The Canadian alternative : cartoonists, comics, and graphic novels from the North / edited by Dominick Grace and Eric Hoffman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Grace, Dominick, 1963- editor.

Hoffman, Eric R., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Comic books, strips, etc--Canada--History and criticism.

Comic books, strips, etc.

Graphic novels--Canada--History and criticism.

Graphic novels.

Underground comic books, strips, etc--Canada.

Underground comic books, strips, etc.

Cartoonists.

Canada.

Cartoonists--Canada--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xix, 288 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2018]

Summary:

"Contributions by Jordan Bolay, Ian Brodie, Jocelyn Sakal Froese, Dominick Grace, Eric Hoffman, Paddy Johnston, Ivan Kocmarek, Jessica Langston, Judith Leggatt, Daniel Marrone, Mark J. McLaughlin, Joan Ormrod, Laura A. Pearson, Annick Pellegrin, Mihaela Precup, Jason Sacks, and Ruth-Ellen St. Onge. This overview of the history of Canadian comics explores acclaimed as well as unfamiliar artists. Contributors look at the myriad ways that English-language, Francophone, indigenous, and queer Canadian comics and cartoonists pose alternatives to American comics, to dominant perceptions, even to gender and racial categories. In contrast to the United States' melting pot, Canada has been understood to comprise a social, cultural, and ethnic mosaic, with distinct cultural variation as part of its identity. This volume reveals differences that often reflect in highly regional and localized comics such as Paul MacKinnon's Cape Breton--specific Old Trout Funnies, Michel Rabagliati's Montreal-based Paul comics, and Kurt Martell and Christopher Merkley's Thunder Bay--specific zombie apocalypse. The collection also considers some of the conventionally "alternative" cartoonists, namely Seth, Dave Sim, and Chester Brown. It offers alternate views of the diverse and engaging work of two very different Canadian cartoonists who bring their own alternatives into play: Jeff Lemire in his bridging of Canadian/US and mainstream/alternative sensibilities and Nina Bunjevac in her own blending of realism and fantasy as well as of insider/outsider status. Despite an upsurge in research on Canadian comics, there is still remarkably little written about most major and all minor Canadian cartoonists. This volume provides insight into some of the lesser-known Canadian alternatives still awaiting full exploration."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part 1. Alternative history. Alternatives within an alternative form : Canadian wartime creators Bus Griffiths, Avrom Yanovsky, "Ab Normal," Tedd Steele, and Jack Tremblay / Ivan Kocmarek

The state as alternative : conceptualizing the historical role of government comics in Canada / Mark J. McLaughlin

Gene day : the man who never slowed down / Jason Sacks

Part 2. Alternative world. Paul "Moose" Mackinnon and an alternative Cape Breton / Ian Brodie

Michel gets a comics job : cartooning, labor, and notions of the alternative in the comics of Michel Rabagliati / Paddy Johnston

Vicky : young, rich, popular, sexy, gay, and unhappy / Annick Pellegrin

Nowadays and the free will Zombie apocalypse / Judith Leggatt

"Once upon a time this was a true story" : Indigenous peoples graphic novels and orature / Jessica Langston

Part 3. Alternative comics. Cerebus the Canadian : frontier survivalism and victimhood in Sim and Gerhard's epic / Eric Hoffman

Seth's It's a good life, if you don't weaken as anti-nostalgia / Dominick Grace

Louis Riel, super-history hero : the politics of representation in Chester Brown's Louis Riel : a comic-strip biography / Jordan Bolay

Hark! Anachronism : Kate Beaton's historiographic metafiction / Daniel Marrone

Ray Fawkes's formal and stylistic shifts in the field of comic book production / Ruth-Ellen St. Onge

Part 4. Alternative perspectives. "To dream of birds" : autobiography, photography, and memory in Nina Bunjevac's "August, 1977" and fatherland / Mihaela Precup

Alternative paradoxes in heartless : the bound and transcultural catwoman in Nina Bunjevac's "Bitter Tears of Zorka Petrovic" / Laura A. Pearson

The postcolonial enterprise of trillium : maps, language, histories, and multilateral consciousness / Joan Ormrod

Making space for making spce : Jeff Lemire's Essex County and the Canadian alternative / Jocelyn Sakal Froese.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Canadian alternative.

ISBN:

9781496815118

1496815114

OCLC:

983679020

Publisher Number:

99979172986