Louis Riel (comics)

Louis Riel is a historical biography in comics by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown. The story deals with Métis rebel leader Louis Riel’s antagonistic relationship with the newly established Canadian government. The work is noted for its emotional disengagement, its intentionally flat dialogue, and a minimalist drawing style inspired by Harold Gray’s comic strip Little Orphan Annie.

About Louis Riel (comics) in brief

Louis Riel is a historical biography in comics by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, published as a book in 2003 after serializion in 1999–2003. The story deals with Métis rebel leader Louis Riel’s antagonistic relationship with the newly established Canadian government. The work is noted for its emotional disengagement, its intentionally flat dialogue, and a minimalist drawing style inspired by that of Harold Gray’s comic strip Little Orphan Annie. Unusual for comics of the time, it includes a full scholarly apparatus: a foreword, index, bibliography, and end notes. The series was the first comic book to receive a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. It won a favourable critical reception and three Harvey Awards. Its success played a major part in gaining shelf space for serious graphic novels in mainstream North American bookstores. It has strong historiographical elements, detailing in the appendix the research done and choices made by the author in developing a story. A central incident in the book is an eight-panel sequence in which Riel has a revelatory experience on a hilltop in Washington, D. C. He experiences visions and talks to God, who declares him Prophet of the New World and instructs him to lead his people to freedom. Brown grew up in the Canadian province of Quebec, where the majority speaks French, and where Riel was often considered a martyr. Brown became interested in the issue of property rights while researching the book, which led to a public change in his politics from anarchism to libertarianism.

He decided he did not want to waste time with projects that weren’t working out, so he turned his attention to the unpopular Underwater Underwater series. In 1998, Brown came across two political books by political scientist Tom Flanagan: Louis. Riel: Prophet of the NEW World and the 1885 Reconsidered. Brown had previously made anti-psychiatry comics essay \”My Mom was a Schizophrenic\”, in which he examines society’s role in mental illness. In 1997, he decided he didn’t want to work on the experimental series, a project on which he felt he had lost his way, and he did working on Riel. Brown found Riel particularly intriguing as it dealt with religious ideas while reevaluating his alleged diagnosis of mental illness, two topics he had made previously make an especial interest in. The book does not attempt a complete retelling of Riel’s life—it omits long periods and ignores many aspects of his personality. Instead the focus is on his  antagonistic relationship with the Canadian government from 1869 to 1885. The serialization sold poorly, but the book version was a surprise bestseller. It was published only in book form, but his publisher had him first serialize Louis Rieu as a comic book. Brown enjoyed this project and thought he would like to take on another inwhich he could \”cram a lot of research into a comic strip\”.

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