The Journal of the Main Street Secret Lodge Vol. 2

by Steven Gilbert

I read the first Journal of the Main Street Secret Lodge about three years ago, and enjoyed it, so was happy to pick up Steven Gilbert's return to this title when I saw it at TCAF this year.  Like the first book, it depicts the town of Newmarket Ontario at the end of the nineteenth century, and involves a group of American robbers looking to take advantage of the small town.

They have heard that there is no real police presence in the town, and a lot of money, but they are not aware of the fact that the retired Captain Woodrow looks after things.  Once they arrive, and burn down the town's main hotel, the Captain goes after them, Rambo style.

Gilbert is a gifted artist, who takes a languorous amount of time getting to his actual story.  Along the way, we get a highly repetitive newspaper column on the methods employed by pickpockets, we see some kid take a voyage on a boat along the Mississippi, and learn about how the land that became Newmarket was taken by force from some Haudenosaunee.  None of these things are essential to the story, but I guess they provide atmosphere, as do the pages and pages of establishing shots that show up throughout the book.

Now, I like those establishing shots a lot, as I feel that Gilbert is at his strongest when depicting such scenes.

This is a good book, but a very unfocused one.  I would still return to the Main Street Secret Lodge (whatever that might actually be) for a third volume some day.

Colville

by Steven Gilbert

Colville is a surprisingly dark graphic novel by local cartoonist Steven Gilbert.  It's set in a fictional bedroom community where kids get themselves into trouble early, and chafe at their mundane surroundings.

David is a kid in his last year of high school, who already has a criminal record for some breaking and entering.  He's basically become persona non grata in his school and community, except in the eyes of his girlfriend Tracy, who he's a little dismissive of.  Van, the guy that got him in trouble in the first place, wants his help for a theft, and although David is reluctant, the thought of a thousand dollars (in early 1990s money) is too tempting.

The job?  Stealing a BMX bike from the son of a local drug dealer with biker affiliations.  David doesn't really know how this is going to turn out, but can't help fighting the bad feeling he has and going ahead with it anyway.

Oh, and famous serial killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka are running around in this community doing their thing - kidnapping and drugging teens.  That was the part that kind of threw me, as they represent a level of evil I didn't expect to come across here.

Gilbert lets the story play out in a manner that has it circling back on itself in a few places, revealing more information about the characters as it goes.  It's an interesting book, and I especially enjoy the large establishing shots that show us what the town looks like and provides a lot of atmosphere to the book.

I picked up the rest of Gilbert's work at TCAF this year, and am looking forward to reading it even more now.

The Journal of the Main Street Secret Lodge

by Steven Gilbert

I'm always on the lookout for interesting historical comics and graphic novels, and when I saw this show up at the store where I shop, I was intrigued.  The book, by Steven Gilbert, who apparently built a bit of a name for himself in the Canadian independent comics scene in the 90s, is set in the town of Newmarket (now basically just a suburb of Toronto) at the end of the 19th century.

The title is a little bit misleading, as there is no Main Street Secret Lodge in evidence, but we are given an interesting look into a place at a time where society was going through rapid change.  At the centre of this book is a story called 'Cold Cold Ground', which follows a pair of bank robbers, a man and a woman, who have come up from the States.  They attack a Northern Outpost, drawing away Captain Gilbert (presumably an ancestor of the author), so that they can rob a bank on Main Street.  That robbery doesn't go well, and there is a fair amount of bloodshed.  As the robbers flee, things get even worse for a small family we are introduced to earlier.

This story is bookended by some random information on crime in that time (there is a lengthy essay on how people used to rob hotels), and portraits of 'billiards' girls in the nude.  In the middle of the story are a couple of pages about the growth of the railroad, and throughout the book are large pictures of scenery and establishing shots.

Gilbert is a strong cartoonist with a deep love of cross-hatching, and the place he is portraying.  His publisher, from what I can tell, is a comics store in Newmarket, and it's clear that this unconventional book is a passion project.  I enjoyed it, and would gladly return to the journals of the Main Street Secret Lodge, if given another opportunity.