Holy Textbooks, Professor! Texas Tech Takes Novel Approach to Higher Learning

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Mar 12, 2010, 08:20 ET

LUBBOCK, Texas, March 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The graphic adventures depicted in the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Spider Man and Batman continue to top the comic book charts and inspire box office blockbusters.

Yet also climbing the "comic book" charts is the graphic novel Atlas Black, an unsung hero of sorts, whose adventures are capturing the minds of college students at the Texas Tech University Rawls College of Business. The graphic novel is now required reading in both undergraduate and graduate classes taught by its author: Rawls Associate Professor of Management Jeremy Short.

"Think of all the textbooks college students have to wade through during their college careers. I've found that the traditional textbooks have a disconnect with the students," Short said. "So, the students have a hard time retaining the information - but Atlas Black uses a fixed set of characters that apply the material to their story."

And that's how Atlas Black was born. Short co-authored Atlas Black: Managing to Succeed with Talya Bauer, the Cameron Professor of Management at Portland State University, and Dave Ketchen, the Lowder Eminent Scholar in Entrepreneurship at Auburn University. Len Simon, who has also worked on such projects as Anastasia, Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights, Fat Albert and Curious George, is the illustrator for the book.

"Managing to Succeed not only focuses on starting a business," Short said. "Atlas faces challenges paying his rent, working odd jobs to get through school that offer a little 'real world' experience. He even has challenges with his ex-girlfriend. The second novel in the series will focus on how Atlas Black maintains his business and the third will focus on franchising his business."

The second graphic novel of the trilogy is expected to come out in May of this year.

"One of the most fulfilling things about the Atlas Black series is that students finish a book and then ask what's going to happen next," Short said. "I doubt that has happened before in the history of textbooks."

The graphic novel is picking up steam quickly at universities across the country, as well as internationally, as they request Atlas Black to become a part of their curriculum, according to Short.

Short added that it's not just about developing an educational tool to help his students adapt real-life lessons to the classroom; it's also about a desire to make textbooks affordable again.

"Students can literally go broke buying books for classes each semester," Short said. "It's crazy. Flat World Knowledge (his publishing company) allowed us the creative license to make this book affordable to students."

It sells for $14.99, and is available at Amazon.com.