Rapport du Livre ce Samedi

I can't attend a convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists without coming home with at least one book to report on here, so today's Graphical History Tour is devoted to Sketches from an Unquiet Country: Canadian Graphic Satire 1840-1940, edited by Dominic Hardy, Annie Gérin, and Lora Senechal Carney. 

It's a dense tome; a reader must occasionally cut one's way through scholarly language such as “critical tradition that bifurcates aesthetic forms” and “historiographic metafiction.” The collected essays deal with the century between the failed rebellions of the late 1830's and the start of World War II. All of them address the nature of satire itself; some of them emphasize historical events, and others societal mores. Artistic styles also come in for assessment.

Nancy Perron displaying the work of Albéric Bourgeois at ACC-AAEC Convention

Some of the content was covered during presentations to the ACC and AAEC members at the Musée McCord-Stewart earlier this month.

One of them, as I mentioned in this blog, was Christian Vachon's essay arguing that the character of Uncle Sam as we know him today originated in Canada.

"Uncle Sam Kicked Out" by John Henry Walker in Grinchuckle, Montréal, Sept. 23, 1869

The idea of Uncle Sam existed earlier than this John Henry Walker cartoon, but Walker dressed him in striped breeches and a star-spangled coat weeks before Thomas Nast's first did the same. In earlier cartoons, there is little to distinguish Uncle Sam from his predecessor, Brother Jonathan, a wise-cracking Everyman appearing in cartoons from the earliest days of nationhood.

To bolster the case of Nast getting his inspiration for Uncle Sam from Walker, Vachon cites examples that Nast also borrowed Uncle Sam's Canadian counterpart, Johnny Canuck, from Walker's cartoons. Uncle Sam, however, has survived Johnny Canuck, as a cartoon stock character. (Johnny Canuck's revival during World War II as an action comic hero and again as the mascot of Vancouver's professional hockey team is outside the purview of this book, but it does include some examples of 21st-Century Canadian politicians cast as Canuck in editorial cartoons.)

Another essay follows the development of Miss Canada, a daughter of Britannia and sister of Columbia. All three are based on Greek goddesses; only one of them was typically accompanied by a beaver. Nowadays, all three are attic has-beens, and only the beaver survives in cartoons.

Cartoons of Arthur G. Racey, whom we featured here two weeks ago, appear with Jalene Grove's essay on "The Pretty Girl," chronicling Canadian artists' resentment of U.S. ideas of what constitutes female beauty.

Selections from "The American Girl" by A.G. Racey in The Moon, Montréal, 1902

 I've edited out some of the racist examples that accompanied Racey's satires above of U.S. cover girls (offensive cartoons are not limited to the chapter on anti-Semitism). The essay charts the progression from turn-of-the-century grotesque caricature to later cartoonists whose sly, wink-and-a-nod parodies may require a second glance nowadays to catch their satirical aspects.

It is unfortunate that the chapter on women's suffrage in cartoons does not include any cartoons arguing in its favor. Perhaps Pierre Chemartin and Louis Pelletier couldn't find any (U.S. cartoonists were certainly slow to come around to the idea). 

"Ulysse and the Sirens" by Henry Mayerovich in New Frontier, Montréal, Sept. 1936

The unfeminine harridans of women's suffrage are followed by a chapter showcasing the anti-Semitic, pro-fascist cartoons of Le Goglu (The Bobolink). Le Goglu's editor is at center in the above cartoon from the next chapter, about the anti-fascist press in Canada. Those two essays really have to be read as a pair.

Most of the essays are translated into English from their original French. The cartoons include the work of both Anglophone and Francophone authors; translations are offered for many but not all of the latter. One of the exceptions, "Les Pouilleux de Québec: Skidou!" is excerpted on the book's cover. It's a parody in Le Goglu of someone else's cartoon about hobos; I would translate the title as "The Lousy Ones of Quebec: Skidoo!"

The text gives an English translation of the seemingly innocuous poem accompanying the first panel of the cartoon, showing a woodsman settler in colonial times. The three other quatrains are given only in French. The book's cover illustration comes from the fourth panel, the poem for which proposes kicking all the Jews out of Canada to Palestine, the land of flying lice ("le pays de poux-volants"). 

The penultimate essay, on Albéric Bourgeois and his alter ego, Baptiste Ladébauche, by Laurier LaCroix serves as a welcome palette cleanser after the bitter and salty fare from the fascists and socialists.

In the end, I can't fault the scholarship in this book in any way. There are a few passages where cartoons are cited in the text without including them in the text, which is regrettable; although I understand perfectly well that some of them may not have been available, at least in the high-resolution quality of the cartoons that are included. The cartoons printed in color in the middle of the book, while limited, come as a pleasant surprise.

The U.S. educational system barely acknowledges the existence of our neighbor to the north, so much of the history here is bound to be new to us readers "from across the line." If you're interested in appreciating more about Canada than its back bacon and poutine, this book is a fine place to start.