Call me impressed by Call Me Bill
By Dan BrownCall Me Bill is an intriguing graphic novel that provides one possible answer to a question posed long ago: Why would a young woman who drowned in a maritime disaster off Canada’s East Coast in 1873 be dressed up as a male sailor when her remains were recovered?It’s former Londoner and current Nova Scotia resident Lynette Richards who supplies that answer, sketching a history – bolstered by newspaper accounts from back in the day – of the S.S. Atlantic crew member who went by the name of Bill.This book transported me back to the 1870s, with its sparse lines, washed-out grey tones and accurate, period-specific dialogue.“I didn’t know Bill was a woman,” a fellow sailor tells newspaper reporters after the ship hits rocks and sinks close to shore. “He used to take his grog like all the rest and was always begging and stealing licorice. He was a good fellow and I’m shocked that he was a woman.”As a starting point, Richards – whose usual medium is stained glass – imagines a New Jersey farm girl named Maggie Armstrong whose time “playing the tomboy” is put to an end by a stern stepmother who demands she must finally “dress and behave like a lady.”Having left home, and after a series of high-seas adventures, Bill has the bad fortune to be on the deck of the Atlantic the night it sinks. The sinking was huge news at the time, but got overshadowed in the history books by the Titanic, which went down a few decades later. (Oh, and for the record, Call Me Bill would make an AMAZING movie.)How evocative is Call Me Bill? In one panel, which sets forth part of a trip Bill took to England prior to joining the crew of the Atlantic, two starving rats have the most pained looks on their faces, as vivid a portrayal of animal suffering as I’ve ever come across. Richards has an impressive ability to evoke sympathy for her characters.That kind of symbolism runs through the whole book, as when another sailor explains to Bill how seals called selkies are believed by mariners to be able to come ashore, assuming the form of humans females on dry land. “The seals gaze at me as if they know my deepest secrets,” Bill thinks, seeing their sad eyes.And early in the story, there is a moment of reflection on a trestle bridge after Bill runs away from home: “Behind me was my past, ahead my future. The river babbled like many voices.” Bill plunges ahead into an uncertain future, not knowing that doom awaits on the other side.Although it is published by Emanata, the young-adult imprint of East Coast publisher Conundrum Press, Richards never talks down to her readers in Call Me Bill.And as a stirring chapter in our country’s history of maritime disasters, I put Call Me Bill right up there with the Gordon Lightfoot song Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. It moved me that much.Dan Brown has covered pop culture for 30 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Veteran Reviewer and Unabashed Comics Lover Comes to L.A. Mood Comics & Games Website
By Dan Brown. You can call them cartoons or sequential art or graphic novels or comic books. Whatever term you prefer, I love ’em all. And I’ll be sharing my enthusiasm for this special art form on the website of L.A. Mood Comics & Games, the venerable London store that serves as the unofficial headquarters for London comic fans, every week via this column. I invite you to consider it your once-a-week chance to geek out with me. How did I get this assignment? As the tagline at the bottom of this column indicates, I’ve been covering pop culture as a journalist for the last 30 years. I’ve had staff positions at such news outlets as the National Post, CBC.ca, and the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. My freelance work has appeared in places like the Globe and Mail and on MSNBC.com. From 2012 to 2022 I wrote a graphic-novel column every Saturday as part of my work at the London Free Press, where I had also been a blogger, among many other duties. I have also, since 2009, been the moderator for L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel club. (Shameless plug: You should check it out.) But, most important of all, I’m a card-carrying comic lover. My starting point is the Marvel Comics of the 1970s and as far as superheroes go, my fave is likely the Thing, the self-loathing, orange-coloured pile of rocks who served as the ace pilot for the Fantastic Four. I would say I have a major in Marvel and a minor in DC. Even now, DC’s heroes still strike me as emotionally constipated; I was a sucker for the overemotional heroes Jack Kirby dreamed up in collaboration with Stan Lee. By the time I was a university student in the mid 1980s, the comics world had exploded. In fact, I’m so old, I remember when the idea of comics being used to tell stories with characters other than superheroes was a revolutionary one. I would love to go back in time to when I was nine years old and tell my younger self: One day, all those comics you love will be source material for movies and TV shows. There will be so many of them, you won’t have time to watch them all. So what excites me now? The work of Southwestern Ontario’s own Jeff Lemire. The parody stylings of Bob Burden, the mad genius behind Flaming Carrot. Mimi Pond. Lynda Barry. Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. And on and on . . . This column will aspire to cover local comics first, meaning those with a connection to Southwestern Ontario and London. Then the rest of Canada. Then the world beyond. Some future columns will be straightforward reviews, others will touch on issues raised by comics. And I am guessing superhero film/TV adaptations will be an unavoidable topic. I would also love to hear from you and get a dialogue going about the comics scene here in the Forest City. One promising sign we have put the pandemic behind us was the reappearance in April of Tingfest, the downtown graphic-art festival that celebrates local creators, so I am hoping the geek calendar of events can finally resume in earnest. (Shameless plug: Have you got your tickets for Forest City Comicon on June 24?) I also want to know what comics and characters are rocking your world. You can send me an email in care of info@lamoodcomics.ca. Let’s get this party started! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for 30 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
