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Resource type: Journal Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1080/21504851003798595 BibTeX citation key: Lesk2010 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: "Louis Riel", Brown. Chester, Canada, Comic biography, History comics, Nationalism Creators: Lesk Collection: Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics |
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Abstract |
Chester Brown’s hybrid art/text biography reconstructs the circulating (historically fraught) symbols to deny the paternalizing and binding impetus that Canadian nationalism foments in its attempt to harness Riel as a salve to its anxieties and cleavages. In Brown’s delineations of the Riel saga, the author fosters attention on the concepts and ideas surrounding the man, rather simply communicating the biographical history itself. The result is a work that frames the accumulated ruins of Riel’s history in a calculated strategy to question visions that have attempted to contain Riel in the service of a transcendent Canadian nationalism. These distinctions are brought to bear upon Brown’s engagement of the archetype of the hero to establish that Louis Riel’s visual vocabulary abjures the consolidating mythologies associated with ostensibly national, unifying icons.
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