Starred review from August 18, 2003
Revisiting the themes of deep friendship and separation Thompson surveyed in Goodbye Chunky Rice, his acclaimed and touching debut, this sensitive memoir recreates the confusion, emotional pain and isolation of the author's rigidly fundamentalist Christian upbringing, along with the trepidation of growing into maturity. Skinny, naïve and spiritually vulnerable, Thompson and his younger brother manage to survive their parents' overbearing discipline (the brothers are sometimes forced to sleep in "the cubby-hole," a forbidding and claustrophobic storage chamber) through flights of childhood fancy and a mutual love of drawing. But escapist reveries can't protect them from the cruel schoolmates who make their lives miserable. Thompson's grimly pious parents and religious community dismiss his budding talent for drawing; they view his creative efforts as sinful and relentlessly hector the boys about scripture. By high school, Thompson's a lost, socially battered and confused soul—until he meets Raina and her clique of amiable misfits at a religious camp. Beautiful, open, flexibly spiritual and even popular (something incomprehensible to young Thompson), Raina introduces him to her own less-than-perfect family; to a new teen community and to a broader sense of himself and his future. The two eventually fall in love and the experience ushers Thompson into the beginnings of an adult, independent life. Thompson manages to explore adolescent social yearnings, the power of young love and the complexities of sexual attraction with a rare combination of sincerity, pictorial lyricism and taste. His exceptional b&w drawings balance representational precision with a bold and wonderfully expressive line for pages of ingenious, inventively composed and poignant imagery.
September 1, 2023
The founder of Drawn & Quarterly offers presents the first of a two-part graphic chronicle of the ill-fated efforts of the Front de liberation du Qu�bec, covering the period from 1962 to 1970. In Oliveros' telling, the separatist violence was triggered by the casual, public bigotry of an Anglophone, Montreal-based railway executive. The FLQ began in Georges Schoeters' tiny apartment, where he and his confederates (many in their teens) drafted a manifesto and mixed Molotov cocktails. These initial scenes are often quite funny, Molotov cocktails arcing from one panel to the next in front of imposing gray armories to explode with BOOMs and speech balloons filled with Nos as the down-at-their-heels revolutionaries seek one among them with a car to take them to their targets. But the violence was real and claimed victims, so the mood darkens. Oliveros creates a device to carry the story: a fictional CBC documentary with the principals and prominent figures of the day narrating events. When Schoeters was imprisoned, the mantle passed to Fran�ois Schirm, who tried to start a guerrilla army and was sentenced to life in prison; and then to Pierre Valli�res, who returned to the FLQ's early, incendiary strategies. It's an absorbing treatment of a story mostly forgotten in the U.S. Oliveros works in mostly six-panel-per-page layouts, peopling them with unprepossessing-looking white characters (mostly men) whose expressions frequently enhance the overall feeling of their incompetence. Largely missing from the tale are French Canadians' genuine grievances. Readers must pore over the copious backmatter to learn that Quebec's Francophones--87% of the province's population--labored as an underclass in an Anglophone-dominated economy. Confining the focus to the FLQ's leadership and their bumbling attempts makes for an entertaining read, but it's hardly a nuanced one. The bibliography includes both contemporary and retrospective accounts, many in English, and meticulous notes detail Oliveros' research and artistic choices. An engaging introduction to a fascinating historical and cultural flashpoint.
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Starred review from October 16, 2023
Quebec-born cartoonist Oliveros (The Envelope Manufacturer), founder of Drawn & Quarterly, takes his provocative title for this scintillating, incisively drawn account of Le front de libération du Québec (FLQ) from a recruitment questionnaire distributed by the separatist guerrilla faction. Founded in the 1960s, the FLQ supported workers’ rights and socialism, and saw “rich English bastards” as their oppressors. Oliveros opens with a fictionalized discovery of a box filled with transcripts. The volume is then structured as a series of excerpts from interviews with sources—politicians, journalists, former FLQ members, and others—detailing their versions of events over a seven-year period in which the FLQ committed more than 100 violent acts. The goal, as one of the principal founders declares, was “independence or death.” Accidental killings abound; there are exploding mailboxes, many Molotov cocktails, and a plethora of idealist teen recruits and kooky leaders who imagine themselves heroes. It all makes for an electrifying firsthand history, supported by copiously detailed research notes, that captures the group’s diverse perspectives and personalities (often pitted against one another). Oliveros takes these distinct storytellers at their word, styling their tales with accessible, brightly colored art. Part one of two planned volumes, this illuminating and incisive graphic history stands as an exemplar of the genre.
October 15, 2023
The Front de lib�ration du Qu�bec (FLQ) started off in the early 1960s as a socialist insurrection opposed to Anglo-Saxon imperialism. But through a series of bumbling attacks, the FLQ devolved into a domestic terrorist group feared by both the Canadian government and the Qu�b�cois. Oliveros' engrossing first in a two-book series explores the early days of the FLQ. In a story told from the points of view of politicians, law enforcement, reporters, and disillusioned former FLQ members through a lost, fictional 1975 CBC documentary, Oliveros captures this tumultuous period in Canadian history with humor and gravitas. Clean, clear, and wavy lines mixed with muted vibrant hues and earthy tones give the story a cinematic retro vibe that complements its television-documentary backdrop. Tasteful cartoony art and puffy declarative word clouds provide comic relief, but the story's matter-of-fact first-person narratives serve as counterpoint to the innocent visual style, even if the more violent episodes are left off the page. These events may have happened 50 years ago, but the visages of the past continue to haunt and reverberate with the present.
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