Yes, of course, we constantly hear about the rivalry between the Canadiens and the Nordiques. But what about the one that tore apart the world of Quebec rock in the early 1980s? A war that pitted a gang of bums with long hair dreaming of conquering the States with their blues rock, often sung in joual, sometimes in English, to a group born from the left buttock of the first, carried by the ambition to make rock in Quebec, in French, without compromise. This rivalry, between the Offenbach of Gerry Boulet and the Corbeau of Pierre Harel and Marjo, is the subject of this album entitled Quebec rock. Offenbach vs Corbeaua comic strip by Michel Giguère, Christian Quesnel and Félix Rose that allows us to better understand a portion of our musical history. The one that begins at the end of the 1960s, when rock made in Quebec was synonymous with lots of beer and drugs, yes, but also with encounters between raw and rare talents.
Argument!
It all started with a TV documentary, presented on the Vrai platform, last spring. Divided into four episodes, Quebec rock. Offenbach vs Corbeaudirected by documentary filmmaker Félix Rose (The Roses, The last FLQ member), was born from a somewhat fortuitous meeting between Rose and Pierre Harel, who was part of Offenbach in addition to having been a founding member of Corbeau. This meeting made the director want to delve into the history of these two inseparable groups, formed largely of working-class musicians from working-class backgrounds, some of whom saw their lives ravaged by the unsustainable pace of life at that time.
It was during the process of making this documentary series that the director developed the idea of reconstructing what was not available in archive images by calling on the cartoonist and comic book author Christian Quesnel, whose work he had appreciated in an album dedicated to René Lévesque. This means that Quesnel’s choice was obvious even before he published his colossal album on the life of Dédé Fortin. As such, nothing happens for nothing.
From documentary to comics
It was once the illustrations for the documentary were done that Christian Quesnel sensed that there was an album to be made. Michel Giguère, a comic strip specialist, was called in to join the project with the task of creating a stand-alone album that held its own and didn’t just serve as a complement to the series.
Does it work? Totally. Giguère manages to adapt rich content to transform it into a screenplay that, in less than 150 pages, covers the history of two of the most important rock groups in Quebec history, a story that extends from the early 1960s to the gates of the 1990s, without giving us the impression that we’re missing any bits. It’s, of course, less complete than in the documentary series, but we still learn enough based on what has been preserved.
Like little works of art
And since the whole thing is magnificently drawn by Christian Quesnel, we have the impression of having before our eyes a succession of small paintings depicting a portion of the history of rock here. Marjo looks like the fragile panther that she is. There is also this drawing by Plume or this close-up of a tearful Diane Dufresne, which cannot prevent us from thinking that other greats of our musical history could, and should, undergo the same treatment.
In the end, we find ourselves with much more in our hands than a simple derivative product of a documentary series, done in a hurry. We are rather dealing with an important and, above all, poetic document that allows us to better understand and feel an era, through this rivalry that did not culminate in a great general battle, a certain Good Friday, but which will have still made its share of wounded and flayed. And which will have left us some of the greatest songs of our repertoire.