. “I researched Western costumes, vehicles, and buildings to make it feel real, since that part of the story was so much more interesting to me than the fairy tale aspect,” Hale recalled. “And that was one of the things that put me on the path to digging into history.”

A Successful Excavation

A stroke of serendipity led Hale to Abrams, where then-art director Chad Beckerman (now a literary agent who represents the author) spotted a one-page comic about Lewis and Clark in Hale’s online artist portfolio. Recognizing Hale’s potential as a graphic novelist, Beckerman showed the comic to Maggie Lehrman, who has spent two decades at Abrams and is now associate publisher of children’s books.

Agreeing with Beckerman’s assessment, Lehrman said, “We reached out to Nate and started developing what would become Hazardous Tales, and we never looked back.” (Though the series doesn’t yet include a book about Lewis and Clark, Lehrman mused, “Maybe one day!”)

Lehrman praised Hale’s ability to juggle essential ingredients of middle grade nonfiction that inform and entertain. “Nate manages to combine historical fact and humor in a way that I have rarely seen before,” she noted. “His sense of humor was the first thing that jumped out at me, and his art was immediately appealing. That, combined with the books’ pace and voice and Nate’s deep research, meant that it all clicked.”

Hale, in turn, credited Lehrman for her balanced approach to editing Hazardous Tales, saying, “Maggie steers me in the right direction but always knows when to let me do my own weird thing!”

That artistic freedom is particularly important to Hale, who explained that when he is writing history for young readers, he adheres to the facts. But, he added, “When I’m drawing history books, I like to let the artwork run wild. History is filled with interesting things to draw, and with comics I can go bonkers and really have fun.”

To that end, Hale gave himself free rein in Bones and Berserkers. “Since this is book 13, I wanted to make it the ‘Halloween Special’ of the series and include 13 scary stories, along with some crazy supernatural visuals,” he said. “I’m breaking some rules with this book, since it’s not strictly about American history, but spills over into mythology and fantasy. And one story is an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story—the final one he wrote before he died.”

Given Hale’s goal of creating “the scariest, grossest illustrations that I could—and still make the book publishable,” his dedication for Bones and Berserkers comes as no surprise: “To Stephen Gammell and Alvin Schwartz, creators of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and to the publishing team who allowed them to make the most horrifying illustrations ever created for children.”

Next fall, Hale returns to the realm of stark historical realism with his 14th, still untitled, Hazardous Tale, which centers on World War II. “I wrote about that war’s Pacific Theater in Raid of No Return, but I’ve steered clear of the European Theater until now,” he said. “This book began as a story about the rise of the Nazis, but I took a step back from that, because it was so difficult to deal with. It’s hard not to live in the world you’re writing about. So, instead I decided to focus on the end of World War II when we see Nazism falling apart.”

Lehrman noted that she looks forward to additional hazards Hale decides to spotlight from the annals of U.S. history. “It has been incredibly rewarding to have worked on all of Nate’s Hazardous Tales, plus the five or six additional books that he and I have published together during that time,” she said. “Nate has such a strong sense of what his audience wants to read, and he’s never been wrong yet!”

Bones and Berserkers: 13 True Tales of Terror from American History by Nathan Hale. Abrams Fanfare, $15.99 Sept. 9 ISBN 978-1-4197-7320-4