By Cristian Soler
The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonist
Seth
Drawn & Quarterly
Montreal, 2011
133 pages
In The G.N.B.C.C, an anonymous narrator, who by
his figure and looks seems to be an alter ego of Seth himself, journey through
a huge construction, built in 1935 and that is located in Milverton Street.
This building is the headquarter of The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian
Cartoonist, of which the narrator is a member; Thus, this story is an
invitation to know each corner of this building and see all the treasures that
are found in it while at the same time one discovers the history of Canadian
cartoons.
The
building in which this brotherhood functions has, therefore, several spaces,
each one with their own stories and which are also told with the help of the
narrator. In this way the reader gets to know the entrance and the figures of
several cartoon characters engraved in it, the lobby, decorated with an art
deco lamp and with large murals designed by some old members of the
brotherhood; he also gets to know dance rooms and the bars, which held crowded
meetings and several parties, he visits the galleries with the portraits of the
Canadian cartoonists that were part of this club and enters to the rooms that
the brotherhood had so that the cartoonists could live and work in their
stories. But, above all, the reader gets to know the cartoon characters, the
ones that give a sense and a reason of being to this brotherhood and to the
authors.
But
how it is possible for such an institution to exist? As the narrators explain,
Canada was the only country that at the beginning of the twentieth century had
a cultural politic of supporting and promoting cartoons and the people that was
involved in their production. In fact, the headquarter of the Brotherhood of
Canadian Cartoonists that the narrator is touring in Dominion is only one of
other three, which are located in Winnipeg, Montreal and Toronto. Also, for the
sake of preserving the history of cartoons, a kind of Fortress of solitude was
built (cf. Superman), an archive with a comprehensive material of the history
of Canadian comics in a building inspired by the igloos and which is located in
a remote and cold place. And was the support of cartoons so great, according to
this story, that every year the most famous and important characters of
Canadian cartoons appeared in an annual parade, likewise the authors were
renown figures whose opinions were printed in newspaper and who were invited to
public events such as cultural awards ceremonies or charity dinners.
However,
as it is common in Seth’s work, nostalgia is a common element throughout the
entire story. When we go through the dance rooms in which great parties were
held we notice that nowadays they are not used for gatherings of Canadian
cartoonists, instead, they are rent for events such as rock concerts or
marriages. Almost all of the old members of the club are dead and the new ones
no longer visit this place, the house shows visible signs of deterioration and
lack of maintenance and some of the sculptures are victims of vandalism. The
masks of the most famous cartoon characters that were used for the parades are kept
in a room, covered with dust. Finally, the headquarter that we are touring in
Dominion is the last one of the brotherhood for the others were closed. The
golden age of comics seems to have arrived to an end and what we are seeing in
this book is, therefore, an account of this past made by someone that was
pretty close to this story, a cartoonist but, above all, a comic reader.
The
introduction, written by Seth, states that this story comes from several ideas
and drawings he had in his sketchbook, little by little he started to fill the
gaps between the drawings and the different narratives that he was developing
and gave an unitary form to the book. But in this final stage it is possible to
see that, even though the journey through the Brotherhood’s building gives a
unitary sense to the story, this journey is more like an excuse for Seth to
explore and introduce different narratives and genres that are of his interest.
In this sense, in the history of Canadian cartoons, the author includes several
elements that are both, real and invented: most of the cartoonists that Seth
mentions as members of this brotherhood and their works are invented, but among
them there are also some people that existed or exists. That is the case of
Dough Wright, to whom the narrator dedicates several pages for discussing one
of his creations, Nipper, a history
focused in the difficulties of childhood and family live and that was not only
a representation of Canadian culture but also of its landscapes, becoming a
praise of nature’s beauty. Likewise, in
this story appears ChesterBrown, a Canadian cartoonist and personal friend of Seth, which is
mentioned in this book as one of the few recipients of the Journeyman, the greatest award given by the G.N.B.C.C. to the best
cartoonist of a decade.
The
cartoons that are discussed in this book, in most of the cases an invention of
Seth, have as a common feature that they discuss or problematize certain
elements of Canadian culture while at the same time they make a journey through
several genres. Kao-Kuk, for example,
is a story that recalls the space operas written during the decade of the 50’s,
nevertheless in this specific case the astronaut is an Eskimo, someone that has
found in the vast solitude of space a place similar to his home. Another
cartoon that is mentioned is Canada Jack, a character whose characteristics
make him similar as those superheroes created during World War II in order to
stimulate the patriotism among the citizens, being Captain America a good
example of this phenomenon. In this fictional cartoon, which is described as a
work probably produced by an amateur, the main character breaks several rues of
the superhero genre of its time: he asks himself existential questions,
discusses lengthy about road construction and interacts with a bad
interpretation of Snoopy, the famous character created by Charles Schulz.
One
of the cartoons that is discussed in Seth’s book, supposedly drawn by a certain
Henry Pefferlaw, calls very much the attention as it works as a mirror that
could allow the reader to understand better the entire work. The narrator tells
he reader that Pefferlaw, before disappearing mysteriously, draw a cartoon
called The Great Machine in which a
man, who has bought a building abandoned for several years, discovers that in
several rooms there are different and strange machines whose utility is not
known. The Great Machine is described
by the narrator as an experimental work, really descriptive and that seems to
be almost a catalogue; likewise it is compared with literary works such as
Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony” or The Time
Machine by H.G. Wells. Is it possible to say, then, that one can understand
Seth’s book, The G.N.B.C.C, in the same way as The
Great Machine, as a narrative artifact, as a formal experimentation? Just
as Seth or the fictitious Pefferlaw, the French writer Raymond Roussel tells in
his novel Locus Solus the story of a
scientist that offers to some guests a journey through his dominions, in this
journey they will encounter a great number of strange machines and inventions.
Thus, the description and explanation in this experimental novel turn into a
play with language and its sonority; that is what, in a certain sense, Seth and
his fictitious Pefferlaw are attempting in The
G.N.B.C.C, the catalogues of authors,
of machines and characters allow a play with different genres and styles, they
give way to a reinterpretation of some comic conventions while at the same time
they tell the history of Canadian cartoons throughout the twentieth century.
Nevertheless,
at the end of the journey through the building of The G.N.B.C.C. still remains
one question: Is it true that there was a time in Canada’s history when
cartoons and their authors played a central role in society? It seems that what
the narrator told us at the beginning of the story is, just as the fictitious
town of Dominion, a metaphor to show something that, even though it didn’t
happen, has a certain element of truth. Nowadays comics are regarded by many
people as a popular entertainment, something that could only be interesting to fat
teenagers, with big glasses and the face full of acne, so shy, so clumsy in
their social interactions that they hide themselves behind magazines that tell
the story of strong en with superpower that save the planet and at the same
time rescue beautiful girls that fell in love with them. However, all those who
complaint of these stories, who regard them as simple or naïve, could hardly
deny the fact that their first reading habits were developed when he waited
every morning for the newspaper to arrive in order to follow the adventures of
Mafalda, Snoopy and Charlie Brown and Calvin and Hobbes; that there was a time
in which they travel throughout the world following the great deeds of Tintin
and his little dog Milu. Hence it is really possible that the time in which
comics and cartoons played a certain role in society indeed happened, but it
didn’t take place in Canada but somewhere near childhood.
