POP-CULTURE COLUMN: Oh, Canada!
By Dan Brown I love Canada. A lot. There are, of course, things I would change about our homeland if I was in charge. I’m guessing you feel the same way. For instance, I wish we flew the maple leaf all year around, not just on our national birthday which I like to call by its old name, Dominion Day – see, I told you there are things that bug me! I wish Canadians weren’t so hesitant to celebrate our shared national culture. I wish we did more to promote our values around the world. Canadian values are good values, and we shouldn’t be ashamed about trumpeting what we believe in to the rest of humankind. I’ve even heard some people are ashamed to make patriotic gestures like flying the flag, even on July 1. I started noticing this a few years ago. People would say to me, “________has co-opted the flag,” meaning a group or movement or organization or political party or individual they didn’t agree with. So these people won’t display the maple leaf because they see it being flown on pickup trucks. And other people won’t display it because they see flags in parades with the red parts replaced with a rainbow. I’m here to remind you it belongs to all Canadians. That means the folks on the right, folks on the left, and those of us who don’t identify with either of those positions. If you think the red-and-white has been taken from you, and you want a way to fight back, the way to do that most effectively is to hoist the flag yourself. Fly one on the front door of your house. Put it on your car. Get a maple-leaf T-shirt. Strap a miniature version on your dog. Trust me. You can’t offend me because I will never tire of seeing it. This column is scheduled to be posted the day after Canada Day, but I would love if we could make a national habit of displaying the flag proudly all year long. Don’t take your Canadian flag down when this column goes up. Oh, and let me know how you spent your Canada Day in the comments. Also, let us know what aspect of Canada you love the most. Is it the landscape? The Rockies? Cottage country? The people? Your neighbours? Our amazing writers and other artists? Canada’s talented athletes? Maybe it’s hockey, or poutine? Is it Wolverine? RUSH? Something else? As I write this sentence, the hottest musical act on the planet right now, Quebec’s Angine de Poitrine, is playing on YouTube. The duo are from Saguenay, Quebec (or possibly another planet), but to me they represent the kind of culture and daring attitude that could have only happened in this country. They’re kind of like the Cirque du Soleil of rock music. Purely Canadian. They are just the latest example of our nation’s creativity and excellence. We are a young dominion, bursting with natural resources, that is home to a resilient, forward-thinking people. If we play our cards right, the future will belong to us. All the best to you, my fellow Canadians! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
Take A Graphic Trip Across Canada
By Dan Brown In honour of our national holiday, and as a way to protest the tariffs from our southern neighbours, many Canadians are travelling in their own backyard this summer. But what if you aren’t in a position to make the trek? Then take a trip across Canada – in graphic-novel form. That’s right, you can go from coast to coast to coast by reading the work produced by our dominion’s many talented comic creators. So here are suggestions for how to acquaint yourself with the regions of this great nation by looking through the comics set in those places. The East Coast: No trip to the Maritimes would be complete without a shipwreck, so let’s start our journey with Call Me Bill by London graphic novelist Lynette Richards. It’s a mystery, it’s an adventure story, it’s a reclaiming of an LGBTQ figure from the past – and it all begins with a maritime disaster off Nova Scotia, where Beal Art grad Richards lives in Terence Bay. I also recommend D.Boyd’s Denniveniquity and Chicken Rising, which cover Boyd’s formative years in Saint John, which is the city in New Brunswick – the one in Newfoundland and Labrador is St. John’s. Got it? La Belle Province: My first suggestion is Michel Rabagliati’s Paul Up North, part of which takes place during a snowstorm in Laurentian cottage country. And of course, the title character didn’t wear his winter jacket: There is no more Canadian predicament than that! As for the Montreal portion of our cross-Canada tour, I’m proposing Are You Willing to Die For the Cause?, which recounts the early years of the FLQ’s reign of error (the would-be liberators targeted Canada Post mailboxes with their homemade bombs). It was drawn and written by publishing house Drawn & Quarterly founder Chris Oliveros. Ontario outside Toronto: First stop, Jeff Lemire’s Essex County, which lovingly recreates the evocative landscape and taciturn people of Southwestern Ontario. Also recommended is Walter Scott’s Wendy, Master of Art, which is set in Hell, a small Ontario city that has an awful lot in common with Guelph. Toronto: Yes, I agree with you, there are way too many graphic novels set in Canada’s largest city. So instead of inundating you with a long list of options, I urge you to hunt down Matthew Blackett’s Wide Collar Crimes, a collection of comic strips that were published in Eye Weekly in the early 2000s. No other comic evokes the absurdities of life in Toronto like Blackett’s work does. The Prairies: So there’s Shelterbelts, set in a rural Mennonite community in Manitoba, as well as Chester Brown’s Louis Riel, which likewise attempts to capture the vastness of the landscape. I know this might be a stretch, but for Saskatchewan I recommend any Superboy adventure pencilled by artist Tom Grummet in the 1990s – in an interview at that time, he told me the wheat fields he drew near Smallville were patterned after the farms outside the window of his Saskatchewan home. Alberta: Since the tar sands are so important to Canada’s economy, you will want to check out Ducks, Kate Beaton’s account of her two years working in Northern Alberta’s oil patch. This story is not for the faint of heart, so definitely not suitable for young readers. British Columbia: Worth hunting down is the New Yorker’s cartoon edition from Dec. 28, 2020. That issue features the short graphic story Junban from Jillian Tamaki, and is adapted from her grandfather’s notes. The six-page reminiscence covers the same themes as George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy, and achingly calls to mind the Fraser River of the past. The North: Finally, we come to the land of the ice and snow! You may have an easier time getting a hold of Scott Chantler’s Northwest Passage – set in Rupert’s Land – than the anthology of Nelvana of the Northern Lights stories put out by Hope Richardson and Rachel Richey in 2014, but it’s worth it. Taken together, these two selections offer bookends of Canadian comic-book culture, starting in the Second World War with the Canadian whites and moving up to the current day with talents such as Chantler. Yes, this list is incomplete! That’s by necessity. That’s also why I’m looking for suggestions from readers like you in the comment box below. What books would you add to the list? Let’s hear them, as well as a brief description of the parts of this country they represent. And happy Canada Day! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
