The importance of truth
It was in 1992 that Gord Hill, member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation, artist, author and activist involved in the indigenous and anti-globalization movements, published for the first time, in the form of an essay, his text 500 years of indigenous resistance. Since then, the book has become a comic strip, originally published in 2010 before being completely redesigned for this edition, with redone drawings and colors. In this work, the Vancouver-based artist does an exceptional job of decolonizing history by presenting, from the perspective of Indigenous nations, the various and numerous struggles that opposed them to the settlers who came to settle on their territories, from Christopher Columbus, in 1492, to today. This album, extremely rich in historical details, has the effect of a punch in the face and represents, in our opinion, a necessary counterweight to what could be described as official history. We are dealing here with an important work.
Francois Lemay
500 years of indigenous resistance
★★★★
Gord Hill, translated by Marie C. Scholl-Dimanche, Speaking, Sudbury, 2023, 133 pages
Welcome to Sorel-sur-Poussière
Not busy enough with the 2024 film adaptation of his album Vile and miserable (Pow Pow, 2013) and that at Duceppe scheduled for November Whitehorse (Pow Pow, 2015 and 2017), here is Samuel Cantin offering us a crazy, funny western, with an offbeat childish spirit as he has the secret. With “There is something dusty in Sorel-sur-Poussière», the first volume of his series Junior Sheriff , Cantin gives us a completely delightful reinterpretation of the codes of the western, with this character of Sheriff, aged 11, who must ensure the proper functioning of his hamlet struggling with an evil sibling, who manages to beguile the population with a mysterious dust whose virtues are reminiscent of those of cocaine. A nervous drawing comes to support the childish side of the approach, but it is especially the text that we retain, with its rhythmic dialogues and its references which, sometimes, strike us with a few seconds delay. For our great pleasure!
Francois Lemay
There is something dusty in Sorel-sur-Poussière, Sheriff Junior volume 1
★★★1/2
Samuel Cantin, Pow Pow, Montreal, 2023, 450 pages
Crows far from being stupid
This true story with a poetic title depicts the deep relationship between the shy Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart and the crows of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Since meeting a biologist from the Natural History Museum responsible for monitoring corvids, the teenager has been passionate about these birds, discovering their extraordinary intelligence and incredible adaptability. We thus learn that they are bigamists, practice the “song of the dead” and can make tools! Journalist Geoffrey Le Guilcher and designer Camille Royer deliver a graphic novel in the form of an urban investigation “on the hidden world of these black birds” through the eyes of an “asocial geek”. However, by rubbing shoulders with crows, the amateur ornithologist befriends several feathered specimens, including Bob and Alice, who form an amazing couple. More than an educational story about birds, the authors offer a magnificent initiatory story filled with tenderness and sensitivity.
Ismael Houdassine
The crow woman
★★★1/2
Geoffrey Le Guilcher and Camille Royer, Futuropolis, Paris, 2023, 160 pages
A classic that dazzles
Curiously, the monumental Gone with the windhad never known a comic book version. More than 80 years later, Pierre Alary arrives with a personal and modern first volume. The French cartoonist tackles with a certain courage this classic of American literature by Margaret Mitchell, published in 1936 and magnified in 1939 at the cinema by Victor Fleming. Ignoring the controversies surrounding the content deemed racist of the original novel, it focuses on Scarlett O’Hara, a young bourgeois southerner selfish and frivolous, secretly in love with a man promised to another woman. As the Civil War rages, the heroine, who has a love-hate relationship with the cynical Rhett Butler, reveals a completely different character over the dangers and betrayals. The precise drawings, the fiery hues and the dialogues cut with a scalpel not only restore the grandeur of this romantic fresco, they also breathe a dose of humanity into all the characters.
Ismael Houssadine
Gone With the Wind, Volume 1
★★★
Pierre Alary, Rue de Sèvres, Paris, 2023, 150 pages