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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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Louis Riel I started reading Louis Riel back in 1999 when Chester
Brown aborted his Underwater project and started publishing
this comic in pamphlets. With one or two issues coming a year, I
never went back to reread each time and, as a result, not really
following the story, I stopped buying it before it got to the end. I
finally bought the collected edition a few months ago and then it sat
on my shelf. Last week, I started reading a collection of Harold
Gray's Little Orphan Annie strips (more on that, as I'm still
reading it). It is a large hardcover volume that's not good train
reading, so for a train ride this week I finally picked Louis
Riel off the shelf. It occurred to me that Brown's art in the
book is quite reminiscent of Gray's, and there in the introduction
Brown states it explicitly. Good timing on my part I guess. Louis Riel is subtitled "a comic-strip biography." It is a
circumscribed biography that focuses on Riel and his conflict with
the Canadian government in regards to the half-Indian(Métis)/
French speaking population of the Red River Settlement, later named
Winnipeg. The book covers the years from 1869, when the settlement
was sold to the Canadian government, as part of a larger packet owned
by the Hudson Bay Company, to 1885, when Riel died. Basically, Riel
was a leader and rallying figure for the Metis/French as they
struggled to maintain their land and gain representation in the
government. Although it's subtitled a "biography," I don't feel I learned a
whole about Riel as a person. We see him acting and talking, but
there is little depth. As the story goes on he gains some
idiosyncratic religious views and perhaps goes mad. Considering
Brown's expressed interest (in interviews) in Riel's religious views
and psychology, I don't think Brown expanded on this part of Riel's
life enough. One of the failings of the narrative is that I never got
a real sense of why Riel was such a rallying figure. His charisma
(which surely he must have had to instill such respect) is never made
clear. In the latter part of the book his religious views had a
detrimental effect on the Métis' struggle, yet the men
listened to him. It is easy, though, to see where he was pressed for space to
include such a complicated story. The political/historical side of
the story is well explained and clearly told, yet the biographical/
personal aspects of Riel's life are glossed over. As a historical
narrative about the struggle for political representation and
autonomy the story is both educational and entertaining. To this
reader, it seems that Brown was really more interested in the
political aspect of the story than the life of Riel himself. If you've seen Harold Gray's work, Brown's style will look
familiar. Characters have empty oval eyes, pronounced noses, large
bodies, almost nonexistant necks, simplified clothes (a wrinkle at
the elbow, a wrinkle at the knee). Backgrounds are iconic, simply
drawn but detailed enough that everything is identifiable. Brown uses
hatching for shading, though not excessively or in great variation.
The simple, almost invariable linework and the fine hatching allow
Brown to fit a lot into a panel when he needs to. The artwork is
amazing. It's a testament to the fine beauty of Brown's drawing that
I want to see them at a larger size. As they are now, I always felt
like I had to look close to really see the art. Brown sticks strictly to a six panel page. This gives the book a
steady rhythm. No single panel is more important than the one before
or after it. Though, like all history, it is the events that are put
in and those that are left out that determine importance and weight.
No event carries more visual weight than any other except in a very
few occasions where Brown radically changes what is inside the panel.
In one instance, an all white panel is used during the moment of a
firing squad. Conversely, two all black panels are used during Riel's
trial (when the jury deliberates). At one revelatory point for the
Canadian Prime Minister, Brown strips down the art even more than
usual, eschewing all hatching and line weight to create a stark,
bright drawing of the man sitting in his chair. Time passes indentically for the reader with each transition. A
panel transition may take the reader across the slightest moment in
time or it may take the reader across a year. Brown uses narrative
boxes to place the panel in time or place. If one doesn't pay close
attention to the dates, the passing of time can become confused, more
compressed than it is. The moment to moment panel transitions are one of the most
interesting aspects to me. Brown frequently repeats panels or only
slightly changes the drawing from one panel to the next. This is an
exaggeration of Gray's style--he would often change the point of view
of distance from the characters. Brown will often, for example, have
two characters talking, showing them in profile, always heads and
torsoes (never just "talking heads"). Over the course of the
sequence, the point of view and distance remains the same, and the
characters will only alter in slight ways: the opening of a mouth,
the movement of a hand, the turning of a head. Even in sequences with
more characters, there will be only slight movement (a background
character turns to look at a different speaker). This slight variation in time and movement is also put to great
use in the "action" scenes, such as this one during a battle between
the Métis and the Mounties. The lack of any variation in the panels helps to add weight to
moments that otherwise would pass by in the unrelenting flow of the
panels. The repeated panel serves some of the same function as a
large panel would in a variably layed out comic. The repetition slows
down time during the execution of the Englishman, Scott. The compositions often have a distance to them. Everything is
viewed from outside, which makes this story much less personal than
Brown's previous works and more reportage, not unexpected in a
historical comic. He makes much use of an aerial view of characters
in a landscape, particularly during the battle scenes or to show
travel. The scenes that take place in the snow have a beautiful white
simplicity to them with a minimal of elements in the panel (a
character on horseback, a few sticktrees, a thin horizon line). The
compositions, particularly when showing conversation or small scale
interaction, have a theatre set-piece look to them: profiled
characters directly in front of an abstract background or a room with
minimal furnishing (a table or a bed). As of this writing, Louis Riel, regardless of my feelings
on its biographical aspect, is Chester Brown's best work. If anyone
out there was reluctant to pick this up because of its non-fictive
nature, I highly recommend you give it a try. This is an
entertaining, engrossing, and beautiful comic. I'm ever more excited
to find out what Brown will be doing next.
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