CHRONICLING THE REVOLUTIONARY: CHESTER BROWN ON LOUIS RIEL

[MattBrady]

by Daniel Epstein

Canadian native Chester Brown is a superstar in the world of independent comics. when I mentioned that to him he laughed because I think superstars are supposed to have mansions and Brown certainly does not. But he’s done critically acclaimed fiction comics like Ed the Happy Clown and Underwater. But he has also created some of the most poignant and fascinating autobiographical comics in the medium called The Playboy and I Never Liked You.

In 1998 Chester Brown surprised the comics world when he decided to do a serialized comic book biography of Louis Riel. Mostly because most of us south of the border (the US-Canadian border, that is) had no idea who the hell Riel was.

Louis Riel is one of Canadian history's most controversial figures. He was a French-Indian man who in the late 1800’s represented his people in the fledgling Canadian government mostly with Prime Minster John Macdonald, and as a result, spent years in exile or in insane asylums before ultimately being executed.

Brown recently finished the series and it was collected into the beautiful hardcover book Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography.

Newsarama: Daniel Robert Epstein: Firstly, you cut your hair?

Chester Brown: Yeah a couple of years ago. I went bald and the whole long hair thing when you’re bald on top usually doesn’t work out great. Some guys can pull it off but I’m not one of those guys.

NRAMA: When researching on Louis Riel, I first did a US search and about 150 articles came up. Then I did a worldwide search and thousands of articles came up. How well known is Riel in Canada?

CB: Just about every Canadian would know the name and they would probably know he led a rebellion against the government and that he was executed. The details of the story they probably don’t know.

NRAMA: I read you were inspired to do this book by Maggie Siggins’ biography of Riel, Riel: A Life of Revolution.

CB: Yes it came out in 1994 and was the last significant Riel biography.

NRAMA: Why did you pick it up? I heard it was kind of a connection with your mother’s schizophrenia.

CB: I picked it up just out of a general interest in history and politics. I’m not sure if I knew that there was a debate about his sanity.

NRAMA: When Steven Spielberg made Schindler’s List he said he had to put some of his personality aside, a lot of the sentimentality part, to do the story. Did you have to remove yourself a little to create this biography?

CB: It didn’t seem like that to me. I’m sure doing it had to bring certain talents and interests to the fore and certain other ones to the back. But I wasn’t thinking about that consciously.

NRAMA: What was the decision to do this book?

CB: A desire to learn more about Canadian history and just to do a different type book. It’s boring if you do the same type of book over and over.

NRAMA: The dialogue all came across very much in the way it does your autobiographical books. Long pauses, short sentences. Does that stuff come out on purpose?

CB: Short sentences make sense in a comic book. If you have lots of long speeches and that sort of thing then it doesn’t always flow. I guess that’s how I see comics working. I try not to keep the word balloons too heavy with dialogue, focus on imagery and I try to have silent panels as much as possible.

NRAMA: How about juxtaposing people in the same poses but having different dialogue. Is that an experiment?

CB: Part of it is just keeping things simple. The same drawing with tiny variations doesn’t require a lot of thinking. I was trying to bring out the comic as quickly as possible. My big inspiration for this book was Harold Gray’s work on Little Orphan Annie. He used to do that all the time. It wasn’t really an experiment because I had seen it work with other cartoonists.

NRAMA: So you thought you could do it because it worked for him?

CB: You always hope what you are going to do will work. Just because another cartoonist makes something work doesn’t guarantee it will work for you. I just hoped it would work.

NRAMA: All the characters are huge in the book. Obviously back then they wore a lot more clothes so they appeared bigger.

CB: Again it’s the Harold Gray influence. Certainly his heroic figures like Daddy Warbucks had huge bodies and small heads. So it was another aspect of that influence.

NRAMA: A lot of critics wrote a lot about a big Tintin influence on the book. I just don’t see it.

CB: Yeah I got people saying that to me. I didn’t see it either.

NRAMA: Gabriel’s face does look a bit like Captain Haddock.

CB: I guess it may have been the use of blank eyes like Herge does. Also there is kind of simplicity in it.

NRAMA: The design of the book seems to have a Seth influence.

CB: Well Seth did read each installment as it was done and make comments. Sometimes I would follow his advice and sometimes I wouldn’t. Sometimes I would specifically ask him for advice because I felt a certain scene wasn’t working. So he certainly did help to some degree. What specifically were you thinking of?

NRAMA: I guess the cover and the design of the inside covers reminded me a bit of It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken.

CB: Certainly the type on the cover was similar to the type he used on It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken. But the help I was talking about was more specifically in the book in things like the pacing and things like that.

NRAMA: Did you feel any pressure about doing a book about such a famous person since you live in Canada as well?

CB: I didn’t really think about it but I probably should have. For the most part I felt pretty confident. There were a couple of moments of anxiety where I thought I was in too deep over my head. But I got past those feelings pretty quickly.

NRAMA: I guess the Canadian government doesn’t tap phones or anything. They’re not that threatening.

CB: [laughs] Yeah.

NRAMA: Do you feel any kinship with Riel?

CB: A bit. I can probably relate to his sense of messianic destiny. Not that I strongly feel that but I certainly have in certain points in my life. He certainly tried to do the best for his people. One likes to think that one is trying his best.

NRAMA: Do you agree with what he tried to do?

CB: I think his cause was just early on. I think the Red River Resistance was completely justified. I had more problems with the later 1885 rebellion. I can understand their frustration but I don’t think a rebellion was justified at that point.

NRAMA: How much research went into this? Was it library or internet?

CB: It wouldn’t have been internet. I went to the library, bought books in used bookstores and found as many books related to the subject as possible. Sitting and reading was the research.

NRAMA: Was this more difficult to do than your other books?

CB: I wanted that challenge. I had done that story about my mother’s schizophrenia called “My Mother was a Schizophrenic”. I had read a lot of books for that strip, enjoyed that process of research and boiling that down into comic strip form. I wanted something like that again. Maybe I found out it wasn’t as much fun a second time.

NRAMA: So you got a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for Louis Riel. Did they know what book you were doing?

CB: Yes when I applied for the grant I said I was doing a book on Riel. Doing something on a legitimate historical figure that people take seriously probably helped my cause.

NRAMA: Would you have been able to do the book without the grant?

CB: Well, I would have done the book anyway but it would have been financially tougher on me. The year I got the grant I wasn’t getting much money at all.

NRAMA: In your view, does the story work better as a full book rather than serialized?

CB: It’s hard to say. It does seem to read differently as one book. I think it’s probably better because that certainly is how I conceived it. I intended it as a book and serializing was done for financial reasons.

NRAMA: I read that for your next books you’re not going to serialize.

CB: Right. It was [Drawn & Quarterly publisher] Chris [Oliveros] decision to serialize Riel. When I wrote the script for Riel I saw it as a book and didn’t want to serialize it. I asked him how we should publish it and he said to do it as comics. I went along with what he said. Now he wants to not serialize things first.

NRAMA: When did you start it?

CB: The first issue came out in 1999 although I started writing it in 1998.

NRAMA: Did you write a full script?

CB: Yes.

NRAMA: Had you done that before?

CB: Never a full script. For I Never Liked You, I wrote a list of all the scenes in the book so that I knew what was going to happen but I didn’t write all the dialogue. This time I actually wrote out all the dialogue which is different for me.

NRAMA: How did that change things?

CB: I think it was to the book’s benefit. I think it probably is a good idea to write scripts ahead of time and I’m going to be doing that from now on.

NRAMA: You had said after doing this book that “anarchy is completely unworkable”.

CB: It probably is. I’m still an anarchist to the degree that I think we should be aiming towards an anarchist society but I don’t think we can actually get there. We probably do need some degree of government.

NRAMA: Since you’re not as much of an anarchist anymore, how do you look back on a book like Ed the Happy Clown?

CB: When I look back at Ed the Happy Clown I think that I couldn’t draw back then. I’m not the biggest fan of that book in terms of my talents and abilities.

NRAMA: But that book had a strong feeling of anarchy in it.

CB: I certainly have books planned showing how government screws up everything. We should definitely cut the down the size and limits of government’s abilities.

NRAMA: Did you visit any of the areas that you used in the Riel book?

CB: Not when I was researching the book. I had been to Winnipeg before but I hadn’t really taken in any of the historical sites. People in Winnipeg think Riel is a big deal so they will take you to the sites and say what he did there. At the time I wasn’t at all interested and was ignoring the whole thing. That really didn’t help me later when I was doing the book. I had to rely on photographs. Since doing the book I visited the sites like Batoche and Regina where they hanged them.

NRAMA: How did it hold up to how you portrayed it?

CB: I certainly made mistakes. Looking at the scene where the priest is walking by the church with the white flag I made the church windows too big. You just see certain errors. If I got stuff right it was because I had reference for it.

NRAMA: I spoke to Ho Che Anderson not too long ago and he said they are reading King, his Martin Luther King biography, in schools. Could Louis Riel be used in school?

CB: Yeah it could be. Chris Oliveros has explained to me several times why it’s unlikely that books will be used in schools. I can’t remember what the reason is. It has something to do with textbook distribution but the book will probably make its way into some school libraries.

NRAMA: How has the hardcover been selling?

CB: It seems to be doing quite well. Chris is almost out of copies so we’ll be going to a second printing.

NRAMA: Are you seriously contemplating a biography of Prime Minister Macdonald?

CB: [laughs] Not really seriously but I might. It’s certainly not something I’m going to be tackling immediately but he was an interesting guy. It could be worthwhile to do.

NRAMA: The next book I heard is going to be about your sex life.

CB: Yes. If you read the interview Dave Sim did with me we really got into my sex life.

NRAMA: In the world of independent comics you are a superstar. What advantages are there to that?

CB: [laughs] If I’m a superstar shouldn’t there be groupies?

NRAMA: Come on, you get groupies.

CB: Actually I’ve had women offer themselves to me but it hasn’t been as often as I might like. Once or twice.

NRAMA: Are you with someone?

CB: No I’m single at this time.

NRAMA: What happened?

CB: She broke up with me. I don’t know. She got interested in someone else. We’re still good friends. She was just over here yesterday with her current boyfriend and we hung out for a while.

NRAMA: Really?

CB: Oh yeah.

NRAMA: You’re a better person than me.

CB: He’s a great guy and I like him fine. She’s a wonderful person why wouldn’t I want to hang with her.

NRAMA: Is the sex life book a passive aggressive thing against her?

CB: [laughs] I’m not thinking of it that way. I don’t know if I’m going to deal with all that stuff or not.

NRAMA: Back to the girls who offered themselves up to you. Did you take them up on it?

CB: Um, usually not.

NRAMA: How many people show up at your book signings?

CB: Sometimes it’s out the door and other times its dead.

NRAMA: Do you get invited all over the world?

CB: I get invitations to a lot of European festivals in Greece, Italy and Amsterdam. So you do get to travel around for free which is nice if you like to travel.

NRAMA: Obviously there is not great money in being a comics superstar.

CB: No there isn’t.

NRAMA: What do you do to survive? Do you do a lot of commercial work?

CB: Not a lot but whatever comes my way. I don’t solicit it but my name is kind of known so people do ask me to do that kind of stuff. The books don’t bring in a lot of money they do bring in some. Now I hope to get the occasional grant. Actually for the Riel promotional tour a lot of the places where I spoke ended up giving me money. That was a surprise because I’m promoting the book and they’re paying me. Money seems to come in somehow.

NRAMA: Did Joe Matt move back to Canada?

CB: Nope he’s in Los Angeles right now. He’s in negotiations with HBO to make Peepshow into a television series and it looks like it might happen. I’m not sure if a deal has actually been signed but if it hasn’t then its close. At least they’ll make a pilot.

NRAMA: Who will play you?

CB: I don’t know. Maybe I’m not even in the pilot.

NRAMA: Do you miss Joe?

CB: No I don’t really miss Joe. I really enjoyed having him here and talking to him all the time, but I don’t really miss him either.

NRAMA: What are you watching Seth collect now?

CB: I can’t even keep up with what he’s collecting.

Check out Drawn & Quaterly’s website for Chester Brown here.

[Barry]

Great interview! Chet is one of my favorite creators and Louis Riel is a true masterpiece of comics literature.

[Phoenix_Tetsu]

Great, great, great!!, More, more, more!!!!

[heeBGB]

Originally posted by Chester Brown
I went bald and the whole long hair thing when you’re bald on top usually doesn’t work out great. Some guys can pull it off but I’m not one of those guys.

Apparently, Hulk Hogan and Michael Bolton are two of those guys.

But seriously, I followed Louis Riel in serialized form, and am glad there is a collected edition available now, going forward... this work deserves to be read widely, and not just by Canadians An enlightening and vivid historical work, a genre that can always use more fine titles such as this.

[kurtcobain731]

ever since my friend lent me "Ed the happy clown" it blew my mind cause it was non linear storytelling before quentin tarantino made it hip with pulp fiction... well i thought it was way cooler...

just want to say that i'd buy anything that Chester comes out with because it's just great work, when i was in London, i managed to pick up some old copies of Yummy Fur from the Forbidden Planet.... i thought Joe's Peepshow was really funny too but recently his work has become really indulgent and late,...

and now beginning to get Seth's stuff....

just go buy Chester's work, it's really poignant and introspective and funny and weird... and cool...blows your mind sometimes... hope i can be weird and show up in Canada and make him feel uncomfortable by asking him where all his stuff is....