Prostitutes of Brooklyn 1920s
Priceless Humor
From the 1800's
A favorite subject of ours! Priceless humor was the subject that got us started on the Old Fashioned American concept.The more we looked into humor from the 1800's, the more we realized how much Americans relished and supported snickers and belly laughs.
- There were dozens of newspaper humorists.
- There were constant humor lectures and established lecture circuits.
- There were shelves of humorous collections published in book form.
We liked the subject so much that we recorded our own priceless humor collection of short, hilarious stories, poems and monologues (a bit more of a challenge than we expected).
This was the era of Mark Twain...The King of the genre. He was so grand that we have an entire section devoted just to him.
There were many, many other authors and wits that have been forgotten. We aim to correct that. Their work (well, much of it) is worthy of a fresh airing.
Many of these authors and wits used pen names. Perhaps the most famous is the King himself, Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain).
Folksy poetry was popular in the 1800's. James Whitcomb Riley wrote books of the stuff. (Some was actually quite beautiful, but this is a site about humor, so we'll overlook the pretty stuff.)
Many humorists of the day were fascinated with local dialects. Mozis Adams (a pen name) wrote a then-famous piece in dialect that is generally understandable, funny and even touching.
Click on the side buttons or text links to learn more about our fascinating, funny past.
For some of our favorite resources, take a look in our Humor Hunting Hints: More Than Funny Websites area.
It's great to be American. Always has been. Enjoy!
http://www.oldfashionedamericanhumor.com/priceless-humor.html
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Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book
Laughter-givers
... fourth century statue of Constantine II at the Capitoline Museum, Rome.
Photograph: Murdo Macleod
We may admire the satires of
Horace and Lucilius, but the ancient Romans haven't hitherto been thought of as
masters of the one-liner. This could be about to change, however, after the
discovery of a classical joke book.
Celebrated classics professor Mary
Beard has brought to light a volume more than 1,600 years old, which
she says shows the Romans not to be the "pompous, bridge-building toga
wearers" they're often seen as, but rather a race ready to laugh at
themselves.
Written in Greek, Philogelos, or
The Laughter Lover, dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some
260 jokes which Beard said are "very similar" to the jokes we have
today, although peopled with different stereotypes – the "egghead",
or absent-minded professor, is a particular figure of fun, along with the
eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath.
"They're also poking fun at
certain types of foreigners – people from Abdera, a city in Thrace, were very,
very stupid, almost as stupid as [they thought] eggheads [were]," said
Beard.
An ancient version of Monty
Python's dead parrot sketch sees a man buy a slave, who dies shortly
afterwards. When he complains to the seller, he is told: "He didn't die
when I owned him."
Beard's favourite joke is a
version of the Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman variety, with a barber, a bald
man and an absent-minded professor taking a journey together. They have to camp
overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's
turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor.
When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says
"How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of
me."
"It's one of the better
ones," said Beard. "It has a nice identity resonance ... A lot of the
jokes play on the obviously quite problematic idea in Roman times of knowing
who you are." Another "identity" joke sees a man meet an
acquaintance and say "it's funny, I was told you were dead". He says
"well, you can see I'm still alive." But the first man disputes this
on the grounds that "the man who told me you were dead is much more
reliable than you".
"Interestingly they are quite understandable to us, whereas reading
Punch from the 19th century is completely baffling to me," said Beard.But she queried whether we are finding the same things funny as the Romans would have done. Telling a joke to one of her graduate classes, in which an absent-minded professor is asked by a friend to bring back two 15-year-old slave boys from his trip abroad, and replies "fine, and if I can't find two 15-year-olds I will bring you one 30-year-old," she found they "chortled no end".
"They thought it was a sex joke, equivalent to someone being asked for two 30-year-old women, and being told okay, I'll bring you one 60-year-old. But I suspect it's a joke about numbers – are numbers real? If so two 15-year-olds should be like one 30-year-old – it's about the strange unnaturalness of the number system."
Beard, who discovered the title while carrying out research for a new book she's working on about humour in the ancient world, pointed out that when we're told a joke, we make a huge effort to make it funny for ourselves, or it's an admission of failure. "Are we doing that to these Roman jokes? Were they actually laughing at something quite different?" .
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THEM AUSSIES
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Funny poems
Funny poems have been an important part of Australian poetry since the nineteenth century. Comic squibs and puns featured in the early issues of Australia’s first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette (1803), and later poets such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson contributed much comic verse to magazines such as the Bulletin. Some of the best-known of Paterson’s poems, such as ‘A Bush Christening’ and ‘Mulga Bill’s Bicycle’, recount comic episodes of bush life: the terrified escape into a log of the boy who does not want to be christened and Mulga Bill’s mistaken belief that as he is such a good horse rider he will have no trouble controlling his new bicycle.
Early in the twentieth century, C J Dennis had a great success with his verse novel, Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915) that recounts the struggles of the Bloke to get his girlfriend Doreen to agree to marry him. One of the funniest poems is ‘The Play’ in which the Bloke and Doreen attend a performance of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and the Bloke behaves in a totally inappropriate manner.
Contemporary poets have also contributed many funny poems. Geoff Page, for example, has written a collection entitled Mrs Schnell arrives in heaven which includes funny rhyming poems like ‘Single Socks’, on the fact that one of a pair of socks always seems to get lost, as well as the poetic sequence ‘Selected Alcohols’. Another to cast a comic eye at family life is Geoffrey Lehmann, whose ‘Parenthood’ includes a parody of American poet Allen Ginsberg’s famous ‘Howl’ as part of a lament about the joys of being a father and having your restaurant meal go cold while each of your three children demands to be taken to the toilet. In ‘Gifts’, Aboriginal poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal sends up the traditional male love poem which offers the woman grandiose presents; here the beloved rejects all of these in favour of the much more practical gift of something to eat: ‘bring me tree-grubs’.
See more Funny poems
Also See
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Ten authors you have to read (if you’re a Canadian student)
The idea of a canon, or at least an imperative list of books (some people don’t like that other word), isn’t really about objective quality so much as subjective experience: Those stories that resonate most with us also define us. If you want to know what it’s like to be a human (technically) or a Western European (in practice) or an English-speaking Canadian (for our purposes), well, read these.
Even if you have slightly less lofty ambitions, though, it’s still helpful to know what makes up primordial alphabet soup: Whether you want to admit it or not, there is going to be a collection of books that form a kind of literary vernacular, a shared experience that we all draw on that in some sense sets our parameters for discussion and understanding and reflection.
Surely we’ve all got our own opinions of what those might be. But rather than sit here and argue about them — doesn’t seem very Canadian, if you ask me — I thought it might be worthwhile to try and get some objective sense.
So I turned to the experts, or the closest we have to them: Canadian universities’ literature departments. They are, after all, paid to think about how our stories define us, and unlike the fickle bestseller charts, they are prone to taking the long and in some cases esoteric but potent view. Plus it seems fairly likely to me that people who are willing to take English are the ones who are going to end up discussing it later (and it’s still a requirement at most universities, so the books will still resonate with those who don’t ever plan on reading when they’re off-campus).
To that end, English chairs, professors and adjuncts from across the country responded with curricula, syllabi, entrance exams, recommended readings and personal preferences. They cited more than 170 writers, and books ranging from anthologies of pre-1800s poetry to last year’s Giller nominees. I compiled them, counted them and came up with the list below. It represents, if nothing else, what your 18-year-old niece is probably going to think of as CanLit for the rest of her life.
THE CORE TEXTS
Michael Ondaatje
Not only was Ondaatje the most mentioned author, but his Toronto immigrant story In the Skin of a Lion was handily the most taught book. Although it seems worth noting that a curious kind of division emerged: Southern Ontario schools leaned on that one heavily, whereas selections from the rest of the country tended to be more diverse, split between Lion, The English Patient and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid.
Margaret Atwood
A smattering of works were mentioned, but for the most part the instructors lean toward either the dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale or the return-to-home-template Surfacing. Some informal comments suggested that the former is loved (and tended to be the one taught abroad), whereas the latter is good but also just really thematically rich if you’re looking to talk about Canadian identity.
Alice Munro
Individual stories were chosen from across the spectrum, but the most cited of Munro’s books, by far, were the Governor General’s Award-winning Who Do You Think You Are? and the story cycle Lives of Girls and Women, with female teachers (perhaps unsurprisingly) leaning toward the latter. Stick with the classics, I guess.
Thomas King
As I was gently reminded, this list might be skewed, because Aboriginal literature is often taught in a different, separate context than the wider Canadian variety. Either way, enough people avoid the distinction that Green Grass, Running Water is taught in CanLit courses across the country.
Stephen Leacock
If you know Canadian humour at all, you are probably well acquainted with a dozen books just like Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. Leacock’s humorous slice of Mariposa life remains surprisingly resilient a century after its publishing.
Robert Kroetsch
Though The Studhorse Man had its defenders, including one who was fairly emphatic about it being the best Western (regional, this is Canada) novel, it’s Seed Catalogue that most students are going to be parsing this fall: it was the most-cited book of poetry (or, well, poem).
Mordecai Richler
The strange thing about Richler is that, though many of the other top authors had broad lists with a few obvious preferences, almost everyone that taught a Richler book picked The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (fourth most cited overall). A man without a classic novel of Jewish life in Montreal is nothing.
Sinclair Ross
As For Me and My House, Ross’s most-taught work, isn’t just a great example of bleak prairie landscapes, it’s a model for Canadian success to this day: it was published and popular in New York before it caught on here.
Margaret Laurence
There was an almost an exact split between The Stone Angel and The Diviners, with apparently no rhyme nor reason besides personal preference. I wonder what your choice of Laurence novel says about you as a teacher?
Eden Robinson
Her debut novel Monkey Beach has the rare distinction of being the only book published since 2000 (just barely, but still) to make it into the 10 most-taught. Someone should tell her to write more.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Dionne Brand
Toronto’s poet laureate was one of the most-cited poets, although curiously there wasn’t much consensus on which book or poem you should lean toward. I read a bunch of No Language is Neutral in my CanLit class, for what it’s worth.
Lucy Maude Montgomery
Yes, students are still getting their Anne of Green Gables, but it may be more of an eat-your-vegetables thing: Montgomery rarely showed up in courses above a freshman level.
Howard O’Hagan/Susanna Moodie
Depending on your particular flavour of taming the Canadian wilderness, you’ll be reading O’Hagan’s wild man myth Tay John or Moodie’s autobiographicalish pioneer tale Roughing It in the Bush. But probably both.
Joy Kogawa
Apparently some things don’t require research: Obasan is enough of a staple of CanLit courses that that’s the second fact on its Wikipedia page.
FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS
It takes time for consensus to form, but if anyone is likely to be pushing their way onto that top list in the near future, it will probably be either Joseph Boyden or Lawrence Hill. The First World War narrative Three Day Road and the slave tale The Book of Negroes were both heads and tails above other contemporary novels in the classroom.
That said, one thing that came up consistently was a complaint that
today’s students weren’t nearly as well-versed in Canadian literature as
they used to be, with declining emphasis on Canadian authors in high
school (or even university, if the complainant was teaching sufficiently
advanced classes) usually cited as the culprit. Maybe that’s just a bit
of “kids these days” curmudgeonry, but it’s worth keeping that idea
about stories and identity in mind — and noting that, of all the
storytelling mediums, Canadian literature is by far the most deep and
diverse. Or, at the very least, read In the Skin of a Lion, so you have something more interesting than “How’s school going?” to ask that niece of yours.
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A Brief History of Dark
Comedy
Since the time of
the Ancient Greeks and Romans comedy has often been considered the shallow
younger brother of mighty tragedy. However, most of the best comedies are
complex in nature and centuries of playwrights have found humor in (or poked
fun at) the darker and more serious elements of our existence.
Ancient
Greece (330 B.C.E): Aristotle’s Poetics suggest that the
laughter and pleasure of comedy have cathartic qualities not unlike those found
in tragedy.
Commedia
dell’arte (16th Century): Humor in classic commedia often derives from
the repeated failures of a foolish older man in his attempt to block the
romance of young lovers.
Shakespearean
Comedy (16th Century): Adept at intertwining comedy and
tragedy, most of Shakespeare’s plays have elements of both (a great example of
this is the gravedigger scene from Hamlet).
French
Comedy of Manners (17th Century): Molière is the king of the French
Drawing Room Comedy, which satirizes social class structures.
Restoration
Comedy (17th/18th Century): English Restoration comedies,
such as those by Wycherley and Congreve, are often bawdy and take a critical
view of romantic love, prizing nimble social skills and self-promotion over
virtue and honesty.
The
Absurdists (20th Century): Beckett, Pinter, and Ionesco are a
few of a number of well-known Absurdists whose plays reflect their belief in
the meaninglessness of life, a truth that teeters between the hilarious and the
terrifying.
Contemporary
Comedy (20th and 21st century): Americans are
well-versed in using irony, juxtaposition, and pathos as a source of humor in
contemporary culture. Plays such as Loot
or Ridiculous Fraud
as well as television shows like Seinfeld
and films like Harold
and Maude have made us laugh at the absurdities inherent in
catastrophic situations.
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you
that.
- Samuel Beckett, Endgame
- Samuel Beckett, Endgame
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QUEBEC CITY....
Cartoons (1850-1900)
By
Karine Rousseau and Christian Vachon
The
cartoon is an art form that allows its creator to critique society and
political life in a unique way. Cartoonists attack their subjects by making us
laugh at them.
The
first acknowledged cartoons, or caricatures, in North America were produced in
Quebec City in 1759 by James Wolfe's brigadier-general, George Townshend
(1723-1807). The two men did not see eye-to-eye and Townshend, in an attempt to
discredit General Wolfe, drew cartoons ridiculing him. Mocking in particular
Wolfe's phobia against dirt and his predilection for women, the cartoons were
distributed among the British soldiers stationed at Quebec. Seven of these
cartoons are now in the collection of the McCord Museum. Ironically, during the
Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Wolfe was mortally wounded and Townshend
succeeded him as commander of the army.
The
history of cartoons has evolved in step with that of the print media. There
were no humorous illustrations in newspapers and magazines in Canada between
1752 and 1807, largely because the technology available at the time did not
allow for the printing of illustrations in periodicals. Cartoons appeared after
1807, and the emergence of publishing and printing firms. But it was not until
the 1840s that cartoons began to appear on a regular basis.
From
1858 up until 1900, the number of magazines and newspapers grew rapidly. This
was also a period of great advances in printing and engraving techniques, with
wood engraving being replaced by photolithography. These advances stimulated
the development of the art of cartooning.
The pioneers
From
1850 to 1900 the publishers and editors of periodicals often produced and
published their own cartoons.
The
Irishman John Henry Walker (1831-1899), illustrator and engraver, is credited
as the first in Canada to regularly publish cartoons. Walker emigrated to this
county in 1842, settling in Toronto, where in 1849 he launched Punch in Canada, named
after the famous British periodical. Walker's magazine failed when he tried to
publish it as a weekly. He nonetheless went on to publish other humour
magazines, notably, The
Jester, Grinchuckle
and Diogenes,
none of which survived for long.
The
first humour magazine in Quebec, La
Scie, appeared in 1863. In a surprising and unusual turn of events
for this country, its cartoonist, Jean-Baptiste Côté (1832-1907), was thrown in
prison for publishing a cartoon that poked fun at a civil servant. In 1877, the
Montrealer Hector Berthelot (1842-1895) began publishing Le Canard, another humour
magazine that carried many cartoons. James G. Mackay contributed to the
Montreal-based magazines Canadian
Illustrated News and L'Opinion
publique, and A. Leroux published his cartoons in the same
publications in the 1880s. In Toronto, John W. Bengough (1851-1923) made a name
for himself as the publisher of the satirical magazine Grip from 1873 to 1894;
his own cartoons and those of several other artists appeared in its pages.
Canadian
Illustrated News,
the weekly published in Montreal from 1869 to 1883, and its French-language
counterpart, L'Opinion
publique, were peppered with the humouristic illustrations of
several cartoonists, the most prominent of whom were Edward Jump (1832-1883) and
Octave-Henri Julien (1852-1908). The latter gained considerable fame for his
political cartoons, especially the "By-Town Coons," depicting the
members of Sir Wifrid Laurier's Cabinet and published in the Montreal Star from
1897 to 1900.
The subjects
Early
cartoons dealt with a variety of subjects related, in particular, to news of
the day. Cartoons thus reveal social and political realities of the era in
which they were created.
The
often-biting cartoons of the second half of the 19th century regularly conveyed
stereotypical messages that would probably today be considered unacceptable.
But such works provide glimpses of the kind of thinking prevalent at the time.
Canadian
cartoonists generally treated economic and political subjects such as Confederation,
the rise of Canadian nationalism, famous politicians like John A. MacDonald and
Wilfrid Laurier, Canada-U.S. relations, Aboriginals, the Rebellions, the Métis,
tariff policies, railway companies and political scandals such as the Canadian
Pacific Scandal. Among the social issues often depicted in cartoons were
prohibition, poverty, disease, working conditions and civil rights.
Analyzing and understanding cartoons
To
understand and appreciate political cartoons, you need a sense of their overall
political context; early cartoons are often difficult to analyze outside of
their context. Cartoons are generally published in newspapers and magazines
alongside news of the day or week. You might understand a cartoon at first
glance, but if it is especially subtle you might need knowledge of the event
depicted or access to contextual information in order to fully decode it.
Cartoonists
use several techniques and strategies to convey their messages, including
analogy, exaggeration, distortion of reality, and allusion to famous figures
(mythical, literary, etc.). They might also use words to help convey meaning.
Many cartoons contain both visual and textual elements; included in the latter
are titles, dialogue, captions, explanations and comments. Finally, signs, symbols,
stereotypes, size and nuances of shading also provide clues. For example,
certain objects, animals or individuals might represent a nation. Stereotypes,
such as the fat and arrogant businessman and the skinny worker, are frequently
seen. Often size is used to symbolize power and social status, while the colour
black on certain figures might indicate shady or bad characters.
It
is also important to consider the possible biases of the cartoonist; ask
yourself, for example, if the artist's personal preferences, religion, ethic
background, economic status, gender, historical influences, values or
matrimonial status have tainted the cartoon. Once you have checked and analyzed
all of these elements, the meaning of the cartoon should become clear!
REFERENCES
Desbarats,
Peter and Terry Mosher. The
Hecklers. A History of Canadian Political Cartooning and a Cartoonists' History
of Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, National Film Board of
Canada, 1979.
Hou,
Charles and Cynthia Hou. Great
Canadian Political Cartoons. 1820-1914. Vancouver: Moody's Lookout
Press, 1997.
Hou,
Charles and Cynthia Hou. The
Art of Decoding Political Cartoons. A Teacher's Guide. Vancouver:
Moody's Lookout Press, 1998.
"Political
Cartoons." The Canadian Encyclopedia [online]
[http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0001442](page consulted August 9, 2006).
[http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0001442](page consulted August 9, 2006).
"Cartoons
and Comic Strips." The Canadian Encyclopedia [online]
[http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0001441] (page consulted August 9, 2006).
[http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0001441] (page consulted August 9, 2006).
"Bengough,
John Wilson." Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online [http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=42029&query=Bengough]
(page consulted August 9, 2006).
"Berthelot,
Hector." Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
[http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=40092&query=Berthelot] (page consulted August 9, 2006).
[http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=40092&query=Berthelot] (page consulted August 9, 2006).
http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php?Lang=1&tablename=theme&tableid=11&elementid=79__true&contentlong
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CANADA- Cartoons and Comic Strips
For Better or For Worse
(courtesy Lyn Johnston and Universal Press Syndicate).
Hey! Crikey! Dynamite!?..
Publisher Jeffrey R. Darcey (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-136788).
Johnny Canuck
Johnny Canuck: Canada's answer to Nazi Oppression, March 1942, artist Leo Bachle, pen, brush and black ink on woven paper (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-137065).
Try it on jes fer fun Herbie
Cartoon, 1944, by William Garnet Coughlin (Bing) in Maple Leaf (courtesy National Archives of Canada/C-140339).
Betty
By Edmonton cartoonists Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen.
Fisher (Cartoon)
Cartoon strip by Philip Street
Zero Gravity
The comic strip Zero Gravity, created, written and drawn by Dwight A. Macpherson, ran in the Saturday Ottawa Citizen between 1993 and 1999 (image courtesy Dwight A. Macpherson).The Second Press Period (1807–58) saw the rise of entrepreneur editor/printers who began setting up press in growing towns. Revenues from circulation and advertising replaced patronage from government, and the appearance of cartoons, especially political ones, reflected this new, independent spirit. Comic art influences from Europe and the United States also began to appear.
On 1 January 1849, engraver and cartoonist John H. Walker (1831–99) published Punch in Canada, named after the humour magazine in England begun in 1841. It was the first publication in Canada to regularly feature cartoons. Punch in Canada folded after Walker moved it to Toronto in 1850 and tried to publish weekly. He published several other short-lived humour magazines including The Grumbler, Grinchuckle and Diogenes. Canadian Illustrated News, named after its London counterpart, often featured satirical drawings and caricatures by its artists, including Edward Jump, J.G. Mackay and Octave-Henri Julien.
"Strips" Arrive in Canada
During the Third Press Period (1858–1900) there was rapid growth in the number of newspapers and periodicals and major advances in printing and engraving. American newspaper and feature syndicates quickly established themselves in the fast-growing comic strip industry following the introduction in 1885 of the first comic "strip" in the US, "The Yellow Kid," in 1885. Seventeen years later, the first strip drawn by a Canadian for a Canadian newspaper made its appearance. Working for the first comic journal in Québec, La Scie (The Saw), a satirical political journal from Montréal (1863–68), was cartoonist Jean Baptist Côté. He was a legendary Canadian political cartoonist. His simple woodcuts illustrated perfectly the journal's motto: "Laughter Corrects Abuse." He attacked the political elite and the civil service with such ardour that in 1868, after depicting a civil servant "at his day’s work," he was arrested and thrown into jail — the first and only Canadian cartoonist to achieve this distinction.John W. Bengough (1851–1923) is one of Canada's first important cartoonists. He published Grip, a magazine of social and political satire in Toronto from 1873 until 1894. Grip's long lifespan offers a valuable look at the style of humour of the period, as do the cartoons by Bengough, especially those of Sir John A. Macdonald.
At the same time as Bengough, Québec artist Octave-Henri Julien (1852–1908) was making his mark drawing political cartoons at the Canadian Illustrated News. One of Julien's studies of rural French Canadians was a depiction of an elderly farmer, rifle in hand and pipe clenched in teeth ready to defend his land, an image that was later adapted by the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) in the 1960s as a symbol of armed revolution. He was the first cartoonist to be honoured with an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada. A street in Montréal is named in his honour.
Hector Berthelot (1842–1895) was dubbed "The Prince of Canadian Humorists." He was first published anonymously in La Scie. In 1877 Berthelot started Le Canard, the first of 16 humour magazines he would help foster in his career. His most durable character creation, Baptiste Ladébauche, first appeared in Le Canard, in November 1878, in a cartoon called "Père Ladébauche" (Pops Debauchery), named after the title of a French-Canadian folk song. Baptiste outlived Berthelot and continued to be drawn by A.G. Racey, Joseph Charlebois and finally Albéric Bourgeois at La Presse.
Albéric Bourgeois (1876–1962) created a regularly appearing strip, "Les Aventures de Timothée," for the Montréal newspaper La Patrie in 1904. In 1905, he joined La Presse to take over "Père Ladébauche" from Joseph Charlebois. Under Bourgeois, it was renamed "En Roulant Ma Boule" (Bumming Around) and the main character, Baptiste, took a wife, Catherine. He drew the strip for the next 52 years — the last episode appeared in La Presse on 23 March 1957. Bourgeois created several other strips at La Presse including "Les Aventures du Toinon" (1905–08) and "Les Fables du Parc Lafontaine" (1906–08).
An earlier strip was "Pour un Dîner de Noël," drawn as a once-only, not a series, by Raoul Barré for La Presse, 20 December 1902. Barré also created the first comic page in Canada for La Presse that year. In 1903, he moved to New York City, changed his name to Barry and was a pioneer and innovator in the animated film industry. From New York, he drew two short-lived strips for La Patrie: "Les Contes du Père Rhault" (1906–08), and "À l'Hôtel du Père Noé" (1913), a French-language version of Noah's Ark, a strip he created in 1912 for McClure Newspaper Syndicate.
Palmer Cox (1840–1924) was born in Granby, Québec, and in 1875 was working as an illustrator in New York. His greatest success was the creation of the Brownies. Thirteen books of poems, cartoons and adventures of his fairyland creatures were published around the turn of the century, spawning one of the largest merchandising and product endorsement campaigns of its time, including the Kodak "Brownie" camera. Cox retired to Granby and lived in a house he called Brownie Castle, where he died.
In 1906, H.A. McGill, a Nova Scotia-born cartoonist working in New York, created several strips. The most popular was "The Hall Room Boys," later re-titled "Percy and Ferdy" and published as a collection in 1921.
Russel Patterson, an American-born artist living in Montréal in the early 1900s, did a strip called "Pierre and Pierrette" for La Patrie. Patterson is best remembered for his influence on 1920s flapper fashion with his much-emulated illustrations known as "Patterson Girls" in magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Cosmopolitan.
In 1901, a humour magazine called The Moon appeared in Toronto. It only lasted about a year but included the work of Newton McConnell, editorial cartoonist at the Toronto Daily News, Fergus Kyle of the Globe, C.W. Jefferys, a staff artist at the Toronto Star, and A.G. Racey, who would succeed Henri Julien at the Montreal Star in 1908.
The Industry Expands
By the early 1900s presses had been hauled by railway, steamer, ox-cart, pack-horse and the backs of their owners to practically every settlement in the West. Graphic humour even reached mining camps in The Ledge, a newspaper published in the late 1800s in New Denver, British Columbia, by R.T. Lowery. Saturday editions of the Manitoba Free Press carried one-panel cartoons as early as 1901 — two years later it published its first full-page comic strip, "Buster Brown," syndicated by the New York Herald. In 1904, Bob Edwards started the witty and rambunctious Calgary Eye Opener. Edwards initially drew his own cartoons but left them unsigned. Most of the cartooning in later years was done by Donald McRitchie, who worked at the Eye Opener from 1907 to 1912, and Charles Forrester, who was there when it folded in 1922.In 1927, Richard Taylor joined The Goblin (1921–29), a Toronto magazine devoted to the more sophisticated "college" humour of the 1920s. Taylor, a commercial artist, drew a variety of cartoons for each issue, each in a different style and under a different name. Taylor did a weekly strip, "Dad Plugg," for the Communist Party of Canada's newspaper, The Worker, in 1935 under the name "Ric." In 1936, he went to New York where he became a successful gag cartoonist, regularly appearing in The New Yorker and other major magazines. Several collections of his work have been published.
Comics Go to War
During the First World War, cartoons found their way to the trenches in Canada in Khaki. In the Second World War, Canadian troops were entertained by several regular strips in the Canadian Army publications Maple Leaf and Khaki. Cartoons also appeared in Wings, the RCAF paper."Herbie and this Army," by William Garnet "Bing" Coughlin, first appeared in Maple Leaf in the spring of 1944 in Naples, Italy. Bing's chinless hero Herbie became a particular icon at the front and "Herbie wuz here" graffitti marked the path of the Canadian advance. In 1944, Herbie was voted "Canadian Man of the Year" by the troops. "Monty and Johnny," by Les Callan, cartoonist at the Toronto Daily Star in civilian life, and "Occupational Oscar and this Doggone Army," by Merle "Ting" Tingley, were also popular. Ting became the editorial cartoonist at the London Free Press after the war.
Jimmy Frise, who illustrated Gregory Clark's humorous column in Maclean's magazine, created "Life's Little Comedies" in 1921 for the Star Weekly. It was later retitled "Birdseye Centre" and ran in the Star Weekly until 1947, when Frise took it to the Montréal Standard/Family Herald group, who renamed it "Juniper Junction." Frise died the next year and Doug Wright, the Standard's new editorial cartoonist, took it over. He drew it until 1968 when the Family Herald folded, taking the strip with it. Wright created two popular strips of his own: "Nipper," in the early 1960s, and its successor, "Doug Wright's Family," in 1967.
Editorial Cartoons
Many editorial cartoonists have tried their hands at strip and gag cartooning. Arch Dale (1882–1962) began freelancing cartoons to the Winnipeg Free Press and Grain Growers' Guide in 1907. He moved to Chicago in 1921, where he drew a strip called "The Doo Dads" for United Feature and Specialty Company, who sold it to about 50 newspapers. Dale returned to the Free Press in 1927 and was the editorial cartoonist until he retired in 1954.A.G. Racey (1870–1941) joined the Montreal Star in 1899 and remained there for 40 years. The character of cartoonists in Canada of this generation was that of gentle good sports. Rarely vicious, they supported good causes and did their work in a polite manner.
Lou Skuce (1886–1951) worked as an editorial cartoonist at several newspapers and was art editor of the Toronto Sunday World for 14 years. He contributed gag cartoons and illustrations to many publications over his career, from The Goblin to Maclean's magazine. He also created a strip, "Cash and Carrie," for the Bell Syndicate in 1927 and a short-lived strip, "Mary Ann Gay," for United Press Features in 1928.
A distinctive Canadian style emerged after the Second World War. Led by Robert Lapalme (1908–97) at Le Devoir; Duncan Macpherson (1924–93) at the Toronto Daily Star, Leonard Norris (1913–97) at the Vancouver Sun and the Montreal Star's Ed McNally (1916–71), cartoons began to break with traditions. Their drawings were sharper and often more savage than American cartoons, which generally tend to be more allegorical.
Stewart Cameron (1912–70) was an editorial cartoonist at the Calgary Herald and the Vancouver Province. In 1972, four collections of his humorous illustrations of rodeo life and adventures on the pack-trail were published posthumously: What I Saw At the Stampede, Let The Chaps Fall Where They May, Weep for the Cowboy and Pack Horse in the Rockies - Dudes, Denims and Diamond Hitches.
Lew Saw, an Australian who worked for a while as editorial cartoonist at the Vancouver Province, drew a strip, "One-Up," in the late 1950s and early 60s. Al Beaton, editorial cartoonist at the Toronto Telegram, drew "Ookpik," a strip based on a popular Arctic owl stuffed toy, in the mid-1960s. It ran for two years in 50 newspapers. Adrian Raeside of the Victoria Times-Colonist drew a strip called "Captain Starship" in the late 1970s.
Calgary Herald editorial cartoonist Vance Rodewalt gave the little birds that made sideline comments in his editorial cartoons their own strip, "The Byrds" (1974–79). He also drew the widely syndicated "Chubb and Chauncey," which began 12 September 1988. Steven Nease, editorial cartoonist with the Oakville Beaver, started drawing "Pud" in 1984, and it appears in over a dozen papers. Mike DeAdder (1967) started the political strip "Cabinet Shuffles" in 1995, and it has been published across Canada. Terry Mosher, known by his pen name, Aislin, has seen his irreverent, acerbic sketches appear regularly in many Canadian dailies and in periodicals in the United States and abroad. Serge Chapleau, who studied painting and graphic arts at l'École des Beaux-Arts, became an instant celebrity in Québec in 1972 with a weekly full-colour caricature for Perspectives. He now produces a popular political cartoon series on Radio-Canada called Et Dieu créa… Laflaque.
Hybrid Formats
Susan Dewar, editorial cartoonist for the Ottawa Sun, began a strip, "Us & Them" in July 1995, in collaboration with American Wiley Miller, creator of "Non Sequitour." In March 1997, Miller withdrew and Milt Priggee took over. "Us & Them" saw each cartoonist taking turns doing a male and then a female character. It has since ceased publication.Unique hybrids of strip and single-panel cartoons have been drawn in Canada. In the early 1900s, J.B. Fitzmaurice (1873?-1924) regularly produced multi-drawing "strip" type cartoons in his editorial slots when he worked at the Montréal Herald and the Vancouver Daily Province. The single panel with multiple compositions reached its zenith with "La Vie En Images," a free-form page about everyday events and life in Montréal created by Jacques Gagnier for La Patrie on 6 February 1944. Gagnier left "La Vie" in 1947 and it was drawn by Paul Leduc until 1956. In 1945, Gordie Moore at the Montréal Gazette created a square, single-panel, divided into four panes, called "Around our Town." A collection by the same name was published in 1949.
Several series of single-panel features illustrating Canadian personalities, events, history and geography have been drawn in Canada. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ken Gray produced "What's in a Name?" and "Who Said That?" for the Toronto Star Syndicate. George Shane (born 1921) drew a series called "Oh, Canada" in the 1960s and Gordon Johnston did a series called "It Happened in Canada" in the 1970s and 80s, which were published in collections. In the early 1980s, Cy Morris produced "Spotlight on Labour History," syndicated through Union Art Services.
The gag cartoons and illustrations of George Feyer (1921-67) made him one of Canada's most popular cartoonists in the 1950s and 60s, appearing on CBC Television's Razzle Dazzle and Telestory Time (where Feyer illustrated a story as it was read live). He was also a regular contributor to Maclean's magazine. Feyer was born in Hungary. He escaped both Nazi and Communist hostilities by forging papers and fleeing to Canada in 1948. He had a reputation for being outlandish and his cartoons about sex and religion were rarely published in his day. He is infamously known for attending swank parties, sneaking up behind women in backless gowns, and drawing cartoons on their exposed skin.
Peter Whalley (1921–2007) became familiar to readers of Maclean's magazine and other Canadian publications in the 1950s and 60s. Whalley also illustrated Eric Nicol's Uninhibited History of Canada (1959). Maclean's was the long-time home of James Simpkins' most famous creation, "Jasper" the bear. "Jasper" ran regularly as a single panel cartoon in Maclean's from 1948 to 1972 and was then syndicated in a daily strip and a colour weekend strip by Canada Wide Features.
Trade Publication Humour
Cartoons often find a niche in special-interest publications. Albert Chartiers began "Onésime" in 1943 in Le bulletin des agriculteurs. In the 1950s, Lawrence Purdy's cartoons spoofed the foibles of the clergy in the United Church Observer. Don Smith, an oil company employee in Alberta, anonymously submitted cartoons that appeared in Oil Week from 1973 to 1983. A collection, It Only Hurts When You Produce, was published in 1987. George Shane drew cartoons for union publications in the 1970s and 80s and Mike Constable set up Union Art Services in Toronto to syndicate cartoons to the labour press. Everett Soop was published in Kainai News, serving native communities in southern Alberta, beginning in 1968. Two collections of Soop have been published, Take a Bow (1979) and I See My Tribe Is Still Behind Me (1990). In the 1970s, Trevor Hutchings had many business-oriented gag cartoons published in the Financial Post and Marketing as well as in Playboy, Esquire and Oui. Doug Sneyd, a freelance cartoonist in Orillia, Ontario, has been drawing cartoons for Playboy since the early 1960s. He also drew a political strip called "Scoops" (1978–82).Underground and Alternative
The "underground" and "alternative" press in the late 1960s and early 70s provided refuge for a number of cartoonists. Rand Holmes created "Harold Hedd," Vancouver's answer to San Francisco's "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" for the Georgia Straight. These were collected into comic book form, Harold Hedd nos. 1, 2 and 3. Kerry Waghorn, whose caricature portraits of daily newsmakers are now syndicated to op-ed pages around the world, produced a strip in 1969 for the Straight, "The Apologies of Justin Martyre."Stanley Berneche and Peter Evans's "Captain Canada" made his debut in 1972 in the Ottawa-based satirical magazine Fuddle Duddle. The Captain was as much a spoof of the US superheroes as of Canadian attitudes toward them. Montréal's "Capitaine Kébec" appeared in 1973. "Les Aventures du Capitaine Kébec" was created by Pierre Fournier, one of the leading artists and writers active in what is known as the Spring of Quebéc Comics (les bandes desineés or BD for short).
Free music, arts and entertainment weeklies, some with "alternative" attitudes, sprang up in many cities in the 1980s, and some carried occasional strips or panels by local cartoonists. The Montréal Mirror carried the strip "Slum Dog," by Peter Sandmark, from 1988 to 1992. "Slum Dog" has been self-published by Sandmark in seven mini-comic collections. He started a new strip in 1997, a spinoff of "Slum Dog" called "Roach Town," which has also been published in mini-comic. The popular "Anglo-Man," by artist Gabriel Morrissette and writer Mark Shainblum, was published in two softcover editions (1995 and 1996) before appearing as a weekly comic strip in the Montréal Mirror (1996–97) and subsequently in the Montreal Gazette (1997–99).
Susan Dyment is an illustrator and cartoonist whose anarcho-feminist cartoons have appeared in over two dozen Canadian magazines and journals since the 1980s. She consistently self-published photostat journals of acerbic and genuinely funny social commentary.
"Weltschmerz," a politically satirical strip by Gareth Lind, first appeared in 1993 in Id, a bi-weekly in Guelph, and now appears in Eye in Toronto and the X-Press in Ottawa. Lind also does a nameless strip that appears in This Magazine and Eye that he began in the late 1980s in a Guelph alternative weekly called Metropolis.
Mainstream Contemporary
The five most widely read Canadian cartoonists are probably Jim Unger, Ben Wicks, Paul Gilligan, Adrian Raeside and Lynn Johnston. Unger, who now lives in the Bahamas, started out as an editorial cartoonist and created the hugely successful "Herman" single panel in 1974. The first colour weekend "Herman" strip appeared 30 March 1980. "Herman" is reaching a new generation with the resyndication of the cartoons as The Best of Herman, and several Herman collections have been published.Ben Wicks began cartooning for The Albertan in Calgary in the early 1960s. In 1966, he went to the Toronto Telegram and his daily panel cartoon began to be widely syndicated. Wicks created a daily strip in 1975, "The Outcasts," which was taken over by his son Vincent in 1989. Wicks has published numerous collections and has written several books.
Paul Gilligan started as an illustrator at the Ottawa Citizen. He worked hard for many years to come up with a viable daily strip and finally set up shop in downtown Toronto as a freelancer, where his roster of clients include Time, Disney, Wired and Pine-Sol. During this time he created a number of strips, the culmination of which was "Pooch Café." The syndicate Ucomics picked him up and he now has a genuine hit on his hands. "Pooch Café" is the story of a dog named Poncho.
Adrian Raeside has been editorial cartoonist for the Victoria Times Colonist for 25 years. His editorial cartoons have appeared in over 150 newspapers and magazines worldwide. He has created, directed and produced dozens of animated shows for Turner Broadcasting and the Children's Television Workshop. Raeside is also the author of 11 books. Among them: There Goes the Neighbourhood, an irreverent history of Canada, The Demented Decade and 5 Twisted Years. Raeside also wrote and illustrated the popular Dennis the Dragon series of children's books. His daily strip, "The Other Coast," was picked up by Creators Syndicate in 2001 and now appears in over 100 newspapers worldwide.
Lynn Johnston worked as an animator, a commercial artist and a medical illustrator before she produced three collections of single-panel cartoons on the lighter side of motherhood: David, We're Pregnant(1977), Hi Mom! Hi Dad! (1977) and Do They Ever Grow Up? (1978). Universal Press Syndicate asked her to try a strip about a contemporary family and the first instalment of "For Better or for Worse," loosely based on inspiration provided by her own family, appeared on 9 September 1979. By 1997 it appeared in about 1,800 newspapers worldwide. In 1997 she changed syndicates to United Features Services. The strip is now translated into five languages. She has received many awards and honours and in 1985 was the first woman to receive the Reuben, the highest honour of the National Cartoonists Society in the United States. Many collections of her work have been published.
An Expanding Scene
Other contemporary strips by Canadian cartoonists include "Backbench" by Graham Harrop and "Fisher" by Phillip Street in The Globe and Mail. In 1993, "Between Friends," by Sandra Bell-Lundy in the Toronto Star, was picked up by King Features Syndicate. In 1994, the Ottawa Citizen introduced two Canadian strips, "Moose Lake," by Roddy Thorleifson of Winnipeg, and "Zero Gravity," by Dwight Macpherson of Ottawa, to the black-and-white Saturday comic page.The whimsical panel "Le Monde de Yayo" has been running in L'actualité since the late 1980s. Yayo (Diego Herrera) has two collections: Le Carton de Yayo (1990) and Zoo-illogique (1991). Croc magazine publishes many strips by Québec artists including Serge Gaboury.
In the English press, single-panel cartoons include "Pavlov," by Ted Martin, and "SUNtoon," by Jim Phillips in the Sun newspapers. "Horrorscope," distributed by Torstar Syndication Services since January 1990, is written by Susan Kelso and drawn by Adam Rickner, who took over from Eric Olson in April 1995. "Cornered," was written and drawn by Mike Baldwin, was launched in 1996 and was picked up a year later by Universal Press Syndicate.
In 1994, three colour single-panels drawn by local cartoonists were introduced to the Ottawa Citizen's Sunday comics: "Two's A Crowd," by Bill Buttle, "Over the Edge," by Andrew King, and "Flying Solo - The Lighter Side of Single Parenting," by Rebecca Rotenberg and Fortunée Shugar. In 1997, the Citizen dropped its Sunday comics page and also replaced "Reality Check," a daily single-panel by Ottawan Dave Whamond, distributed by United Feature Services, with "Life in the Laugh Lane," a hybrid single-panel incorporating text in the form of a reader's humorous anecdote and Franktown, Ontario, artist Ron Lindsay's rendering of the event in cartoon.
A single-panel cartoon entitled "Farcus," by Gordon Coulthart and David Waisglass of Ottawa, made its debut, but in the business section of the Citizen in December 1991. It ran until the summer of 1997, when its creators decided not to do "Farcus" on a daily basis, but to let him live in virtual splendour at his own World Wide Web site.
Some cartoons from student newspapers occasionally graduate to the mainstream press. In 1978, Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen created "Bub Slug" for the University of Alberta student newspaper, the Gateway. It was revived in 1985 as a full-colour page in the Edmonton Journal's Saturday comic section and ran for just over 4 years. In 1992, the strip was renamed "Betty," after Bub's wife, and syndicated to over 600 newspapers worldwide by United Features Syndicate. Delainey and Rasmussen published another strip, "Gramps," from 1982 to 1985.
"The Swan Factory," a strip by Cuyler Black about characters in a fitness gym, first appeared in May 1996, distributed by Creators Syndicate. When he was 17, Black created "Furtree High," a daily strip about animal characters in a high school, which ran in the Ottawa Citizen from January 1984 to June 1990.
A strip looking at the senior side of life, "Olding Up Well," started at the London Free Press in 1989. Drawn by Rodney Everitt and written by Devin Govindasany, it was picked up by the Toronto Star Syndicate in December 1990, but dropped in March 1992. It was collected as You're Not Aging, You're Evolving (1991).
Graphic novels are a natural progression from the underground comics of the 1960s and 70s. These are often full-length books that either lean heavily on research or are based on autobiographical storylines. Four Canadian cartoonists have made their marks in this genre: Seth, Colin Upton, Chester Brown and Dave Sim.
Seth (né Gregory Gallant) is a thoughtful cartoonist whose nostalgic work focuses on small-town life. His series "Palookaville" is a mainstay in independent comics. His stories are filled with solitary and alienated characters searching for meaning within storylines that can teeter between the present and the past. Seth's latest work is the series called "Clyde Fans," a collected volume released by Drawn and Quarterly.
In Vancouver, Colin Upton was influenced by the autobiographical comics of Harvey Pekar. In 1985 he self-published his first chap book comic "Socialist Turtle" and "The Granville Street Gallery." These grew to over 60 mini-comics and digests. In 1990, he published the first "Big Thing" comic consisting of mostly autobiographical material. Fantagraphics Books picked him up, publishing four more issues.
In 2003, Chester Brown created a Canadian classic cartoon book, Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography. Painstakingly researched, the book took five years to produce. Brown began his career with a self-published mini-comic called "Yummy Fur," which included his creation "Ed the Happy Clown." The Clown series followed the hapless misfortunes of a dysfunctional children's entertainer and shocked people with its disturbing imagery and raw power.
Dave Sim's "Cerebus," a self-published series, ran monthly from 1977 to March 2004. At 300 issues and 6,000 pages, it holds the record as the longest-running English-language comic book series by a single writer/artist. After publishing the Cerebus Phonebooks, paperback volumes of his cartoons with first print runs available only by mail order, Sims became a wealthy phenomenon. Later on he became an outspoken advocate of creators' rights in comics and used the editorial pages of "Cerebus" to promote self-publishing and greater artist activism. His work alienated a large number of his fans, however, when his unabashed misogyny and rejection of the feminist viewpoint became a favourite hobby horse.
In 2004, an issue of "Free Comic Book Day" (where a free comic is published and issued to comic book specialty shops across North America) was published under the title "COMICS FESTIVAL!" It featured artists from across North America, 75 per cent of them Canadian cartoonists. The issue is well worth seeking out as it displays some the best established and emerging talent of the Canadian pantheon today.
An award celebrating Canadian cartoonists and named after prolific artist Douglas Austin Wright began in Toronto in 2005. The award celebrates outstanding work by both established and emerging Canadian cartoonists.
See also Art Illustration; Political Cartoons.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/cartoons-and-comic-strips/
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ARCHIVED - Precursors, 1849-1928Although there are many early examples throughout the world of what might be called graphic narrative, the first comic strips, as such, appeared in Europe in the latter part of the 19th century. In North America, the newspaper strip was inaugurated in 1895 in the New York World, with the publication of Richard Felton Outcault's "Hogan's Alley," which featured the Yellow Kid. Numerous rival strips soon followed, as American newspapers competed for a growing readership of children and adults who were drawn to the new art form. English-Canadian comic art began to appear not long after. It can be seen, as can its American counterpart, as growing out of a distinguished national tradition of political cartooning.Canadian cartooning began in earnest with the publication, in Montréal in 1849, of Punch in Canada. Modeled after its famous British namesake, the Canadian Punch featured cartoons by John Henry Walker, its multi-talented editor and publisher. Although the weekly was short-lived, it paved the way for a host of similar 19th-century journals, such as The Jester, The Grumbler, Grinchuckle, and Diogenes. Like Punch in Canada, most of these operated only briefly, and certainly none approached the success of the country's leading Victorian periodical, the somewhat more staid Canadian Illustrated News. Inaugurated at Montréal in 1869, the Canadian Illustrated News published the work of numerous artists and cartoonists. One of its best early illustrators was the Frenchman Edward Jump, who specialized in caricatures of political figures. Jump worked on the paper from 1871 until 1873, when he left for the United States.
Though the early illustrated adventures of the Brownies combined cartoon images with text (poetry), these two elements were not sufficiently integrated to fully constitute comic art. It was with the spin-off Brownies' newspaper comic strip, drawn and written by Cox and published from about 1898 to 1907, that English Canada saw its first non-political comic art. In the last year or so of the strip Cox made use of the word balloons that became a defining feature of comics. By this time, the artist had returned to Granby, where he lived in "Brownie Castle" until his death in 1924. There were other important cartoonists in this era, including Cox's fellow Quebecker Arthur G. Racey, Henri Julien's eventual successor at the Montreal Star. Racey produced a memorable series of emigration-related cartoons entitled "The Englishman in Canada." He also contributed to The Moon, an influential illustrated humour magazine that appeared in Toronto in 1901. Around the same time, the artist J. B. Fitzmaurice began his career at the Vancouver Daily Province. Fitzmaurice, whose cartoons were often presented in a comic-strip style (with narrative sustained through several panels or through serial cartoons), can be counted among the earliest Canadian comic artists. A contemporary of Racey's and Fitzmaurice's was Bob Edwards, who launched one of the nation's most irreverent papers, the Calgary Eye-Opener, in 1902. While Edwards served as the Eye-Opener's first cartoonist, he later hired professional artists such as Donald McRitchie and Charles H. Forrester. Both the paper and its legendary founder died in 1922.1 In the first years of the 20th century, Canadian comic-strip art was only just emerging as a lively new art form. Over the next two decades it continued to gradually develop, and, in English Canada, the American newspaper syndicates that dominated the medium shaped its growth. For many years, most aspiring English-Canadian comic-strip artists were obliged to pursue their dreams south of the border. Consequently, for a time, the two main centres of comic art by English Canadians were New York and Chicago. Although Palmer Cox and several Canadian political cartoonists had flirted with the comic-strip format at the turn of the century, it was probably the cartoonist H. A. McGill -- a Nova Scotian living in New York -- who was the first English Canadian to work full time as a comic-strip artist. In 1904, McGill turned his attention from political cartooning to newspaper strips in which he depicted the lives of young workers in the city. The most popular of these, "The Hall-Room Boys" (later retitled "Percy & Ferdy"), first appeared in 1906. It ran for several years before being collected in book format by the noted comic-strip reprint publisher Cupples and Leon in 1921. Not long after McGill's initial success in the US, Russell Patterson, an American-born cartoonist who grew up in Canada, placed his strip, "Pierre et Pierrette," with the Montréal paper La Patrie. When Patterson was rejected by the Canadian army at the outbreak of the First World War, he moved to Chicago, where he became a leading US illustrator and sometime comic-strip artist. In New York, Quebecker Raoul Barré created a strip called "Noah's Ark" for the McClure Newspaper Syndicate in 1912. (A French-language version of the strip was published in La Patrie the following year, titled "À l'hôtel du Père Noé.") Barré -- known in the US as "Barre" -- soon ceased his activities as a cartoonist to become a leading pioneer in film animation, and in 1914, in New York, opened the first true animation studio, where he introduced numerous innovations. Although Barré stopped working on his own comic strips, he did produce animated shorts based on Bud Fisher's popular "Mutt and Jeff."
The same year that Frise began "Life's Little Comedies," the humour magazine The Goblin was launched in Toronto. During the roaring 20s it featured a number of talented cartoonists, some of whom -- such as Richard Taylor (who would later become one of the greatest New Yorker cartoonists) and Lou Skuce -- also worked on comic strips. |
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CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 37, NUMBER 1, FALL 2002
Pow! Zap! Wham!
Creating Comic Books from Picture Books in
Social Studies Classrooms
Gregory Bryan,
Brigham Young University
George W. Chilcoat,
Brigham Young University
Timothy G. Morrison,
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
George W. Chilcoat,
Brigham Young University
Timothy G. Morrison,
Brigham Young University
Abstract
| Students' documented lack of interest in social studies has led to many attempts by teachers to make school learning more relevant to the lives of their learners. This article demonstrates two ways to deal with that apathy: First, the use of picture books is encouraged and second, a popular culture format, the comic book, is advocated as a method for students to use to illustrate their learning. We provide suggestions on how to help students create their own comic books to demonstrate their learning of social studies content gained in part through study of picture books. Specific instructions are given about how to create comic books and a student example of a comic book showing his understanding of Inuit culture is featured. |
Having a sense of "been there, seen that,"
I can never resist a smile when I read popular Canadian story-teller
Robert Munsch's book Thomas ' Snowsuit (1985). I've seen some dreadfully
ugly snowsuits during my time in Canada, but it didn't take me long
to recognize that, at least in my life, warmth takes precedence over
fashion. Despite my mirth, I find I cannot help but wonder if there
really is much to laugh about when enduring those long, cold Canadian
winters. There have been times when I've opted for something akin
to "three warm snowsuits, three warm parkas, six warm mittens,
six warm socks and one pair of very warm boot sort of things called
mukluks!" (Munsch 1986). It is a special kind of person who can
face those frozen Arctic breezes with a smile on the face. Life in
Canada's North Country presents all types of difficult challenges--especially
when one considers the additional threat of the mythical Qallupilluit
wanting to drag little children through cracks in the ice (Munsch
& Kusugak 1988)! One cannot help but be filled with admiration
for the Inuit people who for so long have endured Canada's seemingly
endless winters, struggling against the elements while retelling legends
that help to explain their surroundings.
- lead author
Many social studies teachers continually struggle against student apathy. Students regard social studies as a tiresome subject. The unpopularity is caused in part by traditional approaches to instruction and partly by the textbooks employed in such instruction. To provide a more student-friendly alternative, we advocate the use of popular culture in a literature-based, picture book-reliant, approach to social studies instruction. We believe that through this approach teachers can positively change students' attitudes toward social studies.
Although there are many possible uses of popular culture
within the classroom, this article concentrates on a social studies
example, with the Inuit way of life as its focus. In this instance,
students are involved in design and production of comic books. In
their quest for knowledge about the Inuit, students are encouraged
to read from a variety of picture books. After becoming familiar with
the topic, students begin working upon their comic book presentations.
While our focus here is with intermediate grades in the elementary
school, applications can readily be made in secondary school settings.
Before presenting our classroom example, we provide a rationale for
our approach, by emphasizing the value of a popular culture, literature-based
instructional design in motivating students. Additionally, we present
a brief overview of the history of comic books in Canada.3
Stimulating Interest in Social Studies
At all grade levels social studies is the least popular school subject (Chilcoat 1995; Sewall 1988; Tunnell & Jacobs 2000). The traditional approach to social studies instruction relies heavily upon the course textbook (Holmes & Armmon 1985). Unfortunately, there is evidence that the traditional approach to social studies instruction is a key source of students' disinterest in the subject (Chilcoat 1993; 1995) and that overuse of textbooks is one of the major reasons children find social studies tedious (Sewall 1988; Tunnell & Jacobs 2000)
At all grade levels social studies is the least popular school subject (Chilcoat 1995; Sewall 1988; Tunnell & Jacobs 2000). The traditional approach to social studies instruction relies heavily upon the course textbook (Holmes & Armmon 1985). Unfortunately, there is evidence that the traditional approach to social studies instruction is a key source of students' disinterest in the subject (Chilcoat 1993; 1995) and that overuse of textbooks is one of the major reasons children find social studies tedious (Sewall 1988; Tunnell & Jacobs 2000)
Trade Books Over Textbooks
Unfortunately, many students do not value social studies as being important in their lives (Chilcoat 1995). This is at least partly because textbooks are ineffective in helping children make relevant connections between social studies content and their own lives (Tunnell & Jacobs 2000). Little wonder that children experience difficulty making personal connections, as children are almost never mentioned in textbooks (Tunnell & Jacobs 2000). Textbooks cover so much material that it is impossible for a reader to obtain intimate, personal views of individual lives (Moore, Moore, Cunningham & Cunningham 1986). After all, "the function of any textbook is to provide a skeleton of subject information" (Tonjes & Zintz 1987, 324).
Unfortunately, many students do not value social studies as being important in their lives (Chilcoat 1995). This is at least partly because textbooks are ineffective in helping children make relevant connections between social studies content and their own lives (Tunnell & Jacobs 2000). Little wonder that children experience difficulty making personal connections, as children are almost never mentioned in textbooks (Tunnell & Jacobs 2000). Textbooks cover so much material that it is impossible for a reader to obtain intimate, personal views of individual lives (Moore, Moore, Cunningham & Cunningham 1986). After all, "the function of any textbook is to provide a skeleton of subject information" (Tonjes & Zintz 1987, 324).
To help students become more excited about social studies,
trade books offer two important advantages over textbooks: more engaging
writing and a greater variety of perspectives (Moore et al. 1986).
Concerning their value in teaching children, Holmes and Ammon (1985)
identify six advantages trade books boast over textbooks: greater
range of reading levels, variety of viewpoints, both breadth and depth
of content coverage, more current information, more visually appealing,
and a variety of styles and formats. Tunnell and Jacobs (2000) go
even further and ascribe no less than nine major advantages to teaching
the curriculum through trade books: depth of content, many perspectives,
current information, variety of writing styles, voice in the writing,
range of reading levels, rich language, varied formats and structures,
and tools for lifelong learning.
Indeed, the use of children's literature in general
has many and varied benefits. Literature provides enjoyable access
to and exploration of the world outside children's own limited experience
(Morrison & Chilcoat 1998; Yopp & Yopp 2001). A literature-based
approach promotes an exciting and stimulating classroom environment
because of the inspirational, informative, nurturing, and affective
impact literature exerts (Yopp & Yopp 2001). To this end, Pantaleo
(2000) has specifically identified Canadian picture books for use
in the social studies classroom.
While advantages for use of trade books are great,
several potential drawbacks also exist. Authors of fictional books
may not utilize standards of accuracy and completeness that authors
of informational books. Space restrictions in some trade books may
also limit the amount of information than can be presented. Despite
these concerns, the advantages to using trade books in classrooms
seems warranted.
The Importance of Popular Culture
We live in a time when media messages dominate our lives as never before. Because we are surrounded by media — from books to magazines, film to television, computer games to the worldwide web — teachers should help their students become critical users of a variety of media sources (Alvermann, Moon, & Hagood 1999; Dyson 1997). Students ought to recognize the impact of popular culture in molding their identities. They should also develop critical media literacy, including the ability to appraise the content of media messages (Buckingham 1998). Some teachers are reluctant to utilize popular culture in the classroom, preferring to retain an in-school/out-of-school dichotomy (Stevens 2001). Teachers fear that non-traditional instructional approaches deny students time they could otherwise devote to gaining exposure to supposedly more significant material. Because many teachers want their students engaged in rigorous scholastic endeavors, they resist activities that appear frivolous.
We live in a time when media messages dominate our lives as never before. Because we are surrounded by media — from books to magazines, film to television, computer games to the worldwide web — teachers should help their students become critical users of a variety of media sources (Alvermann, Moon, & Hagood 1999; Dyson 1997). Students ought to recognize the impact of popular culture in molding their identities. They should also develop critical media literacy, including the ability to appraise the content of media messages (Buckingham 1998). Some teachers are reluctant to utilize popular culture in the classroom, preferring to retain an in-school/out-of-school dichotomy (Stevens 2001). Teachers fear that non-traditional instructional approaches deny students time they could otherwise devote to gaining exposure to supposedly more significant material. Because many teachers want their students engaged in rigorous scholastic endeavors, they resist activities that appear frivolous.
Others, however, welcome additional instructional resources.
We suggest three reasons that support the use of popular culture in
the social studies classroom. First, popular culture is
relevant to the lives of children. Use of popular culture can, therefore, diminish the disparity children perceive between their lives in and out of school by legitimizing many of their after school pursuits (Buckingham 1998). Second, there is no denying that popular culture is just that--popular. Students do enjoy it (Wright & Sherman 1999). Third, educators are obligated to prepare students for the world outside the classroom walls, where popular culture boasts a significant presence (Stevens 2001).
relevant to the lives of children. Use of popular culture can, therefore, diminish the disparity children perceive between their lives in and out of school by legitimizing many of their after school pursuits (Buckingham 1998). Second, there is no denying that popular culture is just that--popular. Students do enjoy it (Wright & Sherman 1999). Third, educators are obligated to prepare students for the world outside the classroom walls, where popular culture boasts a significant presence (Stevens 2001).
Many advocate a popular culture approach to teaching
across the curriculum (Alvermann et al. 1999; Chilcoat 1993; Dobrowolski
1976; Koenke 1981; Swain 1978; Schoof 1978). We promote the use of
student construction of comic books. Such creative projects can be
a culminating activity for students to present their learning at the
conclusion of a unit of study. The approach can be comfortably incorporated
into literature-based instruction, including reference to books such
as Munsch's playful creations. Our purpose is to describe how comic
book design can be used to inspire greater interest in social studies,
while also assisting students in developing their writing, comprehension,
and research skills in a cross-curricular activity.
Comic Book History
The comic book has been a staple reading source for children since 1937, when it first appeared as a "markedly different form of entertainment for youngsters" (Walker 1971, 5). This new form of entertainment rapidly gained popularity in the United States, and in just a few months American publishers began exporting thousands of comic books to Canada. As an economy measure during the lean times of the Second World War, the Canadian Government banned foreign comic books. In December 1940, the War Exchange Conservation
Act banned the importation of certain "non-essential" items into Canada (Walker 1971). By this time, however, Canadian children were hooked on comics. A Toronto publisher named Cyril Vaughan Bell enthusiastically and opportunistically stepped forth to fill the void. Bell encouraged his artists to create "All-Canadian" heroes. Thus, Dixon of the Mounted, Nelvana of the Northern Lights, Johnny Canuck, and the Cape Bretoner, Derek of Bras d'Or, were born. Bell bombarded Canadian children with more than 20 million comic books before the war rumbled to its conclusion. Most of these Canadian comic books were printed in black-and-white, which is why collectors refer to these as the "Canadian Whites" (Walker 1971). When the war ended and the restrictions on imports were lifted, Cy Bell's comics disappeared. It has been unfairly suggested that they did so because they paled in comparison to the superior quality of American comics. Comics flooded back from the south, and the Canadian comic industry floundered because it was unable to compete financially.
The comic book has been a staple reading source for children since 1937, when it first appeared as a "markedly different form of entertainment for youngsters" (Walker 1971, 5). This new form of entertainment rapidly gained popularity in the United States, and in just a few months American publishers began exporting thousands of comic books to Canada. As an economy measure during the lean times of the Second World War, the Canadian Government banned foreign comic books. In December 1940, the War Exchange Conservation
Act banned the importation of certain "non-essential" items into Canada (Walker 1971). By this time, however, Canadian children were hooked on comics. A Toronto publisher named Cyril Vaughan Bell enthusiastically and opportunistically stepped forth to fill the void. Bell encouraged his artists to create "All-Canadian" heroes. Thus, Dixon of the Mounted, Nelvana of the Northern Lights, Johnny Canuck, and the Cape Bretoner, Derek of Bras d'Or, were born. Bell bombarded Canadian children with more than 20 million comic books before the war rumbled to its conclusion. Most of these Canadian comic books were printed in black-and-white, which is why collectors refer to these as the "Canadian Whites" (Walker 1971). When the war ended and the restrictions on imports were lifted, Cy Bell's comics disappeared. It has been unfairly suggested that they did so because they paled in comparison to the superior quality of American comics. Comics flooded back from the south, and the Canadian comic industry floundered because it was unable to compete financially.
In 1954, however, comic books came under severe attack
for "corrupt[ing] the innocent minds of the American youth"
(Chilcoat & Ligon 1994, 35). Throughout the 1950s and 60s, ideological
publications called "comix" became underground tools developed
to champion social causes (Bunce 1996; Chilcoat & Ligon 1994).
By the 1970s comics had reassumed their position of prominence.
Even today, comic books remain popular worldwide, and
"their scope continues to expand" (Bunce 1996, 12). Indeed,
one publisher claims that comic books are about to exert a greater
impact than ever before (Work 2000).Recently, the market for the graphic
novel, a long-form comic book, has flourished. Wolk (2000) reports,
"Every couple of years there's a graphic novel so strong that
it pulls in tens of thousands of new readers who haven't looked at
comics in decades" (38).
Our observations show that comics are still popular
with children. After all, they are like "a map or a guidebook
to vicarious thrills" (Town 1971, 261). The comic is a form of
literature with which children are familiar--a form they enjoy. Given
the opportunity to create and share their own comic books, students
engage in greater literacy exploration than they otherwise might,
as the comic provides a popular and easily accessible format. Such
methodology enlivens a classroom.
Creating and sharing books is an essential component
of holistic approaches to school instruction. Comic book design provides
another opportunity for students to be creative in the presentation
of their writing. Use of comic books also enhances instruction in
comprehension strategies. Ever since Dolores Durkin (1978-79) called
attention to social studies teachers' failed attempts — or more
precisely, lack of attempts — to provide comprehension instruction
teachers have been more aware of the necessity of focussing on this
area of student learning. Reviews of research indicate that retelling
and determining importance of text are two of a relatively small set
of comprehension strategies (Harvey & Goudvis 2000; Keene &
Zimmermann 1997; Pressley & Woloshyn 1995). Creating comic books
requires students to determine what is most important from their readings,
to re-phrase it succinctly, and then to organize it logically. Indeed,
one can consider identifying key ideas, summarizing and re-organizing
information in a comic book format as an illustrated, intensive version
of the proven story-retelling strategy described by Gambrell, Pfeiffer
and Wilson (1985).
A further advantage to this approach is that it offers
students an opportunity to develop preliminary research abilities,
thus developing skills which will be important to them as they progress
through the grades. Students are required to locate information, organize
it, and present it in a way that both informs and entertains. Emphasizing
the use of picture books as reference materials in studying the Inuit
way of life can enliven this unit of study. Teachers never seem to
have enough time to cover all that is required of them. Teachers,
therefore, will appreciate the opportunity to engage their students
in this cross-curricular activity which embraces language arts, social
studies, and visual arts.
Initially students familiarize themselves with the
lives of the Inuit, including several of their legends and some of
the unique challenges of living in such a hostile climate. A variety
of quality picture books are readily available from many libraries.
Students can sup from these abbreviated texts in order to quickly
gain an overview of the topic. Teachers could include several titles
as read alouds to acquaint the whole class with several features of
Inuit culture. Students could read several of the books together as
a class with the teacher modeling how to locate and organize information
from a book. For your convenience, at the end of this article we include
references for selected works appropriate for elementary school readers.
Comic Book Construction
Before students begin to actually design their comic book creations, they need to have researched the topic, having located, collected, and organized their information. We will now proceed to detail the development of comic books, with especial focus upon page layout, story development, drawing, and narration. Following this description, we provide an example of one student's comic book presentation.
Before students begin to actually design their comic book creations, they need to have researched the topic, having located, collected, and organized their information. We will now proceed to detail the development of comic books, with especial focus upon page layout, story development, drawing, and narration. Following this description, we provide an example of one student's comic book presentation.
Page Lay-Out
A comic book is made up of a number of paneled pages (see Figure 1). A panel is the fundamental unit of comic art. As a series of still pictures, a panel combines with other panels to convey scenes in the story. Each panel is a bordered illustration that contains visual information — drawings, word balloons, captions, and sound effects.
A comic book is made up of a number of paneled pages (see Figure 1). A panel is the fundamental unit of comic art. As a series of still pictures, a panel combines with other panels to convey scenes in the story. Each panel is a bordered illustration that contains visual information — drawings, word balloons, captions, and sound effects.
To structure a comic book, determine the number of
scenes required to tell the story. A scene can be as brief as two
or three panels or can stretch into several pages. Group each sequence
of panels into an arrangement that portrays the scene. Determine the
size and shape of each panel. The panel's shape is designed to accentuate
feeling, provide dramatic impact, and define movement. Varying the
size of the panels is one way of slowing down and speeding up the
action within a scene. Adding more panels speeds up the action, while
reducing the number of panels slows the pacing.
Panels are usually rectangular. The number and placement
of panels on a page influence the ease with which readers follow the
story. Modifying the size and/or shape of panels makes the story more
readable and dramatic. Layouts should be simple, clean and concise.
Putting too much information in one panel or creating unusual panel
shapes can both inhibit the flow of a story and interfere with understanding.
Panel borders can be drawn freehand or with a ruler.
The space between panels, called a "gutter," may be no more
than a simple dividing line or may be varied to imply action, movement,
or transition between panels. The author might effectively utilize
a variety of panels to satisfy different purposes. Contiguous panels
are a montage of same-size panels suggesting rapid movement (e.g.,
five or six individual thin vertical panels presented together create
a rapid-fire exchange effect). Text-heavy panels may contain a picture
with a side caption bar, an unusual amount of text, a large number
of narrative boxes, or a cluster of captions. Insert panels are usually
small rectangle panels that highlight in detail something occurring
in a larger panel. Meta-panels are a set of effective smaller insert
or inner-panels.
The cover page, important to every comic book, is a
striking, fully illustrated page that tells the story in one picture.
The illustration highlights the basic story line, giving the reader
a hint of the comic's content. It should portray the major character(s).
The drawing must be clear, visually concise, powerful, dramatic, intriguing,
and energetic. The cover page should also include the title of the
comic and the name of the author.
Figure 1. Types of panels commonly used in creating
comic books.
Story Development
To develop the comic book plot, one must consider three components--story structure, script format, and characterization. Attention to each of these will lead to the overall structure of the comic book.
To develop the comic book plot, one must consider three components--story structure, script format, and characterization. Attention to each of these will lead to the overall structure of the comic book.
Story Structure
Story structure helps balance the story by dividing the series of events into three general parts--a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The beginning establishes the setting, including place, time, and main characters, as well as initiating the conflict or problem of the story. The middle contains the bulk of the story. Through a series of events the story develops and escalates as characters face difficulties in achieving their goals. The ending provides the climax and resolution of the story.
Story structure helps balance the story by dividing the series of events into three general parts--a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The beginning establishes the setting, including place, time, and main characters, as well as initiating the conflict or problem of the story. The middle contains the bulk of the story. Through a series of events the story develops and escalates as characters face difficulties in achieving their goals. The ending provides the climax and resolution of the story.
Script Formatting
After the plot has been developed, one needs to create a visual road map for the design of the comic book. The story needs to be translated into a number of panels and pages. Determine how many panels and pages are needed for each of the beginning, middle, and ending scenes.
Decide how many panels will fit on each page. The number of panels on each page depends on how the sequence of each of the individual scenes will play out. Each panel includes a rough sketch of its setting, action, and characters, and it also includes notes about possible dialogue, captions, and/or sound effects. These panels can serve as a story outline. For example, one might show borders, make notes about story events, sketch in stick figures representing characters, and jot down possible conversation. Script formatting affords an opportunity to check for inconsistencies and errors of action and sequence before making final drawings.
After the plot has been developed, one needs to create a visual road map for the design of the comic book. The story needs to be translated into a number of panels and pages. Determine how many panels and pages are needed for each of the beginning, middle, and ending scenes.
Decide how many panels will fit on each page. The number of panels on each page depends on how the sequence of each of the individual scenes will play out. Each panel includes a rough sketch of its setting, action, and characters, and it also includes notes about possible dialogue, captions, and/or sound effects. These panels can serve as a story outline. For example, one might show borders, make notes about story events, sketch in stick figures representing characters, and jot down possible conversation. Script formatting affords an opportunity to check for inconsistencies and errors of action and sequence before making final drawings.
Characterization
Comic book characters are not developed as completely as one would normally expect in story narratives. They are usually portrayed stereotypically, as larger than life. The protagonist is all conquering, all capable, and all good (e.g., Superman, Johnny Canuck, X-Men, Batman), whereas the antagonist is the opposite (e.g., Lex Luther, Hitler, Magneto, The Penguin). As students are here reporting on historical figures or ways of life, they should portray characters as rounded, more realistic individuals. To avoid confusion, it is important to exercise care in constructing and drawing characters that can be easily distinguished from one another.
Drawing
Although the purpose of this project is not necessarily to produce fine art, if a teacher reminds students of a few simple guidelines their end products will be more visually pleasing. We suggest that students draw each panel as realistically and as believably as possible. In each scene, students should endeavor to reflect what they have learned from their research. Students should keep their drawings simple, avoiding the clutter of too much detail. Finally, it is best not to place the "center-of-interest" in the middle of a panel. A more compelling alternative is to place the focus elsewhere in the panel.
Although the purpose of this project is not necessarily to produce fine art, if a teacher reminds students of a few simple guidelines their end products will be more visually pleasing. We suggest that students draw each panel as realistically and as believably as possible. In each scene, students should endeavor to reflect what they have learned from their research. Students should keep their drawings simple, avoiding the clutter of too much detail. Finally, it is best not to place the "center-of-interest" in the middle of a panel. A more compelling alternative is to place the focus elsewhere in the panel.
Foreground and Background
In comic books, action may take place on two planes--foreground and background. Generally, people or things in the foreground are the main focus of the panel. It is where most of the action takes place. Foreground illustrations are often larger and more detailed than background drawings, and they sometimes partially obscure background objects.
Along with narration, the background helps create the setting for the panel. Background action usually complements the main action. A background can also serve an integral purpose, depicting such things as fire, storms, or buildings. Excessive background detail can, however, slow the story's pace, distracting the reader from the plot. If background details have been established in an earlier panel, one might omit them and merely draw characters against a white backdrop.
In comic books, action may take place on two planes--foreground and background. Generally, people or things in the foreground are the main focus of the panel. It is where most of the action takes place. Foreground illustrations are often larger and more detailed than background drawings, and they sometimes partially obscure background objects.
Along with narration, the background helps create the setting for the panel. Background action usually complements the main action. A background can also serve an integral purpose, depicting such things as fire, storms, or buildings. Excessive background detail can, however, slow the story's pace, distracting the reader from the plot. If background details have been established in an earlier panel, one might omit them and merely draw characters against a white backdrop.
Drawing Characters
Although the narration helps tell the story, images show the story. While backgrounds and foregrounds provide the context for action, it is the characters themselves who carry the action. One must, therefore, take care in depicting characters. Their moods, feelings and attitudes can be expressed in facial expressions, gestures, and body movements.
Although the narration helps tell the story, images show the story. While backgrounds and foregrounds provide the context for action, it is the characters themselves who carry the action. One must, therefore, take care in depicting characters. Their moods, feelings and attitudes can be expressed in facial expressions, gestures, and body movements.
Penciling, Inking, and Coloring
Cartooning requires penciling, inking, and coloring. Penciling entails lightly drawing background and foreground details in all panels. After the details have been penciled in, the inking stage involves tracing the pencil lines to make them permanent. Adding color helps create mood and stimulate interest.
Camera Angle
To make a page more visually appealing, one can employ a variety of visual perspectives. One way to accomplish this is to consider the composition of each panel in terms of a "camera angle." Among the many camera angles found in comic books, the more frequently used include close ups, long shots, bird's eye views, and low angle shots.
To make a page more visually appealing, one can employ a variety of visual perspectives. One way to accomplish this is to consider the composition of each panel in terms of a "camera angle." Among the many camera angles found in comic books, the more frequently used include close ups, long shots, bird's eye views, and low angle shots.
Narration
Narration is chiefly used to convey essential written information and to carry the plot forward. There are three basic devises for narration: caption boxes, dialogue balloons, and sound effects.
The caption box is third person commentary describing the action in the panel. It may provide information about time, dates, names, or locations, etc. It is usually squared off at the top or bottom of the panel with text inside.
The dialogue balloon is a graphic dramatic device inside the panel that contains characters' thoughts or words. It is a shape linked with a "tail," or a row of ellipses, pointing to the character from whom the thoughts or words emanate. An off-panel balloon, with the tail pointing to a side of a panel is a useful technique to emphasize a point or just to make the panel more interesting. Most balloons occur in the top third of the panel. When more than one balloon appears within a panel, the highest balloon is read first. Manipulating graphic elements of the balloon, such as its shape, size, and boldness, combines with words and illustrations to render desired emotions.
A sound effect is the graphic written representation of a particular sound. It is a bold, onomatopoeic word located near its source. The size, color, and arrangement of the lettering help to capture the essence of the desired sound. When inscribing caption boxes, dialogue balloons, and sound effects, one should remember to keep lettering simple, straight, direct, and legible. This contributes to the overall quality of the comic book presentation.
Narration is chiefly used to convey essential written information and to carry the plot forward. There are three basic devises for narration: caption boxes, dialogue balloons, and sound effects.
The caption box is third person commentary describing the action in the panel. It may provide information about time, dates, names, or locations, etc. It is usually squared off at the top or bottom of the panel with text inside.
The dialogue balloon is a graphic dramatic device inside the panel that contains characters' thoughts or words. It is a shape linked with a "tail," or a row of ellipses, pointing to the character from whom the thoughts or words emanate. An off-panel balloon, with the tail pointing to a side of a panel is a useful technique to emphasize a point or just to make the panel more interesting. Most balloons occur in the top third of the panel. When more than one balloon appears within a panel, the highest balloon is read first. Manipulating graphic elements of the balloon, such as its shape, size, and boldness, combines with words and illustrations to render desired emotions.
A sound effect is the graphic written representation of a particular sound. It is a bold, onomatopoeic word located near its source. The size, color, and arrangement of the lettering help to capture the essence of the desired sound. When inscribing caption boxes, dialogue balloons, and sound effects, one should remember to keep lettering simple, straight, direct, and legible. This contributes to the overall quality of the comic book presentation.
Culminating Activities
By creating comic books, students are immersed in literature that provides them with information in an interesting format. At several points in the process of comic book construction, students could be reminded that they have acquired information that relates to the goals of their unit of study. Students could be asked to summarize their understanding on a series of charts that outline their learning. This process could lead to new questions that guide their search for additional information. After students have located and organized the information, they can create their comics and prepare to share them with others.
By creating comic books, students are immersed in literature that provides them with information in an interesting format. At several points in the process of comic book construction, students could be reminded that they have acquired information that relates to the goals of their unit of study. Students could be asked to summarize their understanding on a series of charts that outline their learning. This process could lead to new questions that guide their search for additional information. After students have located and organized the information, they can create their comics and prepare to share them with others.
Culminating activities give students opportunities
to demonstrate their learning and to share their work with others.
Among many possible alternatives, we suggest the following two--a
comic-book convention and a panel discussion.
The convention is a social event displaying student
comic books. Students design trade show booths with a dramatic backdrop
featuring a giant display of their cover pages. Within these booths,
students feature the original pages of their comic books and summarize
their content. In addition, students provide information on how their
comic book was designed and how they conducted the research to develop
it. They also discuss how the book relates to the assigned topic.
Inviting others to attend this event allows comic book creators to
present to a wider audience.
A second activity, the panel discussion, features groups
of students, exhibiting and discussing their comic books. Behind each
discussion area is a backdrop similar to the trade show booths. The
activity begins as students display their comic books and give brief
synopses. They then discuss the development, research, and motivation
for their comic books. Finally, they answer questions about their
experiences. The teacher may encourage students to develop a set of
questions they could ask panel members.
Conclusion
Student-generated comic books serve a variety of purposes. Comic book construction "is like literature in that it is concerned with telling a story, like illustration in that it uses drawings to give visual information, and like cinema in that it uses a combination of words and images to carry its message" (Tiner 1997, 145).
Student-generated comic books serve a variety of purposes. Comic book construction "is like literature in that it is concerned with telling a story, like illustration in that it uses drawings to give visual information, and like cinema in that it uses a combination of words and images to carry its message" (Tiner 1997, 145).
The comic book activity described in this article is
a means to an end. By creating and sharing their own comic books,
students engage in literacy exploration. They also investigate use
of dialogue, succinct and dramatic vocabulary, and non-verbal communications
in interesting and lively ways. A creative presentation of student
expository writing can be achieved using comic book design.
Comic book construction requires students to thoughtfully
utilize appropriate comprehension strategies. Students determine the
main ideas from their research and summarize their learning in comic
book format. Students display information in a manner that both informs
and entertains, embracing social studies, language arts, and visual
arts.
The comic book activity presents an innovative outlet
for students, providing them with an avenue to construct meaningful
associations and relationships. Students who have participated in
this creative process support it enthusiastically. They believe they
learn a great deal more from this type of approach than by traditional
teaching methods.
The value of comic book construction is enhanced by
the use of picture books. Students begin to realize that many sources
of information exist beyond the textbook, sources to which they may
turn in the future as they search for new knowledge. Teachers can
share current picture books that invite students to experience a variety
of cultures and issues. Picture books can breathe life into content
area study.
A Selection of Picture Books Useful in Learning about
Inuit Life
Dabcovich, L. 1997. The Polar Bear Son: An Inuit
Tale. New York: Clarion Books.
Ekoomiak, N. 1988. Arctic Memories. Toronto:
NC Press.
George, J. C. 1997. Arctic Son. Illustrated by
W. Minor. New York: Hyperion Books.
George, J. C. 1999. Snow Bear. Illustrated by
W. Minor. New York: Hyperion Books.
Hewit, G. 1981. Ytek and the Arctic Orchid: An Inuit
Legend. Illustrated by H. Woodall. New
York: Vanguard Press.
York: Vanguard Press.
Leunn, N. 1990. Nessa's Fish. Illustrated by
N. Waldman. New York: Atheneum.
Leunn, N. 1994. Nessa's Story. Illustrated by
N. Waldman. New York: Atheneum.
McDermott, B. B. 1975. Sedna: An Eskimo Myth.
New York: Viking Press.
Philip, N. (Ed.). 1995. Songs are Thoughts: Poems
of the Inuit. Illustrated by M. Foal New York: Orchard Books.
Sage, J. 1993. Where the Great Bear Watches.
Illustrated by L. Flather. New York: Viking.
Shaw-MacKinnon, M. 1996. Tiktala. Illustrated
by L. Gal. Toronto: Stoddart.
Steltzer, U. 1981. Building an Igloo. New York:
Henry Holt.
Taylor, H. P. 1998. Ulaq and the Northern Lights.
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
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Books in the Classroom." Language Arts 55: 821-27.
Sewall, G. T. 1988. "American History Textbooks:
Where do we go from here?" Phi Delta Kappan 69: 552-58.
Stevens, L. P. 2001. "South Park and Society: Instructional
and Curricular Implications of Popular Culture in the Classroom."
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 44: 548-55.
Swain, E. H. 1978. "Using comic books to teach
reading and language arts." Journal of Reading 22: 253-58.
Tiner, R. 1997. Figure drawing without a model.
Brunel House, England: David & Charles.
Tonjes, M. J., and M. V. Zintz. 1987. Teaching reading
thinking study skills in content classrooms (2nd ed.). Dubuque,
IA: Wm. C. Brown.
Town, H. 1971. "Afterword." In The great
Canadian comic books, M. Hirsh, and P. Loubert, 260-264. Toronto:
Peter Martin Associates.
Tunnell, M. O., and J. S. Jacobs. 2000. Children's
literature, briefly (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.
Walker, A. 1971. "Historical perspective."
In The great Canadian comic books, M. Hirsh, and P. Loubert,
5-21. Toronto: Peter Martin Associates.
Wolk, D. "Comics: Not Just for Specialty Stores
Any More." Publishers Weekly, 16 October 2000, 36-43.
Wright, G., and R. Sherman. 1999. "Let's create
a comic strip." Reading Improvement 36: 66-72.
Yopp, R. H., and H. K. Yopp. 2001. Literature-based
reading activities (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn
& Bacon.
& Bacon.
Greg Bryan taught for four years in elementary schools
in Northwestern Ontario. He is presently pursuing graduate studies
at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Skip Chilcoat is a Professor of Social Studies Education
in the Department of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University
in Provo, Utah.
Tim Morrison is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education
in the Department of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University
in Provo, Utah.
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CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
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| Canadian Social Studies is an indexed, refereed
journal published quarterly on-line at the University of Alberta. It
is a journal of comment and criticism on social education and publishes
articles on curricular issues relating to history, geography, social
sciences, and social studies. Canadian Social Studies is under copyright. Unless otherwise designated, permission is granted to download and distribute individual student copies of anything in this journal as long as it is for non-profit educational use in the classroom. Copyright permission includes the requirement to include the following on the first page of any duplicated material: "Canadian Social Studies, www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css Canada's national social studies journal - by permission." All other duplication or distribution requires the editor's permission. |
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| George Richardson - Editor | |||||||||||||
| Editorial Board | Previous Issues | Indexing Services | Manuscript Guidelines | |||||||||||||
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Columns
Voices from the
Past by Ken Osborne - The Senate Textbook Debate of 1944
The Iconoclast by John McMurtry
- Twelve Questions about Globalization
Quebec Report by Jon G.
Bradley - Citizenship Education and Tolerance
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Articles | |||||||||||||
Features
Pow! Zap! Wham!
Creating Comic Books from Picture Books in Social Studies Classrooms
Gregory Bryan, George W. Chilcoat, and Timothy G. Morrison
Social Studies Class
- Poem
Nzingha Austin | |||||||||||||
Book Reviews
Olga M. Welch and Carolyn R. Hodges. 1997.Standing
Outside on the Inside: Black Adolescents and the Construction of Academic
Identity.
Reviewed by Gulbahar Beckett.
David J. Rees with Michael G. Jones. 1999. Global
Systems.
Reviewed by Kenneth Boyd.
Tarry Lindquist and Douglas Selwyn. 2000.Social
Studies at the Center: Integrating Kids, Content, and Literacy.
Reviewed by Jon G. Bradley
Barb McDermott and Gail McKeown. 1999.All
About…Canadian Geographical Regions.
Reviewed by Linda Farr Darling
Wendy Cameron and Mary McDougall Maude. 2000.Assisting
Emigration to Upper Canada: The Petworth Project, 1832-1837.
Reviewed by George Hoffman
Margaret Thompson. 2000.Eyewitness
Reviewed by David Mandzuk and Jayne Mandzuk
Patrick O'Meara, Howard D. Mehlinger and Matthew Krain,
Eds. 2000. Globalization
and the Challenges of a New Century: A Reader
Reviewed by John R. Meyer | |||||||||||||
Editorial Board
Editor
George Richardson - Editor Manuscript Review Editors Robert Fowler, University of Victoria Alan Sears, University of New Brunswick Columnists Jon G. Bradley, McGill University Penney Clark, University of British Columbia David Kilgour, M.P., Edmonton Southeast John McMurtry, University of Guelph Ken Osborne, University of Manitoba (Emeritus) |
Features Editors
Kathy Bradford, University of Western Ontario (Book Reviews) Jim Parsons, University of Alberta (Classroom Teaching) |
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Indexing Services
Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and
indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life and
by the Canadian Education Association; Corpus Almanac & Canadian
Sourcebook; Ulrich's lnt. Pedcs. Directory; ERIC; Canadian Education
Index, Micromedia Limited; and H. W. Wilson Company.
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From the Editor
With this volume (number 37), Canadian Social Studies
begins another year of service to the social studies community in
Canada. As in the past, we have attempted to position the journal
in such a way that it remains a valuable resource for academics and
classroom teachers alike.
In that light, contributions to this issue range from Skip Chilcoat,
Tim Morrison, and Greg Bryan's useful suggestions about how best to
use comic books in social studies classes, to Walt Werner's thoughtful
discussion about how students might engage media reports on religious
and sectarian violence in ways that counter cynicism and the tendency
to stereotype the "other." In this issue we also continue Penney Clark's series of interviews with prominent scholars and public figures on the role of history in social studies education. This time around, Dr. Clark has chosen to interview Rudyard Griffith, the Executive Director of the Dominion Institute. I hope you find the Fall, 2002 issue of Canadian Social Studies both informative and thought-provoking. The Editor |
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POW! BLAM! ZOWIE! eh?
A new book unearths the hidden curiosities of Canadian comic book art.
The battles between Johnny Canuck and Adolf Hitler appeared in Dime Comics in 1942, in a series of stories by Leo Bachle, a 16-year-old cartoonist. Exuberant and absurd, deeply felt and dopey, these comic book stories show us the drama of world politics refracted through adolescent Canadian eyes.
Superhero comic books, although they base their psychological appeal on childhood power fantasies, are almost always nationalist allegories. Just as in the Middle Ages the king’s body was a microcosm for the nation he ruled, so in modern times the superhero’s mighty strength is an embodiment of national will. Johnny Canuck spoke to the self-flattering belief that Canada’s efforts were crucial for defeating Hitler.
The link between superheroes and nationalism is one lesson that can be gleaned from John Bell’s Invaders from the North: How Canada Conquered the Comic Book Universe. Despite its bombastic title, Bell’s book is, at least in the chapters dealing with the superhero genre, a chronicle of failure. Bell speaks of “the somewhat quixotic search for distinctly Canadian superheroes.” “Quixotic” is le mot juste. No Canadian superhero has ever been successful for a sustained period or left a mark on the popular imagination, although there have been many rolls of the dice.
Time after time, Canadian publishers conjured up superheroes that supposedly embodied the national spirit. Aside from Johnny Canuck, there is Nelvana of the Northern Lights (a white goddess in a mini-dress who protected the Arctic from “Kablunets, Nazi allies armed with Thormite Rays”), Captain Jack (an all-round athlete who battled Nazi saboteurs), Northern Light (a science fiction hero whose enemies were space aliens), Captain Canuck (who also fought space monsters as well as complex international banking conspiracies) and the similarly monikered Captain Canada (originally known as Captain Newfoundland, he defended the royal family from giant Japanese robots).
All these characters have their goofy charm, but let’s face reality: none of them is a superhero of the first rank. They are not fit to hold the cape of Superman or Batman. They don’t even have what it takes to be a sidekick to Wonder Woman or Captain America. Creating a Canadian superhero is rather like growing bananas in Nunavut. With enough ingenuity and willpower you can do it, but is it worth doing?
There is something about Canada that resists superheroes. Even John Bell is forced to acknowledge this fact, although it clearly pains him. He is a fan of the superhero genre and his chapters on Johnny Canuck and the other Canadian caped crusaders brim over with boyish enthusiasm, a quality missing in the rest of his rather sober and fact-dense book.
Despite this ardour, Bell is well aware of how marginal and esoteric his subject is. As he notes, heroes like Johnny Canuck only existed because of a quirk of wartime economic planning. To protect Canada’s trade balance during World War II, the government forbade the importation of fiction periodicals, creating a temporary niche for Canadian publishers of pulp fiction magazines and comic books. When normal cross-border trade resumed, the market for Canadian comic books collapsed. Later, in the 1970s and after, a few fly-by-night independent publishers tried their hand at launching characters like Captain Canuck, with only limited and intermittent success.
Like many nationalistic Canadian comics fans, Bell takes pride in the fact that Joe Shuster, the co-creator of Superman, was born in Toronto. But Shuster was ten years old when his family moved to the United States, so he is really no more Canadian than Saul Bellow or Pamela Anderson.
Moreover, Superman, like the superhero genre he spawned, is a profoundly American idea. Superman was created at a turning point in American history, during the Great Depression. Economically debilitated, the U.S. was isolationist, but in a few short years it was ready to recover its strength and become the world’s leading superpower. Just as wimpy Clark Kent threw away his business suit to emerge as Superman, America was a great power waiting to flex its muscles. Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, Superman’s creators, were second-generation immigrant Jews. As such, they had multiple reasons for identifying with American nationalism; deep in their bones, they felt that only a superpower could defeat Hitler.
Ingrained in the superhero genre is a sense of America’s invincibility, its inherent goodness and its world historical destiny. For this reason, national heroes from other countries (be they Captain Canuck, Britain’s Jack Staff, Italy’s Capitan Italia or Israel’s Shaloman) always seem either satirical or half-baked. Despite the faltering war effort in Iraq, the U.S. is the world’s only superpower and for that reason it is the only country that creates confident and commercially successful superheroes.
Lacking a comic book industry, the Soviet Union never created a superhero, although there was the burlesque character Octobriana, created in the late 1960s or early 1970s by underground artists either in the USSR or Czechoslovakia (like much in Soviet history, the exact provenance of Octobriana is disputed). Interestingly, superhero comic books are starting to take off in India. The Indian industry has been dominated by stories from history and Hindu sagas, but recently American superhero knock-offs have gained in popularity. In China, as in neighbouring Japan and Korea, comics tend to be a mixture of genres: romance, science fiction, sports stories and adventure. Some of these stories do have aspects of the superhero tale, so it is possible we will see national superheroes emerging from East Asia.
Reluctantly, Bell concludes that the dream of a Canadian national superhero might have to be abandoned and that the future of comics lies in the more mature work created by contemporary graphic novelists such as Chester Brown and Seth (the pen name of cartoonist Gregory Gallant). Brown’s graphic novel Louis Riel sold more than 20,000 copies in hardcover and is now used in many university courses. Perhaps the best chapter in Invaders from the North is the one arguing for the centrality of Brown’s work in contemporary comics. Seth’s wistful nostalgia-laden meditations (published in such magazines as Toro, The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine) also have an enthusiastic, and international, audience.
Although Bell’s book is a survey of the history of Canadian comic books, it is really structured like a biography, tracing the slow growth from infancy to youth, followed by long-drawn-out maturation. The childhood of comics was the early 20th century, when comic strips were dominated by talking animals (Arch Dale’s The Doo Dads) and misbehaving brats (Palmer Cox’s The Brownies, cute kids who gave their name to Kodak’s Brownie camera). World War II saw the vigorous adolescence of comics, filled with feverish fantasies of derring-do. (As we have seen, Leo Bachle was all of 16 when he started drawing Johnny Canuck.)
Like many rowdy teenagers of the era, comics met with adult resistance and restrictions: in the late 1940s, Parliament passed a law forbidding crime comics. (Brian Mulroney, then ten years old but already on the make, won gold stars from the grown-up world for giving speeches denouncing bad comics. Even as a prepubescent he was eager to please the powers-that-be and later attached himself to the anti-comics conservative politician Davie Fulton.) In youthful revolt, comics went through a rebellious phase in the 1960s, with counterculture heroes such as Harold Hedd experimenting with drugs and polymorphic sex.
The long-delayed adulthood of Canadian comics came in the early 1990s, when a cohort of artists used the form for personal expression. Aside from Seth and Brown, the important figures were Julie Doucet (an artist with a remarkable ability to plop her subconscious right on the printed page with surrealistic strips about cities drowning in menstrual blood and lewd beer bottles hitting on young women), Ho Che Anderson (whose comic strip biography of Martin Luther King was notable for its unvarnished honesty in dealing with race and sex) and David Collier (an artist who has recreated in comic book form the old Canadian persona of the backwoods yarn spinner).
As a tale of growth and maturity, the history of Canadian comics has the elegant coherence of a biography. Journalists and publicists never tire of saying that comics are no longer just for kids and have now come of age. Yet, in some ways, the biographical model is flawed. As Wordsworth liked to remind his readers, the child is father to the man. None of us escapes our childhood. Certainly this is true of comics, which carry a heavy burden from the past. The best current cartoonists are constantly finding inspiration in the comics of an earlier age. If comics have grown up, that does not mean they have left their history behind them.
This obsession with the past can be seen stylistically: Chester Brown’s characters have the roughhewn simplicity of Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie; Seth’s elegant brush work calls to mind the cocktail party sleekness of The New Yorker, circa 1927; Julie Doucet’s heavy use of black ink, which fairly overflows on her pages, calls to mind the starkness of early 20th-century woodcut books; in trying to capture Martin Luther King’s world, Anderson evokes the photorealistic illustrational style of the 1950s; David Collier’s cross-hatching, which gives his pages the gnarly authenticity of tree bark, harkens back to such early cartoonists as Clare Briggs and J.R. Williams.
But beyond this surface borrowing of old styles, Canadian cartoonists have a more substantial relationship with the past. This is clearly evident in the works of Seth, who provides the introduction to Bell’s book. Seth is obsessed with the history of Canada’s popular culture. This is a half-forgotten realm of dime novels about fur traders and Mounties, travel books about the North, cornfield elocutionists, pretend-Indians like Grey Owl, superheroes like Johnny Canuck and folk songs about lumberjacks. The cover of a 1945 comic book perfectly captures this world: “Eskimos … Mounties … Trappers.”
Seth has conflicted feelings about this Niagara of Canadian kitsch. Like a child whose parents are interesting failures, Seth is half-ashamed of the past while also defensively protective of it. This ambivalence can be seen in Seth’s most recent story, “George Sprott, 1894–1975,” which was serialized in the New York Times Magazine earlier this year. The eponymous hero of this story is a bit of a fraud. Sprott travelled very briefly to the North when young and spent a lifetime milking his experience for all it’s worth, giving lecture tours about his Arctic adventures and hosting a television show called “Northern Hi-Lights.” Sprott is also a cad, with little regard for the Inuit lover he long ago impregnated and abandoned.
Despite his phoniness, Sprott is not without redeeming qualities. He can be a charming talker, especially when talking to his beloved niece. Sprott’s lectures, however flimsy their basis in reality, feed a genuine hunger for information about Canada’s North. Sprott’s niece knows his flaws, but loves him all the same. He is all she has. Seth seems to feel the same way about Canada’s pop culture past: it ain’t spectacular, but it’s ours and it deserves to be remembered.
Bell’s book should be praised as part of this larger effort to recuperate Canada’s vernacular culture. It is likely to remain the definitive history of Canadian comics. The book is not without its flaws. The writing varies in tone: many chapters are dryly factual, while the chapter on the national superhero is embarrassingly exuberant. An archivist by profession, Bell has a professional fondness for bibliographic minutiae, leading him to provide more details about publishing history than the general reader requires.
There are a few factual errors. He seems to think that the Caniffites Journal is still being published, when it went defunct in 2003. (And, in point of fact, the magazine was so obscure, with a readership of less than a hundred, that it hardly seems worth mentioning in a general history.) Instead of tracing the histories of obscure fan magazines, Bell should have devoted more time to comic strip artists who were published in large newspapers, such as Jimmy Frise, Doug Wright and Lynn Johnston. These cartoonists, whose work has appeared in major newspapers all over Canada, only get cursory attention in the book.
These flaws are outweighed by many solid strengths. The book is based on a lifetime of research. No one has dug into this topic with the same diligence. It is clearly written and well structured. Physically, it is a handsome book, well designed and with many cartoons reprinted in full colour. Hitherto, Canadian cultural historians have been remarkably elitist, paying far more attention to obscure poets and painters than to books and magazines that had hundreds of thousands of readers. Bell’s book is to be welcomed as part of a larger movement to recover Canada’s lost popular culture.
We welcome letters, which we reserve the right to publish after editing for length, clarity and accuracy.
1600 th
century jokes
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Sixteenth Century Jokes
Ever hear someone say "That's the oldest one in the
book?" These
jokes were taken more-or-less directly from The Book. Note well that 16th
Century sensibilities were not refined, despite what some people conclude
from their confused ideas about Puritans and Victorians. An example:
Quote:
And this one is good:
Quote:
(Both of those had their
spelling much modernized. The next ones didn't.)
Quote:
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Quote:
__________________
"Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them." If you don't stop to analyze the snot spray, you are missing that which is best in life. - Miller I'm not sure why this is, but I actually find this idea grosser than cannibalism. - Excalibre, after reading one of my surefire million-seller business plans. |
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