Louis Riel & Gabriel Dumont

by Joseph Boyden

There is a lot to like about John Raulston Saul's Extraordinary Canadians series, which consists of short biographies of important Canadians, written by novelists instead of academics.  When the series began, the one that I was most interested in reading was the co-biography of Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, the two Métis leaders who led a rebellion against the Canadian government in 1885.

Boyden manages, in a scant 180 pages, to distill the story of Métis mistreatment at the hands of the Canadian government, and the roles played by these two very different leaders, into a quick moving and fascinating portrait of resistance and strength in the face of an overwhelming tide of political will and demographic force.  Boyden juggles the narrative between the two leaders, highlighting their strengths and shortcomings, while still providing enough background for the motives and actions of the Canadian government, embodied in John A. MacDonald, to come across clearly, if unjustifiably, based on the standards of today.

Reading this, it seems that Boyden has more faith in the ability of Dumont, the last leader of the buffalo hunt, to organize his people and hold off the Canadian forces during the Northwest Rebellion.  Had Dumont led things, Boyden is saying, instead of deferring to Riel's will, things would have ended very differently for the Métis.

Boyden does not shy away from the question of Riel's mental state while running the Exovedate, the provisional government he established in Batoche.  Riel believed himself the Prophet of the New World, and acted accordingly, counting on negotiation with the government over the showing of force through violence.

Riel was a complicated man, while Dumont was not.  Both are heroes to their people, and should be held up as heroes to all of Canada.  They saw that the country's future lay in a pluralistic society, and not in the hands of Orange Order Ontario Protestants.  It is good to see that they are finally, over the last twenty years or so, receiving the recognition they deserve.  It has been 126 years since Riel was executed (as of this coming Wednesday), and nice to see that he is finally being recognized as one of the founders of this great country.

Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography

by Chester Brown

I have wanted to read Chester Brown`s historic comic again almost since I finished reading it in its serialized form, and am pleased that I did.  Riel has long been a figure of interest for me, and I wanted to revisit my memories of this series, and see what insights it may provide into such a controversial Canadian figure.

Louis Riel was the leader of Canada`s Métis people through two uprisings, the Red River Rebellion of 1869, and the Northwest Rebellion of 1885.  The Métis were a mixed-race people, representing a blend of Aboriginal, French, and English and Scottish cultures.  In the 1860s, as the government of Canada prepared to purchase Rupert`s Land (a massive territory that made up the bulk of Canada`s modern-day area) from the Hudson`s Bay Company, the Métis became concerned for their land and their rights to continue living on it.  They took up arms, and were successful in having their rights recognized in the Manitoba Act (not that all of those rights were later honoured).  Riel, though successful, fled arrest and spent many years living in the United States.

Later, as Canadian settlers continued to push westward, towards the Saskatchewan River, the Métis who had moved west ahead of them found themselves in a similar position as before, and Riel was summoned to lead them once again.  The thing is, during those intervening years, Riel kind of lost his mind.  He believed he was the chosen of God, and claimed to receive messages and visions telling him how to proceed (at one point, he believed that Batoche Saskatchewan should become the centre of the Roman Catholic faith).  This rebellion did not go so well, and Riel was captured, tried, and later hung.

Riel has remained a controversial figure in Canadian history.  To the Métis, Aboriginal groups, and many more, he was a Father of Confederation who worked to secure the rights and freedoms of his people.  To many others, he was a traitor who got what he deserved.  Brown, in creating this biography, avoids choosing a side, and prefers to stick as close as he can to the historical record (he provides detailed footnotes explaining the places where he has taken artistic license, or examining areas where historians disagree).  What we have then is a pretty accurate accounting of what happened, with the mistakes and ambitions of many of the principal players revealed.

To a history geek like myself, there is nothing cooler than a comic like this (the actual trial transcript - in comic book form!).  Brown has done a fantastic job of researching the events, and making them into a compelling and fascinating read.  His simple yet detailed drawings, and strict adherence to a six-panel grid, work well here in creating a comic that feels like a historical document.  I wish there were more comics works with this level of historical accuracy, commentary, and scholarship.

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #13

Edited by Chris Ware

This is the comics issue of McSweeney's, which received a fair amount of attention when it was published in 2004 for showcasing a lot of up-and-coming talent in the arts comics field.  It contains a wide range of short comics and excerpts from longer pieces, as well as a few essays or memoirs about comic books, their history, or their influences on other artists or writers.

The biggest problem with reading this book for the first time six years after it was published is that I've read a lot of the material in here in its complete, finalized form.  This is not really a problem, as I am very happy to return to some of the works here, but it did limit the novelty of reading such a well-produced and designed hardcover with some of my favorite 'independent' artists contained in it.

Ware and company have assembled a very interesting collection, with contributions from people like Adrian Tomine (Shortcomings), Joe Sacco (The Fixer),Charles Burns (Black Hole), Art Spiegelman (In the Shadow of No Towers), Chris Ware, and Los Bros. Hernandez.  There were also plenty of lesser-known cartoonists included, some of whose work I found irritating, while others were quite enjoyable.

Strangely, there was a very visible Canadian delegation to this collection, with and excerpt from Joe Matt's Spent, David Collier's strips about moving to Hamilton, and a long excerpt from Chester Brown's classic Louis Riel, detailing the death of Orangeman and agitator Thomas Scott, a pivotal moment in Riel's story, and a great example of the genius of that book.

Some of the pieces that were new and interesting to me were Ben Katchor's Hotel and Farm strips, one-pagers that dealt with those two topics; David Heatley's Portrait of my Father; and Kim Deitch's Ready to Die, about a man on Death Row.  I also really enjoyed Chip Kidd's memoir on friendships and Batman merchandise.

Of course, as with any anthology like this, there were plenty of things that I either had no interest in, or just flat-out hated (I'm looking at you Kaz), but overall, this was a very worthy purchase.