Category Archives: ENG810 Fall 2018 Section 021

Superheroes Representing Canadian Identity through Active Comics #1

2017 Canadian Whites, Active Comics, Active Comics, ENG 810-011 Lorraine Janzen, , , , , , , ,

©Copyright 2017 Vera Almeida, Ryerson University

Introduction

Tri-coloured cover (yellow, blue, green) Active Comics No. 1
C.T. Legault (a). Active Comics. No. 1, February 1942, Commercial Signs of Canada: Cover. Bell Features Collection, Library and Archives Canada.

Comic books became an important source for providing information and education for children about the World War. Active comics were used to display adventure through war stories and demonstrating to children about Canadian identity through superheroes. The period of Canadian superheroes started around the 1940’s releasing the “Canadian Whites”. According to Beaty, “These comics, so-called due to the black and white interiors that distinguished them from the four-color American comics of the period, arose in response to the wartime importation ban on non- essential goods that removed American comic books from Canadian newsstands” (Beaty 429). Active comic #1 has carried out a way to demonstrate children about war in a way where they are separated from reality, thus still being taught war in a much more fun approach. This exhibit’s critical aim is that the superheroes in Active Comics Issue #1 (February, 1942) like Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist explore the depictions that show children about Canadian society and values. In particular the masculine role that these two superheroes perform in order to demonstrate that all Canadian soldiers were brave and strong. The comics have never been as effective, as advertising, but the ideology of maintenance for Canadian military is still there. However, as long as they are considered a ‘children‘s book’ the comic book will serve as an active way of teaching them.

The Children being drawn into Canadian-ness:

Black and white
C.T. Legault (a). Front Cover Verso of “Dixon of the Mounted”Active Comics. No. 1, February 1942, Commercial Signs of Canada: Cover. Bell Features Collection, Library and Archives Canada.

Active Comics was served to explain the importance of strong and intelligent superheroes to illustrate what it means to be Canadian. These comics portrayed all sorts of action and fun stories in order to catch the children’s engagement and the conformity on the battlefield. Moreover, the two superheroes Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist’s goal was not only to defeat the enemy, thus to engage children that these superheroes were strong Canadian figures. These two superheroes summon into question the theme between connecting popular culture and nationalism about Canadian-ness through comic books. Moreover, Active comics put forth the idea of importance for those children who have brothers, fathers and uncles serving in war. The adolescent and pre-adolescents of Second World War read the comics eagerly. The comics provided that young audience, which did not read newspapers and had no television to watch, with probably their only source of information on the war.

 

Black and white
C.T. Legault (a). Front Cover Verso of “Thunderfist” Active Comics. No. 1, February 1942, Commercial Signs of Canada: Cover. Bell Features Collection, Library and Archives Canada.

Moreover, Bell Features seemed to work in giving life and durability to these Canadian comic books and “looking back at them they were a significant piece in the puzzle of our Canadian-ness”(Kockmarek The war-time Comics of Bell Features Publications). Bright, bold and with colour only on front page, this comic reveals how the publishers wanted to get as much attention as they could for children to buy it. These publishers know exactly of what the comics provided and what type of audience’s the comics would have. Beaty questions, “Why superheroes? Why comics? They are not just entertaining fantasy figures. They are important to our history because they are symbols of our Canadian identity” (Beaty 431). Through making the superheroes play the role of what it means to be Canadian, this embraces the popular culture and makes children aware of what it means to be Canadian. Representing Canadian-ness was a brilliant way to let children, who were the main consumer’s to get a copy of this comic, engage with Canadian nationality. Beaty states, “Superheroes of the Second World War into legitimated representations of Canadian wartime aspirations that could be affectionately regarded in hindsight as examples of Canadian popular culture” (Beaty 431). According to Beaty, these superheroes were the finest way to represent the Canadian culture to children during the war. Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist were superheroes that fit the role to represent their Canadian abilities that children learned from. Active comics was a great source for children to engage and know what it meant to be Canadian, thus the only Canadian popular culture the children was being open too was the whole concept of masculinity features.

Masculinity taking action during World War Two:

Black and white
The “Men of the Mounted” daily strip was created by Edwin Reid “Ted” McCall and drawn by Harry S. Hall for the Toronto Telegram on Feb. 13, 1933.

The two heroes in the Active Comic #1; Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist are adventurous and demonstrate the representation of masculinity throughout their stories in order to keep the Canadian ‘identity’. The first story in the issue, Dixon of the Mounted, plays out the strong and brave man as he is going through a blizzard in the mountains searching for his female companion, Ruth Barton. He was a Corporal in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police labeling for Canada then the beaver and even the maple leaf. Thunderfist opens up as a strongman and as a scientific man known for the strangest inventions. His abilities are his allow him to advance at great speed and makes him fly through the electrical currents. Thunderfist’s costume makes him immune to electrical attacks and he has an intelligent mind that leads him to create devices and his own costume. The realization of the need for mental and physical toughness on the battlefield demonstrates the presumed virtues of dominant masculinity for both Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist, which men bring to the military service. Both of these heroes portray what its like to be in Canadian popular culture through their intelligence and strength. Saying that, this makes them Canadian and the children take on that every soldier who fought in the World War two and was Canadian; they had to be like Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist. There was even aToronto Evening Telegram portraying Men of the Mounted, which contained a strip about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Dixon of the Mounted is a Royal Canadian Mounted police and through this telegram, it is portraying that the superhero is being advertised in a different media form than the comic. Kockmarek states that, “The ‘Men of the Mounted’ daily strip was created by Edwin Reid “Ted” McCall and drawn by Harry S. Hall for the Toronto Telegram on Feb. 13, 1933” (Kockmarek Men of the Mounted). Dixon of the Mounted was so popular that he began to be advertised in other ways. Through both superheroes encouraging Canadian-ness towards children in a masculine way, this started to educate children they way the comic intended too.

Active Comics #1 played a significant role in education a young populace before, during and after the war, encouraging the children that the soldiers that they would win and defeat their enemies just like the Canadian superheroes. Beaty affirms that, “The effect of The Oreat Canadian ComicBooks was twofold: first, it introduced into comic book fandom an awareness of the specifically Canadian contribution to the development of the medium during the war; second, it initiated an association between comic books and nationalism that would subsequently shape the discourse surrounding Canadian comics” (Beaty 431). Throughout the war, the comic book super heroes were involved in helping soldiers defeating their enemies. The representation of the superheroes action was always good, since they are fighting the evil enemies away. The characters always illustrated war aims and how children can be assured that their fathers or brothers were strong and would win the war because they are brave just like the Canadian superheroes. According to the article Part of golden age of Canadian comic books, “Peter Birkemoe, owner of the Beguiling comic book store in Toronto, said that during the war many artists like Riley realized the commercial potential of their comics…these were businesses, this wasn’t an art collective or art-driven,” (Riley Part of golden age of Canadian comic books). In compliance with Peter’s statement, the comics had a specific reason that they wanted children to look at which how the superheroes portray the Canadian popular culture in a masculine way. Children had the mindset that Canadian heroes would always win because of their strong Canadian strength and intelligence. Comics present combat most often as the business of ordinary men and the courage and ability to fight as intrinsic to all men. The Comic promotes the idea that every man, is able to rise to the occasion and defeat the enemy, but only if they have the Canadian-ness powers that Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist portray.

Superheroes and Canadian Nationalism:

Colourful cards with pictures of Men of the Mounted
Men of the Mounted” trading cards put out by Willard’s Chocolates which had opened in Toronto in 1917.

The mobilizations of clichés that are in the place of these superheroes are substantial. Active Comics mentions stereotypes with its two superheroes Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist and it is clear that the overt nationalism of Canadian superheroes in the contemporary era had as much to do with frustrations over sustaining a viable Canadian comics publishing industry as it did with representational issues of Canadian identity. For Canadian superheroes to partake in the discourse of Canadian nationalism, therefore, it was necessary for the proponents of those heroes to disavow cultural production. With these two Superheroes Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist the children were becoming aware that since these superheroes were Canadian they knew all about what it was to be a Canadian. The comics were demonstrating that these superheroes fought and thought like Canadians, since they were strong and intelligent because of their actions and were Canadian. Children were being drawn to all the masculine aspects of these superheroes which made them believe that all Canadian men were supposed to act as accurately as they performed. Furthermore, Willard’s Chocolates, a shop that opened up in Toronto in 1917 and came up with an idea of, chocolate with trading cards inside. Willard’s, “…came up with the “Sweet Marie” caramel and nut filled chocolate bar in 1931 and was eventually purchased by George Weston in 1954” (Kockmarek Men of the Mounted).The trading cards consisted of Men of the Mounted, which was inspired by the superhero Dixon of the Mounted; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Saying that, with Willard’s chocolates connecting to Dixon of the Mounted, it is portraying Canadian-ness. The superhero was being portrayed into popular culture through a company who sold chocolates with these trading cards in them. This idea was made because Dixon of the Mounted made great success in the first Canadian adventure strip to appear in Canada. With this being said, the superheroes were becoming popular, which was a great way to influence the Canadian-ness to everyone especially the children being targeted. These chocolates influenced children with their trading cards, which was a good way to get children involved with Canada’s popular culture.

Conclusion:

Conclusively, Active Comics Issue #1, examined the portrayal that displayed to children about Canadian popular culture through Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist encouraging Canadian-ness towards children in a masculine method. Canadian superheroes in the contemporary era had many clichés, in particular the masculine role that these two superheroes perform in order to demonstrate that all Canadian soldiers were brave and strong during the World War two. Through making the superheroes play the role of what it means to be Canadian, this embraces the popular culture and makes children aware of what it means to be Canadian. Representing Canadian-ness through these two superheroes was a brilliant way to let children engage with Canadian nationality. Saying that, these comic books limited the children’s concepts of what it means to be Canadian since it was being portrayed in a masculine way.

 

Images in this online exhibit are either in the public domain or being used under fair dealing for the purpose of research and are provided solely for the purposes of research, private study, or education.

Bibliography

Anonymous. “Artist Michael Riley Part of Golden Age of Canadian Comic Books.” Canadian Press NewsWire, Aug 29, 2006, Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database, http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/docview/347347292?pq-origsite=summon

Beaty, Bart. “The Fighting Civil Servant: Making Sense of the Canadian Superhero.” American Review of Canadian Studies, Oct. 2006, pp. 427–439., doi:10.1080/02722010609481401.

Bell, John. “Comic Books in English Canada.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 7 Feb. 2006 www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/comic-books-in-english-canada

Kocmarek, Ivan. “Truth, Justice, and the Canadian Way: The War-Time Comics of Bell Features Publications.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/Revue Canadienne De Littérature Comparée, Canadian Comparative Literature Assn, 2016. https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/article/611725

Kocmarek, Ivan. “Men of the Mounted.” Comic Book Daily, 8 Jan. 2014 www.comicbookdaily.com/collecting-community/whites-tsunami-weca-splashes/men-mounted

Laurie, Ross. “Masculinities and War Comics.” Journal of Australian Studies, 18 May 2009, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443059909387455.

Legault, E.T. (w) and M. Karn (a). “Dixon of the Mounted and Thunderfist.”Active Comics, no. 1, February, 1942, pp. 1-29. Canadian Whites Comic Book Collection, 1941-1946. RULA Archives and Special Collections, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.

 

 

 

The Strange Villains of Active Comics #2

2017 Canadian Whites, Active Comics, Active Comics, ENG 810-011 Lorraine Janzen, , , , ,

© Copyright 2017 Dustin Brousseau, Ryerson University

Introduction

During the Second World War comic books were already in the pockets of the children of Canada and the United States. Heroes like Superman and Batman had already captured their imaginations with their stories full of action, adventure, and of course, dastardly villains. When the War Exchange Conservation act prevented those stories from coming through the Canadian borders. Children were left without their favorite heroes and villains, which in turn led to the creation of the Canadian Whites, Canadian comics which could have not competed with the colorful American comics before. The Canadian Whites brought with them new heroes and new villains for those heroes to fight. While everyone likes a good hero, what is a hero without its rogues gallery? Without the villains that fight against those heroes there would be no stories, action, no comics! Despite being written during a time of war however, the villains of these comics remained largely like those of American comics of the time, mostly divorced from the war happening at the time. Why is this? Using Active Comics #2 from March of 1942 as examples I will try and figure out why the comic book villains of the Canadian Whites were so strange and divorced from the very real enemies that were fought in the war at the time.

 

The Villains and Stories:

A deformed mad scientist ranting about his evil plans on the top half, and a picture of Thunderfist punching a robotic dinosaur with a descriptor on the bottom half
E.T. Legault. Page from “Thunderfist and the Monster of Catastrophe.” Active Comics No. 2, March 1942, Commercial Signs of Canada, p. 1. Bell Features Collection, Library and Archives Canada (Figure 1)

In Active Comics #2 there were four stories, each featuring a hero and a single villain or a cabal of evil doers. The first story stared Thunderfist, a hero with super strength and flight fighting Dr. Bruzzack (Figure 1), a mad scientist attacking a New York City with robotic dinosaurs. The second story featured a regular, if not extraordinarily brave Mounty by the name of Dixon of the Mounted who fought a demon known only in the story as “The Devil”, though this devil is unlikely Satan himself. After Dixon’s story there is Captain “Red” Thortan, an incredibly athletic man with no discernible superpowers fighting against the Japanese army, and finally the is The Brain, a hero with super strength and clairvoyance fighting against a criminal organization led by a man known as The Saboteur. Only one of these villains is connected to the war, with two of them seeming much like standard comic book villains, and one seeming like a threat that could exist in the real world, if not for their over the top way of doing things.

 

Why Not Focus on the War?

It is important to note that the Canadian Whites were written, at least in part by teenagers and younger people in general, some of which would have enjoyed comics before the ban. While much of my information is about American comics of the time these younger comic creators would have likely been influenced by the comics that they read before, and even if they were older it would have made sense for them to mimic the style of comics that were already popular with children in the first place. Because of this despite the information that I will be using comes from studies of American comics, they are still viable for the Canadian comics of the time as well. Many villains of the Canadian Whites are similar to the villains that American heroes would be fighting at the time, in that they were usually divorced from the war, or were taking part in the war in less important ways than being at the front lines. Many of the villains in Canadian comics at the time were using villains bred from the same tropes and ideas that their American counterparts were using. Things like evil geniuses, gang leaders, and mythical beasts were popular types of villains in the Golden Age of comics, so it only comes to reason that these teenagers that are writing the Whites would write villains that follow these sort of archetypes. Due to the format of the comics having several stories in one issue, there was not a lot of time to develop these villains, so making them recognizable as a certain type of villain immediately was important.

 

The Devil throws Dixon of the Mounted forward, with a text box describing the scene on top of the action
E.T. Legault. Panel from “Dixon of the Mounted and Dreadful Dwellings.” Active Comics No. 2, March 1942, Commercial Signs of Canada, p. 22. Bell Features Collection, Library and Archives Canada (Figure 2)

When Canadian comic books began to become popular due to the inability to import American comics it would come to no surprise to see comics with similar themes and characters. The heroes and villains of Active Comics #2 are no exception to this. In The Fighting Civil Servant: Making Sense of the Canadian Superhero Bart Beaty claims that “the concept of the man-god, a dedication to principles of justice, the secret identity, a conflict with the father, and the belief in the magical power of science.” (428) are key elements in superhero mythology. While the heroes don’t hit all of those traits they all hit at least one. The villains on the other hand are quite the opposite. Dr. Bruzzack certainly no “man-god”, using robotic dinosaurs in an attempt to destroy humanity, starting with New York City. Rather than believing in the “magical power of science” he believes only in himself, his robots being extensions of himself having been created by him. The Devil (Figure 2) appears to be no man, has no dedication to justice, or any of the above traits. The Saboteur is no “man-god” either, relying on his gang for help, and threatens to kill a woman helping The Brain. These villains are meant to be the opposite of what is traditionally seen as heroic back in the Golden Age of Comics according to Beaty.

 

Much like the superhero comics in America, superhero comics in Canada were in the golden age. While the Golden Age of Canadian Comics is differentiated from the Golden Age of Comics in America, they were happening in the same timeframe, the Canadian Golden Age happening between the years of 1941 – 1947, whereas the American Golden Age was happening from 1938 – 1954, both starting before and ending after the Canadian Golden Age (Fennell 305). This means that both Golden Ages were happening during the time of World War II. So the question remains: Why weren’t the villains in these stories representative of the war? Why are the most of the villains in Active Comics #2 divorced from the war that was going on at the time? Why would the heroes ignore the people fighting and dying against fascism? The reason, according to Jason Bainbridge in “The Call to do Justice”: Superheroes, Sovereigns and the State During Wartime, is because of the things that made them “super”, their superpowers, which could easily allow them to singlehandedly end the war, which could somewhat diminish the efforts put in by real soldiers on the battlefield (751). It was for those reasons that superheroes were often stuck fighting crime or monsters on the home front rather than helping with the war effort. Even those with no superpowers such as Dixon of the Mounted were still much more athletic and competent than any real man. Even when heroes were allowed to fight the same enemies that the soldiers were fighting in the real world they were often relegated to stopping either far-fetched schemes that only a superhero could stop, like the aforementioned robotic dinosaurs, or schemes that had little to do with the actual war effort, like capturing the daughter of a British commander, often to mask the horror of what the real war was like (751).

 

Why These Villains?

A two men in suits prepare to kill a tied up young woman to a contraption to kill her by dropping spikes on her
Leo Bachle. Panel from “The Brain.” Active Comics No. 2, March 1942, Commercial Signs of Canada, p. 61. Bell Features Collection, Library and Archives Canada (Figure 3)

Now that we know why superheroes rarely interacted with the war directly, choosing to instead help the home front, why are the villains that they fight so outrageous? There are several reasons for that in fact. One reason is that the heroes of the time needed to be demonstrably good. In the Golden Age it was thought that heroes needed to be selfless and aid others who needed it because if they didn’t, then that character was not truly heroic (751). For villains to come in line with that line of thinking they had to be outlandishly evil. For example Dixon of the Mounted finds himself fighting an actual demon in Active Comics #2, even going as far as to call it “The Devil”. Even the less obviously evil villains in this issue are still extreme in their villainy. The Syndicate from The Brain story have James Bond villain style machine to kill those who betray them (Figure 3), and Dr. Bruzzack attempts to destroy New York City with robotic dinosaurs. Strangely the villains that have the least dastardly plans is the Japanese army that Captain “Red” Thortan fights, who have only kidnapped the daughter of a British commander, but still fall under the category of “plainly evil” by merit of being part of the Axis Powers. The villains of Active Comics #2 did not view themselves in anyway but evil.

 

Another reason for the villains being divorced from reality is that the heroes, and therefore the villains as well, are based on standards of justice of the time they were made (“Superhero Comics” 333). The morality of the time for fiction was influenced by Judeo-Christian ideals, combining the above self-sacrificing hero, with the idea of a crusader against evil, according to Ryan Edwardson in The Many Lives of Captain Canuck: Nationalism, Culture, and The Creation of a Canadian Comic Book Superhero (187). As such it would make sense for the villains that they fight to be the opposite: Self-serving, and completely evil, the perfect enemy for a self-sacrificing crusader against evil. While not all of the villains in Action Comics #2 are necessarily self-serving, with The Devil appearing to be a beast who mostly relishes in evil acts, with it saying nothing throughout the story and having torture implements in its lair, they are all most certainly evil. Dr. Bruzzack wants to kill all humans because he hates them, and The Saboteur is the leader of a group of gangsters who are going to kill a woman for betraying them to help The Brain.

 

Conclusion:

It seems that the answer to the question of why the villains in Active Comics #2 is simple. They were divorced from both the war, and in many ways reality, because they had to be at the time. Both heroes and villains of the Golden Age, both Canadian and American, were simple in their conception. The heroes were meant to be the ultimate forces of good, being self-sacrificing and forces for good, and the villains had to be the opposite of them, self-serving and evil. Their villains were not made to be villains that would have any place in the war so that the efforts of the soldiers in the war would not be diminished, and even when they did participate in the war it was in ways that did not directly affect the war effort itself. The heroes could not use their powers to end the war themselves, and so the authors had to find some way to make sure that they could not, and that way was to simply make other threats that were bigger or more immediately dangerous such as Dr. Bruzzack’s robotic dinosaurs, or that were closer to home, such as The Devil or the Saboteur, both being in Canada, and both being immediately dangerous for the people on the home front.

Bibliography:

Bainbridge, Jason. “’The Call to do Justice’: Superheroes, Sovereigns and the State During Wartime.” International Journal for the Semiotics of Law vol. 28, no. 4, May 2015, pp. 745-763. Springer Link, DOI: 10.1007/s11196-015-9424-y

 

Beaty, Bart. “Superhero Comics.” Fueling Culture: 101 Words for Energy and Environment, edited by Imre Szeman et al., Fordham University, NEW YORK, 2017, pp. 333–337, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1hfr0s3.93.

 

Beaty, Bart. “The Fighting Civil Servant: Making Sense of the Canadian Superhero.” Amerrican Reviews of Canadian Studies vol. 36, no. 3, October 2006, pp. 427-439. Scholars Portal Journals, DOI: 10.1080/02722010609481401

 

Edwardson, Ryan. “The Many Lives of Captain Canuck: Nationalism, Culture, and the Creation of a Canadian Comic Book Superhero.” Journal of Popular Culture vol. 37, no. 2, November 2003, pp. 184-201. Scholars Portal Journals, DOI: 10.1111/1540-5931.00063

 

Fennell, Jack. “The Aesthetics of Supervillainy.” Law Text Culture vol. 16, no. 1, January 2012, pp. 305-328. Hein Online, http://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol16/iss1/13

 

Legault, E.T. (w) and M. Karn (a). Active Comics, no. 2, March, 1942, pp. 1-15. Bell Features Collection, Library and Archives Canada. http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/e/e447/e011166503.pdf

Images in this online exhibit are either in the public domain or being used under fair dealing for the purpose of research and are provided solely for the purposes of research, private study, or education.