The Grinning Man

"The Grinning Man" is a feature-length and the twenty-sixth episode of the BBC crime drama series Jonathan Creek, first broadcast on 1 January 2009. The episode marked the series' return to television following a five-year hiatus and saw the return of Alan Davies as the show's titular sleuth. Stuart Milligan returned to the series as Jonathan's boss, magician Adam Klaus, while the episode also introduced Sheridan Smith as Joey Ross, Jonathan's crime-solving assistant. The episode was written and directed by series creator David Renwick, who chose to revive the show as a means of delaying his retirement.

The central mysteries of the episode focused on an attic room whose occupants disappeared without trace overnight and the kidnapped partner of a stage magician.

The episode was watched by 9.91 million viewers and attained a 36% audience share. Critical reaction to the episode from The Scotsman's Paul Whitelaw and The Northern Echo's Steve Pratt suggested that, at 120 minutes, the plot was overstretched. The Stage's Mark Wright compared Smith favourably to her predecessor in the assistant role, Julia Sawalha as Carla Borrego, while both Scotland on Sunday's Chitra Ramaswamy and Sian Brewis for the Leicester Mercury discussed the nostalgia invoked by the episode, as a result of the series having been off-air since 2004.

## Plot

Set five years after the previous episode, "Gorgons Wood", "The Grinning Man" begins by introducing the Gothic mansion Metropolis. Since 1938, a number of visitors staying overnight in the mansion's attic "Nightmare Room" have disappeared without a trace. Originally owned by a spiritualist, the mansion is now the property of his grandson, stage magician Lance Gessler (Nicholas Boulton). Gessler lives with his mother, Constance (Judy Parfitt), his partner Elodie (Jenna Harrison) and their groundskeeper, Glenn (Ciarán McMenamin). They offer shelter to paranormal investigator Joey Ross and her friend Mina (Naomi Bentley) when the two are caught in a storm. Mina elects to sleep in the Nightmare Room and has vanished by morning. Constance calls in sleuth Jonathan Creek to investigate Mina's disappearance.

Jonathan has recently begun a relationship with an old acquaintance, Nicola (Katherine Parkinson), who is opposed to his investigative career, believing it to be too dangerous an occupation. Jonathan is still in the employment of the magician Adam Klaus, whose television series is receiving heavy criticism from viewers. To Jonathan's bemusement, Klaus invests in the 3D pornography industry and begins dating the porn actress Candy Mountains (Jemma Walker). Jonathan inspects the attic room and the bedroom directly beneath it, but finds nothing suspicious, save for a small vent in the canopy of the room's four-poster bed, which is opened when pressure is put on the mattress, releasing dead flies.

Investigating events at Metropolis, Jonathan deduces that Gessler's grandfather was a Nazi sympathiser, who laid a trap in the attic room to kill one of his enemies without arousing suspicion and which has subsequently killed anyone else who stayed in that room. Jonathan and Joey spend the night in the room, but uncover nothing. The next morning, when trying to figure out what they had done differently to all the victims, Jonathan comes to the realisation that they would have all taken a bath in the adjoining bathroom. Upon realising the secret behind the disappearances, Jonathan races back up to the attic with Glenn. Unfortunately, Joey had already climbed into the bath, which has descended and released her into a water tank below the room, where the corpses of previous victims (including her friend Mina) remain, drowned and decomposing. The bath has not yet returned to its position so Jonathan and Glenn are able to rescue her. Confronting Constance, Jonathan explains that the room the disappearances occurred in was not the real attic room, but in fact located in a flat-roofed tower next to the real attic which had slanted ceilings built in to disguise it as the attic in order to stop people suspecting any traps beneath it. The vent in the canopy was designed to leak an ectoplasmic fluid on the first victim to ensure they would use the bath.

During the investigation, Gessler's partner, Elodie, is kidnapped. Joey follows Gessler from his stage show one night and observes him slashing Elodie's throat. She, Jonathan and Nicola later discover Elodie's dead body, but when they return with policemen, the corpse has been switched for a prop dummy. Glenn reveals that he and Elodie were in love and had recently married in secret. He suspects that Gessler may have murdered Elodie out of jealousy after she confessed their marriage to him. The police, however, receive a video of Elodie walking through a park the morning after she was supposedly murdered, with the day's newspaper in plain view for validation. Jonathan realizes that Gessler had manipulated Delia Gunning (Julia Ford), the editor of the local newspaper, into printing a fake copy a week in advance. By making the video before killing Elodie, he could deflect suspicion from himself, leading the police to believe that she had faked her own death and run away. Gessler ensured the front page's authenticity by having Delia create the day's headline herself, releasing a briefcase full of bees in the middle of a local council meeting. Jonathan's suspicions became aroused as the following story about the construction of a motorway through six villages would have been far more engaging as a front-pager. Jonathan and Joey arrive at Delia's home just in time to save her from being murdered by Gessler, who later kills himself by gassing himself in his car.

The "Grinning Man" the title refers to is the subject of a painting, reputedly by Hieronymous Bosch, which hangs in the attic Nightmare Room. Once the episode's mysteries are resolved, Constance confesses that she rescued the painting from a burning room decades previously, leaving an elderly uncle to die as she did so. She has Glenn assist her in burning the painting in Metropolis' grounds. The episode ends with Jonathan, Joey and Adam arriving at a restaurant to celebrate with their significant others. Adam discovers that he has been conned by Candy and will not be receiving any return on his pornography investment. Joey receives a call from her partner, Alec (Adam James), who reveals that he is in Miami with Nicola and the two are now seeing one another. As the maître d' (Graham Vanas) arrives to lead them to their private booth, Jonathan jests; "Three for the Nightmare Room".

## Production

David Renwick made the decision to revive Jonathan Creek for a Christmas special as a means of "deferring retirement". He considered the alternative of developing an entirely new series to be too lengthy a process, and regarded reviving Jonathan Creek as the "safe decision". He described the process of formulating a plot for the episode as an "agony" and a "torment", revealing that he had stopped writing the show in 2004 partly due to a lack of ideas. Renwick explained: "Inevitably, you set up a series which is all about impossibilities that then have to have a rational explanation, by definition it’s going to be pretty challenging stuff for a writer. So God knows why I ever embarked on it in the first place." As well as writing, Renwick also directed the episode, which was produced by Nerys Evans; Jonathan Creek's former Producer Verity Lambert died of cancer in November 2007. Davies noted that he and Renwick met quite regularly following Lambert's death, and when Renwick suggested to the BBC that they revive Jonathan Creek, the broadcaster "bit his hand off for it". "The Grinning Man" was commissioned by Jane Tranter, Controller of BBC Fiction, with Lucy Lumsden, Controller of Comedy Commissioning, stating that the station was "delighted to have Jonathan Creek back on BBC One". Renwick was prepared for a negative reaction to the show's revival, describing how: "People say, Oh Jonathan Creek's coming back. Fantastic.' And then they watch it and go: 'God, what a mistake.' Which is what happened with One Foot in the Grave. So I tend to expect the worst."

Davies had suspected that Renwick would one day revive Jonathan Creek, explaining that Jonathan's fate had been left open, unlike Renwick's other famous character - One Foot In The Grave's Victor Meldrew, who was killed in a hit and run in the show's last episode. When the production of "The Grinning Man" was announced in June 2008, Davies commented: "For the last five years whenever I've passed a locked room I've thought there might be a mystery lurking behind it, so I'm very happy to return to Jonathan Creek and to have something to actually solve." He stated that reprising the role after such a lengthy hiatus was initially strange, and that: "I couldn't remember my lines on the first day. I'd sort of forgotten how precise you have to be when you work on a Jonathan Creek episode." He praised co-star Sheridan Smith in comparison, describing how: "Sheridan is extremely good at all that stuff, which works in a similar way to the script, in that she's a very bright, sharp character and Creek's a bit rusty and hasn't really been doing it for a while. So sure enough, on the first day, she knows all her lines and makes her mark. And I'm going, 'Hang on a minute, stop showing off'". Upon receiving the episode's script, Davies had gained a stone in weight since last playing Jonathan Creek, almost five years previously. Renwick suggested that they include Davies' weight gain in the plot, presenting the character as having "gone to seed". Davies, however, did not want to play a "fat Creek", and lost weight before filming began, stating: "it was my choice not to let him go too much". The actor discussed with Renwick how Jonathan may have developed in the intervening five years: "We talked about whether he’d have changed, whether he’d have done any investigating in the meantime. He probably didn’t. He still does the same job and is locked in the same relationship with Klaus and feeling a bit put upon – that hasn’t changed at all... and he still lives in a windmill". In a change from the original, Cobstone Windmill was used for the exterior shots, replacing Shipley Windmill, which had been used for all other episodes. Davies grew his hair out again for the role, and wore his own duffel coat throughout the episode. The coat had become the character's trademark in the show's first series, with Davies explaining that: "After we did the first series, I could never wear it off screen again, because people started doing the Danse Macabre [theme] music everywhere I went. So it's just been in the wardrobe for 12 years."

Previous series of Jonathan Creek had featured first Caroline Quentin, and then Julia Sawalha as Jonathan's assistants Maddy Magellan and Carla Borrego, respectively. Quentin departed from the show at the end of its third series in 2000 in order to try for a second child, while Sawalha temporarily retired from acting in 2004, having become so disillusioned that she was "dragging [her]self out of bed" by the end of the show's fourth series in order to film episodes. Davies explained that Renwick had always believed Jonathan needed a sidekick character, and that: "You can't really have Jonathan Creek without his sounding board when all the stuff is going on in his mind. In a novel you can have an interior monologue when a leading character is working out what's going on, but for a film or television you have to have Dr Watson for Sherlock Holmes, it's somebody for Holmes to explain it to." For "The Grinning Man", a new sidekick was created in the form of Joey Ross, played by actress Sheridan Smith. Renwick described the opportunity to work with Smith as a major catalyst in his decision to revive the show. The actress had previously appeared in his series Love Soup, and Renwick's wife suggested pairing her with Davies in the new episode. Smith was approached about the role before the episode's script was written, and after readily agreeing to take the part of Ross, Renwick wrote the character's dialogue with Smith's northern accent in mind. The actress found accustoming herself to "detective talk" the hardest part of the role, explaining: "You slow down, and then speed up at the end. I kept watching Alan and going, 'I can’t do this figuring out talk.' But I learned from the master." Smith enjoyed the challenge the role presented, stating: "He's [Renwick] written this feisty little northern character, and I am really honoured because he's such a great writer. I have always played chavs and slappers so I wasn't used to being an intelligent young girl."

Renwick has stated that the production of any further Jonathan Creek specials will depend on reception to "The Grinning Man", as well as his own schedule. Davies is amenable to reprising the lead role in future, stating: "If David writes more, I'm happy to do them. Unless they turned up and they were awful - but it hasn't happened so far. And he wouldn't send me an awful one anyway. But I don't know if he will come up with another one. He always says that the writing is so difficult, I'm not sure it gives him any pleasure. But I think the shooting gave him a lot of pleasure this time. He was directing for the first time and I think he really enjoyed it. So, we'll see."

## Reception

"The Grinning Man" received a mixed response from critics and was watched by 9.91 million viewers, with a 36% share of the total television audience. The episode beat ITV's Marple in the same time-slot, with Geraldine McEwan's last episode as Agatha Christie's famous sleuth receiving just 4.48 million viewers and a 15% audience share. The Sunday Times' AA Gill was critical of the episode, suggesting that the series had been revived: "because of some dire piece of market research where they asked single, lonely, overweight, over-40 women who keep cats and believe in ghosts who they fancied most on television and Alan Davies must have beaten Huw Edwards by a woolly head." Of the episode itself, he wrote: "It skids between procedural whodunit realism and cartoonish fantasy in a way that defies belief and interest. It is a dull confusion of unknotted loose ends that breaks its own rules, suspends common sense and dumps so much unexplained plot that all suspense drains away through the holes in the story." The Herald's Alasdair McKay was critical of Davies' acting in the episode, writing that: "it really is difficult to tell the difference between the comedian and the accidental detective in David Renwick's comedy drama. Davies doesn't act, he tries to stay awake, occasionally pausing for a cryptic insight." While The Scotsman's Paul Whitelaw similarly noted that Davies appeared to be playing "a slightly grumpier version" of himself, he was "quite impressed" by Davies performance, having never seen him act before. Whitelaw found that "the episode itself left a lot to be desired", writing that its central mystery was "solid" and its solution was "satisfyingly creepy", but that "At two hours in length it was fatally overstretched [...] It was as though Renwick, who also directed, had been given 120 minutes to fill without having enough material to fill them – the narrative equivalent of an interminable jam session based around some fundamentally decent riffs." Steve Pratt, writing for The Northern Echo, was similarly critical of the episode's length, deeming the Adam Klaus subplot "nonsense" which "could easily be removed without loss". Pratt suggested that "This would also help reduce the overlong two-hour running time, during which my attention wandered more often than it should have done." The Observer's Euan Ferguson shared a similar sentiment, writing that the episode:

> ...was long, at two hours, but writer/director David Renwick had helped us here in our tea-making and loo-going by including an almost entirely unwatchable sub-plot involving a sleazy magician and a porn star; as soon as it segued back to this, it was time for the viewer to leap to race for the kettle. What was going on with this bit? Had Renwick written it with his feet, in the bath or something? Then gone through it removing all traces of point or humour, then dropped it actually into the bath, then torn it up, then asked for it to be quickly rewritten by, say, an ant?

Unlike McKay and Gill, however, Ferguson praised both Davies' acting and the episode as a whole, deeming it "the best thing on television all week". He opined that Davies: "plays Creek to easy perfection: mumbling, lugubrious, quietly brilliant", and called the plot "involving, intriguing, [and] original", stating that it "did the thing all good thrillers, books or films, do of getting you actively, cleverly involved in thinking you can see the answer before anyone else. You couldn't." The List's Brian Donaldson was also positive about the episode, calling it "surprisingly splendid festive fare", in which "The twists and resolutions were, to this watcher at least, as well hidden as Davies’ ears underneath that shaggy bonce." The Times' Tim Teeman deemed the episode "comfort television", commenting on its "rambling pace" and writing that: "Our hero was brainy and cranky and the show itself awkward, funny and idiosyncratic (as you'd expect from the creator, writer and director David Renwick)." The Daily Telegraph' Gerard O'Donovan agreed that the episode felt "comfy and familiar", but also found its run-time overstretched, writing that it:

> ...might have made for terrifically good, refreshingly unsentimental fun had it not been for the fact that the episode was commissioned to run for two hours. That's a good 30 minutes longer than the show's ever been stretched before, and an hour beyond its natural span. Expanding to fit necessitated getting Creek and Joey to stall, stumble and scratch their bonces ineffectually at each other all the time while writer David Renwick desperately padded out the story with ever more unlikely twists and turns, zig-zagging down incredible subplots involving the magician's scheme to kidnap and murder his assistant, and the terrible betrayal that lay behind his mother's acquisition of an oil painting by Hieronymus Bosch. In the end, by the time the secret of the original mystery was unlocked, the only room one really feared never being able to escape from was the one with the telly in it.

Of Smith's performance as Joey, O'Donovan opined that: "For most drama series the presence of a key new character would have a tangible impact. But not Jonathan Creek, where characterisation has never been done in anything but the broadest brush strokes. Both Caroline Quentin and Julia Sawalha have previously filled the generic role of Creek's pushy, inquisitive partner pretty much interchangeably. Smith was no different. Ten minutes in and we'd forgotten she was anyone new." In contrast, Mark Wright, reviewing the episode for The Stage, praised Smith's performance as Joey, deeming her to be "a much more satisfying sidekick" than Julia Sawalha's Carla Borrego. He enjoyed the on-screen relationship between the two lead actors, writing that: "it’s the interplay between Davies and Smith that makes this really special." Scotland on Sunday's Chitra Ramaswamy discussed the nostalgia invoked by the series' return, alongside The Royle Family, Blackadder and Shooting Stars—other major shows which returned for 2008 Christmas specials. Ramaswamy wrote: "all the comforting, well kent faces are back to soothe us through these dismal times. In a culture that is becoming more and more risk-averse, it's the oldies but goodies that we trust." Sian Brewis for the Leicester Mercury also considered this nostalgia angle, but concluded that: "Jonathan Creek is the sort of auld acquaintance you’re happy to see once a year – any more than that, you feel, and his mannerisms would start to grate." She deemed the episode: "Less a blast from the past as a shuffling "excuse me". Conversely, Anne Pickles for the News and Star wrote that a one-off special was not enough, and "what we really wanted was a brand new series". Pickles said of the episode: "It’s the gentle, facially expressive, deeply sceptical, somehow slightly daft performance of Davies as Creek that makes this sleuthing drama such a glory. But a one-off? Oh come on... you can do better than that."


Washington Blade

The Washington Blade is an LGBT newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area. The Blade is the oldest LGBT newspaper in the United States and third largest by circulation, behind the Philadelphia Gay News and the Gay City News of New York City. The Blade is often referred to as America's gay newspaper of record because it chronicled LGBT news locally, nationally, and internationally. The New York Times said the Blade is considered "one of the most influential publications written for a gay audience."

The paper was originally launched as an independent publication in October 1969 with a focus on bringing the community together. In 2001, the Blade was purchased by Window Media LLC, a group of gay-oriented newspapers circulated throughout the United States with a staff composed of professional journalists, becoming a leading source of news for the readers both in Washington and around the nation. The paper publishes weekly on Fridays and celebrated its 50th anniversary in October 2019.

In November 2009, the Blade and several related publications, including the Southern Voice, were shut down after Window Media announced it was closing business. After Blade staff members were told they no longer had jobs, plans were made for a new gay publication entitled DC Agenda, since the trademark for Washington Blade was still held by the now-defunct Window Media.

It was announced on April 27, 2010, that the DC Agenda would rename itself to the Washington Blade. The ownership group of the Agenda consisted of many former staff members of the Blade, who purchased the trademark and paper archives out of bankruptcy court. The first issue of the newly independent Blade debuted on April 30, 2010.

## History

### Origins to 1973

The Washington Blade, originally called The Gay Blade, published its first issue on October 5, 1969. Taking its roots from the Mattachine Society of Washington's newsletter in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Blade was conceived as a way to fill in a perceived gap in the organization of social communications within the gay community of Washington, D.C. It was created by Nancy Tucker and Lilli Vincenz. The Blade was originally published as a single page and distributed hand-to-hand in a variety of gay bars throughout the city. Afraid of a backlash over the publication, many of the initial authors of writings in the Blade used pen names during the early years of publishing. The initial publications were entirely created by volunteers from the community with two editors, Nancy Tucker and Bart Wenger, at the helm. Wenger stated the initial goals of the publication were to "...engender a sense of community" and that it was "very important for gays to become acquainted with one another." Published monthly from 1969 to 1973, the newspaper evolved from its original size and shape of a single letter sized paper sheet. In June 1972, the Gay Blade published its first multi-page edition which consisted of four pages and in April 1973, the paper expanded to eight pages and was printed on legal sized paper sheets, stapled in the middle and folded. As the looks of the paper evolved, so did the news coverage. The Gay Blade began to focus less on being a newsletter used to organize the community and more of a newspaper for the community.

### 1974 to 1982

In July 1974, the first newsprint edition was published and signaled an evolution in the history of the Gay Blade. A fifth anniversary edition of the paper was not published in October 1974 because of a lack of revenue and interest, marking the only time the paper failed to publish an edition in its history. The new focus on being a newspaper allowed the publication's circulation to grow in 1974 and 1975 from five hundred copies distributed at less than a dozen sites to over 4,000 copies available at thirty-five locations throughout the city. The June 1975 edition of the Blade dropped the word 'Gay' from the title of the publication after it was discovered that a newspaper in New York City held the rights to the name Gay Blade. The new name of the publication was now The Blade. It continued to be published on newsprint paper and had no additional format changes until near the end of the decade. Incorporating as a non-profit corporation under the title of "Blade Communications, Inc." in November 1975, the paper continued its growth. Don Michaels, an important voice on the pages of the publication, was named the editor of the paper in January 1978. Michaels began strict enforcement of a policy that prohibited pen names from being used in bylines. By November 1978, the Blade was regularly featuring color printing on its pages and beginning in 1979, the Blade changed into a bi-weekly publication. Starting in October 1980, the name of the publication changed to The Washington Blade and the corporation re-incorporated as a for-profit, employee-owned business. In July 1981, the Blade ran a front-page story entitled "Rare, Fatal Pneumonia Hits Gay Men," making the paper one of the first gay newspapers in the country to write about the disease that has come to be known as AIDS. In November 1981, Don Michaels got promoted to the position of publisher, a position he would hold for over two decades.

### 1983 to 2000

The Blade started publishing weekly in January 1983 and coverage shifted to the AIDS crisis and news about this newly emerging disease. The ever-breaking news caused the paper to remain in a heightened state of coverage and nearly exhausted the papers resources with members of the community having to step in to support the work of the Blade. The reporting of the AIDS crisis from this timeframe allowed the newspaper to come of age to the mature and professionally driven publication seen today. In June 1988, the editors of the paper used a computer to layout the paper for the first time. The 1990s saw increases in readership and circulation of the Washington Blade. In April 1993, during the 1993 Gay March on Washington, the paper published its largest edition to date consisting of 216 pages. The paper expanded into new markets and mediums with the 1995 launch of the online version of the Blade, followed two years later with the launching of a sister publication in New York, called the New York Blade. In the later part of the century, coverage was expanded to include local and national news, as well as international news of interest to the LGBT community. Some authors implemented the use of humor in addressing potentially sensitive subjects, such as N. Leigh Dunlap in her long-running comic strip Morgan Calabrese.

### 2001 to 2010

On May 25, 2001, the print edition announced the sale of the Washington Blade to Window Media, LLC, a group of gay publications. With the new ownership came several changes to standardize the paper with other Window Media publications, such as the return of editorials to the publication after being missing for several decades. Shortly after the sale of the paper, staff at the Blade sought a vote to unionize with the help of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. The Guild and the staff of the Blade brought a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board and deliberated for a few weeks over this issue resulting in a ten to eight vote against unionization on July 20, 2001.

Beginning in 2005, the Washington Blade also ran a free news clipping service called the BladeWire. This service collected news stories of interest to the LGBT community from a variety of local, state, regional, national, and selected international media sources. The service was generated by the Blades editors and was published on the internet. A feature of the BladeWire also allowed it to be syndicated onto other websites using JavaScript.

During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Senator John McCain's decision to participate in a written interview with the Blade marked the first time a Republican presidential nominee agreed to be interviewed by a gay publication.

On November 16, 2009, the paper was abruptly shut down because of the financial status of its parent company, Window Media, and its majority shareholder, Avalon Equity Partners. Employees at the Blade were aware of Window Media's financial troubles, but the timing and total closure of the publication came as a shock to the entire staff. Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, said employees "found out when two of the corporate officers were waiting for us when we got to work this morning". Since the Blade had been a profitable newspaper, and because the debt-ridden Window Media was no longer draining the publication's finances, the same day the Blade shut down, Naff told the Washington City Paper he and the remaining staffers "We're all together. Our first meeting for our new venture is tomorrow morning." Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said the Blade had been a "weekly must-read", and pledged support for a new publication to serve Washington's LGBT community.

On November 20, 2009, a new venture, supported entirely by volunteering staff (who consisted of the majority of the Blade's editorial staff, as well as a few others, at the time of its closing), launched with its first issue. Called DC Agenda, no relation to the non-profit organization of the same name, the new venture released the same week as the closing of the Blade. From the placeholder website SaveTheBlade.com:

> While we cannot save the name we can certainly save all that was the essence and spirit of our LGBTQ Community's newspaper of record. The staff of the paper remains united and our mission to enlighten and inform remains steadfast. We will launch a new publication that will bring you what we have always worked to deliver - gay news and information that is critical to our Metro DC LGBTQ Community.

Issues were handed out at Washington, D.C., Metro train stations, and an online copy was available at www.washingtonblade.com.

On February 25, 2010, DC Agenda acquired the assets of the Washington Blade from the US Bankruptcy Court. Included were the archives, name, trademarks, website, and fixtures from the Washington Blade offices. About a month later on April 26, 2010, the DC Agenda publisher announced that the Washington Blade name would return to the masthead of the paper with the DC Agenda becoming the name of the arts and entertainment section.

On March 24, 2017, the paper launched a version in Los Angeles, called the Los Angeles Blade.

## Circulation and demographics

The Washington Blade was published weekly on Fridays with a circulation of 33,874 printed copies of each edition. News coverage focuses mainly on global and regional political issues concerning LGBT persons with additional coverage of entertainment and nightlife in the Washington, D.C. area. The masthead of the printed paper includes the slogan "The gay and lesbian weekly of the national capital area since 1969" and the online masthead proclaims "All the news for your life. And your style." Distribution of the Blade includes locations throughout the Washington, D.C. area. Additional distribution points are located in Maryland, Virginia, and as far away as Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The newspaper is primarily distributed through free-standing newspaper boxes on street corners, newspaper racks at Metro stations, and in shops and restaurants. The main competition to the Washington Blade in Washington, D.C. is the weekly newsmagazine, Metro Weekly, and nationally the Bay Area Reporter of San Francisco. For a brief period starting in 1979, the Blade also had competition from Blacklight, the city's first African-American gay monthly periodical. Archives of the Washington Blade were maintained at their Washington, D.C. offices and on Microfilm at the Microfilm Reading Room of the Library of Congress, and in the Alternative & Underground Press Collections of ProQuest (formerly called UMI) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The newspaper is a member of the National Newspaper Association, the National Gay Newspaper Guild, and the Associated Press.

According to a survey conducted by Simmons Market Research in April 2000 for the Washington Blade, the median age of their readership was forty-one and 85% of their readers were between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four years old. 92% of the readership is employed with 70% of the readers in professional and managerial jobs. The median income of readers was \$57,200 per year, with median household income at \$84,000. Overall, 79% of the Blade's readership holds a college degree with 42% of the readers holding postgraduate degrees.

## Awards

A series of articles from March 1985 and continuing for five months entitled "When Pretending Stops," written by Lisa Keen, won local acclaim and awards for the coverage of the slow death of local lawyer Ray Engebretsen. This series of articles chronicled the impact of AIDS in the gay community and was ground-breaking coverage in Washington. In 1995, the Washington Blade won a Silver Gavel award from the American Bar Association for a four-part series of articles entitled "Legal Challenges to Anti-Gay Initiatives" which explored the legal consequences of anti-gay ballot initiatives and the constitutional challenges to them. In 2007, the paper won four Dateline Awards for Excellence in Local Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter.

## Criticism and controversy

Publication of the paper has not been without controversy over the years. The news coverage from the early years to the mid-1980s was perceived by some as being "white-washed" for its lack of coverage of the gay African-American population located in Washington, D.C., a city where more than 70 percent of its residents were African-American. This led to the creation of the short-lived publication Blacklight, the city's first African-American gay monthly periodical in August 1979, which attempted to compete with the Blade. Coverage of the City Council special election in April 1991 garnered intensive criticism of biased coverage and led to calls for reforming the paper's editorial board. In 1993, the Blade and its publishing company threatened to sue the Fairfax County Library over a potential ban on the distribution of the Blade at its branches. Also, the 2001 sale of the Washington Blade to Window Media, LLC led to intense criticism from former employees, editors, and media pundits of the consolidation of so many gay newspapers' editorial boards into the same company, leading to fears of homogenizing of content and editorial control. A former staff writer has also accused the paper of playing politics through the mandated use of the capitalized version of the word 'Gay' in order to make a political statement.

The newspaper has been accused from time-to-time of forcing public figures out of the closet. This policy of 'outing' individuals surfaced in 1996 during the debate over the Defense of Marriage Act, when the Blade and The Advocate were going to out Congressmen Jim Kolbe and Mark Foley. Neither publication did out either politician, and both publications later denied ever intending to out the Congressmen. In recent years, these accusations have resurfaced as Kevin Naff, current editor of the Blade, has accused The Washington Post of 'straight-washing' stories about LGBT individuals. Naff wrote that "When someone is described as 'flamboyant,' 'eccentric' or 'a lifelong bachelor,' we know what's being implied... Readers of the Washington Post had better hone their gaydar skills, because in story after story, the newsgathering behemoth either ignores questions of sexual orientation or employs endless winks and nods to convey what would be better spelled out." When asked why identifying and outing of individuals by publications like the Blade, staff writer Greg Marzullo wrote "Why do [we] insist on mentioning someone's sexual orientation at all? Because we're a queer paper." As reported in the Washington Post, former editor Chris Crain summarized the Blade's editorial reasoning for the 'outings' by stating that "It is 2004, not 1954, and sexual orientation in and of itself is no longer a 'private fact' beyond the pale of inquiry." The Blade, he wrote, "would investigate and report about whether influential Hill aides are gay if facts about their sexual orientation raise highly newsworthy questions of hypocrisy in the stands taken by anti-gay members of Congress for whom they work." A former staff writer of the Washington Blade has noted objections to this perceived campaign to label individuals by their sexual orientations and has used a blog to register these objections.

In July 2005, Jeff Gannon began writing editorials for the paper. His pieces included criticism of gay blogger John Aravosis, who had helped uncover Gannon's pornographic ads. Editor Chris Crain attracted his own criticism from many in the gay community for this decision, due to Gannon's history of anti-gay reporting as well as Gannon's refusal to disclose his sexual orientation. He has said, "My personal life is a private matter, despite the fact that I have become a public person." Crain defended his decision in a September 2005 editorial and claimed the "steady stream of feedback/vitriol" had declined "a little" with each new Gannon article.

American LGBT newspaper

LGBT-related newspapers published in the United States

Newspapers published in Washington, D.C.

Weekly newspapers published in the United States


Canadian comics

Canadian comics refers to comics and cartooning by citizens of Canada or permanent residents of Canada regardless of residence. Canada has two official languages, and distinct comics cultures have developed in English and French Canada. The English tends to follow American trends, and the French, Franco-Belgian ones, with little crossover between the two cultures. Canadian comics run the gamut of comics forms, including editorial cartooning, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and webcomics, and are published in newspapers, magazines, books, and online. They have received attention in international comics communities and have received support from the federal and provincial governments, including grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. There are comics publishers throughout the country, as well as large small press, self-publishing, and minicomics communities.

In English Canada many cartoonists, from Hal Foster to Todd McFarlane, have sought to further their careers by moving to the United States; since the late 20th century increasing numbers have gained international attention while staying in Canada. During World War II, trade restrictions led to the flourishing of a domestic comic book industry, whose black-and-white "Canadian Whites" contained original stories of heroes such as Nelvana of the Northern Lights as well as American scripts redrawn by Canadian artists. The war's end saw American imports and domestic censorship lead to the death of this industry. The alternative and small press communities grew in the 1970s, and by the end of the century Dave Sim's Cerebus and Chester Brown's comics, amongst others, gained international audiences and critical acclaim, and Drawn & Quarterly became a leader in arts-comics publishing. In the 21st century, comics have gained wider audiences and higher levels of recognition, especially in the form of graphic novels and webcomics.

In French Canada indigenous comics are called BDQ or bande dessinée québécoise () Cartoons with speech balloons in Quebec date to the late 1700s. BDQ have alternately flourished and languished throughout Quebec's history as the small domestic market has found it difficult to compete with foreign imports. Many cartoonists from Quebec have made their careers in the United States. Since the Springtime of BDQ in the 1970s native comics magazines, such as Croc and Safarir, and comics albums have become more common, though they account for only 5% of total sales in the province. Since the turn of the 21st century cartoonists such as Michel Rabagliati, Guy Delisle, and the team of Dubuc and Delaf have seen international success in French-speaking Europe and in translation. Éditions Mille-Îles and La Pastèque are amongst the domestic publishers that have become increasingly common.

## History

### English Canada

#### Early history (1759–1910s)

Brigadier-General George Townshend's cartoons lampooning General James Wolfe in 1759 are recognized as the first examples of political cartooning in Canadian history. Cartoons did not have a regular forum in Canada until John Henry Walker's short-lived weekly Punch in Canada débuted in Montreal in 1849. The magazine was a Canadian version of Britain's humorous Punch and featured cartoons by Walker. It paved the way for a number of similar short-lived publications, until the success of the more straight-laced Canadian Illustrated News, published by George-Édouard Desbarats beginning in 1869, soon after Canadian Confederation.

In 1873, John Wilson Bengough founded Grip, a humour magazine in the style of Punch and the American Harper's Weekly. It featured a large number of cartoons, especially Bengough's own. The cartoons tended to be political, and Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and Métis rebel leader Louis Riel were favourite targets. The Pacific Scandal in the early 1870s gave Bengough much fodder to raise his reputation as a political caricaturist. According to historian John Bell, while Bengough was probably the most significant pre-20th-century Canadian cartoonist, Henri Julien was likely the most accomplished. Published widely both at home and abroad, Julien's cartoons appeared in periodicals such as Harper's Weekly and Le Monde illustré. In 1888, he gained employment at the Montreal Star and became the first full-time newspaper cartoonist in Canada.

Palmer Cox, a Canadian expatriate in the United States, at this time created The Brownies, a popular, widely merchandised phenomenon whose first book collection sold over a million copies. Cox began a Brownies comic strip in 1898 that was one of the earliest English-language strips, and had begun to use speech balloons by the time it ended in 1907.

#### Age of comic strips (1920s–1930s)

Canadian cartoonists often found it hard to succeed in the field of comic strips without moving to the US, but in 1921, Jimmy Frise, one of Ernest Hemingway's drinking buddies during the journalist's days in Toronto, sold Life's Little Comedies to the Toronto Star's Star Weekly. This strip was later retitled Birdseye Center, and became the longest-running strip in English Canadian history. In 1947, Frise brought the strip to the Montreal Standard, where it was renamed Juniper Junction. Nova Scotia-born artist J. R. Williams single-panel strip about rural and small-town life, Out Our Way, began in 1922 and was syndicated in 700 newspapers at its peak.

Two new comic strips appeared on the same day in 1929 in American newspapers and fed the public's desire for escapist entertainment at the dawn of the Great Depression. They were the first non-humorous adventure strips, and both were adaptations. One was Buck Rogers; the other, Tarzan, by Halifax native Hal Foster, who had worked as illustrator for catalogues from Eaton's and the Hudson's Bay Company before moving to the US in his late 20s. Other adventure strips soon followed and paved the way for the genre diversity that was seen in comic strips in the 1930s. In 1937, Foster began his own strip, Prince Valiant, which has become his best-known work for Foster's dextrous, realistic artwork. After struggling to support himself at various Toronto-based publications, Richard Taylor, under the pen name "Ric", became a regular at The New Yorker and relocated to the US, where the pay and opportunities for cartoonists were better.

The Toronto Telegram began to run Men of the Mounted in 1933, the first home-grown adventure strip, written by Ted McCall and drawn by Harry Hall. McCall later penned the strip Robin Hood and Company, which made its appearance in comic books when McCall founded Anglo-American Publishing in 1941.

#### Golden age: Canadian Whites (1940s)

The Golden Age of Comic Books and subsequent superhero boom began with the release in June 1938 of Action Comics \#1. The cover story was the first appearance of Superman, drawn by Toronto-born Joe Shuster. Shuster modeled Superman's Metropolis after his memories of Toronto, and the newspaper Clark Kent worked for after the Toronto Daily Star, which he had delivered as a child. These comics crossed the border and quickly gained Canadian fans as well.

In December 1940, the War Exchange Conservation Act was passed. It restricted the importation of goods from the US that were deemed non-essential to combat the trade deficit Canada had with its neighbours to the south. American comic books were casualties of the Act. In 1941, to fill the void, a number of Canadian comic book publishers sprang up, starting in March with Anglo-American Publishing in Toronto and Maple Leaf Publishing in Vancouver. Adrian Dingle's Hillborough Studios and Bell Features soon joined them. The comics printed by these companies had colour covers, but the innards were in black-and-white, and thus collectors call them Canadian Whites. Superheroes stories were prominent, and the "Whites" often relied on serials to keep readers coming back for more.

Better Comics from Maple Leaf and Robin Hood and Company from Anglo-American were the first titles to hit the stands. Robin Hood was a tabloid-sized comic strip reprint magazine, while Better was made up of original material in traditional comic-book format, and thus can be said to be the first true Canadian comic book. It included the appearance of the first Canadian superhero, Vernon Miller's Iron Man. John Stables, under the pen name John St. Ables, was responsible for Brok Windsor's debut in Better in the spring of 1944—a fantasy-adventure set far in the "land beyond the mists" in the Canadian North. The success of Better led to a proliferation of titles from Maple Leaf.

The driving creative forces behind Anglo-American were Ted McCall, the writer of the Men of the Mounted and Robin Hood strips, and artist Ed Furness. The pair created a number of heroes with such names as Freelance, Purple Rider, Red Rover, and Commander Steel. Anglo-American also published stories based on imported American scripts bought from Fawcett Publications, with fresh artwork by Canadians to bypass trade restrictions. Captain Marvel and Bulletman were amongst the characters that had Canadian adaptations. Anglo-American published a large number of titles, including Freelance, Grand Slam, Three Aces, Whiz, Captain Marvel and Atom Smasher, but relied less on serials, and was less patriotically Canadian than its rival publishers. It employed a number of talented artists, but they were kept to a "house style" of drawing, in the vein of Captain Marvel's C. C. Beck.

In August 1941, three unemployed artists, Adrian Dingle and André and René Kulbach, formed Hillborough Studios to publish their own work. They started with Triumph-Adventure Comics, whose star was Canada's first female superhero, Nelvana of the Northern Lights, who appeared several months before Wonder Woman did in the US. Nelvana was inspired by tribal stories brought back from the Arctic Group of Seven painter Franz Johnston. The popular fur-miniskirted superheroine was a powerful Inuit mythological figure, daughter of a mortal woman and Koliak the Mighty, King of the Northern Lights. She had telepathic powers and was able to ride the Northern Lights at the speed of light, turn invisible, and melt metal.

In March 1942, Dingle and most of the Hillborough staff moved with Nelvana to Toronto-based Bell Features, which had begun publishing comics in September 1941 with the first issue of the successful Wow Comics—in colour at first, but Bell soon switched to the familiar "White" format. Bell was the most prolific of the Canadian comic-book publishers. Its comics were drawn by a large pool of artists, including freelancers, adolescents, and women, and were unabashedly Canadian. Aside from Nelvana, there were Edmund Legault's Dixon of the Mounted, Jerry Lazare's Phantom Rider, and Fred Kelly's Doc Stearne. Leo Bachle's Johnny Canuck was the second Canadian national hero, and debuted in Bell's Dime Comics in February 1942.

The new Canadian comics were successful; Bell reached accumulated weekly sales of 100,000 by 1943. By this time, Educational Projects of Montréal had joined, selling comics in the "White" format. Educational specialized in a different sort of fare: biographies of prime ministers, cases of the RCMP, and historical tales, drawn by accomplished artists including George M. Rae and Sid Barron. Educational's Canadian Heroes earned endorsements from cabinet ministers and appealed to parents and educators, but was not as appealing to the kids it was aimed at until Rae convinced publisher Harry J. Halperin to allow him to include a fictional character, Canada Jack — a hero who battled Nazis.

With the end of World War II in 1945, Canadian comic-book publishing faced competition from American publishers again. Educational and latecomer Feature Publications folded immediately. Maple Leaf tried to compete by switching to colour and by trying to break into the British market. Anglo-American and another newcomer, Al Rucker Publications, tried to compete directly with the Americans, and even achieved distribution in the US. By the end of 1946 it was clear that the remaining publishers could not compete, and for the time being original comic-book publishing came to an end in Canada, although some publishers like Bell Features survived by republishing American books until the War Exchange Conservation Act was officially abolished in 1951. The cartoonists who insisted on drawing for a living faced several choices: some moved across the border to attempt to make it with the American publishers, and some moved into illustration work, as Jerry Lazare, Vernon Miller, Jack Tremblay, and Harold Bennett did. Another avenue was the route Sid Barron followed into political cartooning. By 1949, out of 176 comics titles on the newsstand, only 23 were Canadian.

#### Post-war (late 1940s–early 1970s)

With the end of most original Canadian comic book publishing in 1947, Canada's superheroes disappeared, and the country entered a phase of foreign comic book domination. In November 1948, a crime comics scare hit the country when a pair of voracious comic book readers in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, shot at a random car while playing highwaymen, fatally wounding a passenger. When authorities discovered their taste for comic books, media attention focused on the emerging crime comics genre as an influence on juvenile delinquency. A bill to amend Section 207 of the Criminal Code was drafted, and passed unanimously, making it an offense to make, print, publish, distribute, sell, or own "any magazine, periodical or book which exclusively or substantially comprises matter depicting pictorially the commission of crimes, real or fictitious", on 10 December 1949. Comics publishers across Canada banded together to create the Comic Magazine Industry Association of Canada (CMIAC), a Canadian industry self-censoring body similar to the American Comics Code Authority that would be formed a few years later in response to a similar crime comics scare in the U.S. Purely by coincidence, the Netherlands had experienced a near-similar comics related incident at almost the exact same time with an equally lethal outcome, and causing a similar popular reaction, but in this case the authorities refrained from taking the drastic legal actions, their Canadian counterparts did.

Superior Publishers, however, defied the ban, while also moving into the U.S. market. Watchdogs turned up the heat, and in 1953 a distributor was found guilty of distributing obscenities. Some of Superior's titles found themselves in Fredric Wertham's notorious and influential diatribe on the influence comics had on juvenile delinquency, Seduction of the Innocent, published in 1954. The United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, established in 1953, had public hearings a few months later, and called upon Kamloops, British Columbia Member of Parliament E. Davie Fulton, one of Superior publisher William Zimmerman's most outspoken enemies, as a witness. The Comics Code Authority was soon formed, and Superior, like fellow American publisher EC Comics, saw their sales dwindle throughout 1955. Prosecutions increased throughout Canada, with Superior successfully defending themselves in one, and another supposedly comics-related murder was reported in Westville, Nova Scotia. Superior shut its doors in 1956, and until the 1970s, English Canadian newsstand comic book publishing was no more, although a number of "giveaway" comics continued to be produced by Orville Ganes' Ganes Productions and Owen McCarron's Comic Book World, who produced the educational and cautionary comics for governments and corporations, aimed at kids and teens.

The crackdown was not aimed at comic strips, however, and several notable new ones appeared, like Lew Saw's One-Up, Winslow Mortimer's Larry Brannon and Al Beaton's Ookpik. After Jimmy Frise's death in 1948, Juniper Junction was taken over by Doug Wright, "one of Canada's best post-war comic-strip artists". He would continue with the strip until 1968, while also working on his own Nipper from 1949. In 1967, Nipper became Doug Wright's Family when Wright moved from Montreal to Ontario, and the popular strip continued until 1980. The Doug Wright Awards were inaugurated in his honour in 2005. From 1948 to 1972, James Simpkins' cartoon Jasper the Bear appeared continuously in Maclean's magazine. Jasper was hugely popular across Canada and was used, and is still today, as the symbol for Jasper National Park.

To express his anger at the US military's nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll in 1946 English-born artist Laurence Hyde produced a wordless novel in 1951 called Southern Cross. In 118 silent pages, the book depicts atomic testing by the US military and its effects Polynesian island inhabitants. While it had no direct effect on comics at the time, it has come to be seen as a precursor to the Canadian graphic novel.

Early editorial cartooning lacked a local flavour, tending to be a pale imitation of American examples. It tended to be cheery, non-confrontational, and supported good causes. Following the War it broke from typical American clichés and took on more of a savage bite, especially compared to the more allegorical tendencies of American editorial cartoons. At Le Devoir, Robert Lapalme was the first to cartoon in this particularly Canadian idiom, and in 1963 organized an International Salon of Caricature and Cartoon in Montreal. Lapalme was later followed by Duncan Macpherson at the Toronto Star, Leonard Norris at the Vancouver Sun and Ed McNally at the Montreal Star. These cartoonists frequently took political positions contrary to those of the papers in which they were published. Macpherson drew a cartoon of John Diefenbaker as Marie Antoinette saying "Let them eat cake" in response to the Prime Minister's cancelling the Avro Arrow project, which historian Pierre Burton has called the beginning of Canadians' disillusionment with Diefenbaker's government. Macpherson in particular fought fiercely for editorial independence, challenging his editors and threatening to quit the Star if not given his way, which paved a new path for other cartoonists to follow.

In the spring of 1966, Canada saw its first specialty comic shop open its doors on Queen Street West, Toronto: Viking Bookshop, established by "Captain George" Henderson. Entirely unfamiliar with the new phenomenon, the store was dubbed "the campiest store in town" by Toronto Star reporter Robert Fulford. No longer in existence, Viking Bookshop is currently the earliest known such specialty comic book store in North-America (or worldwide for that matter), predating the oldest known US comic book store, Gary Arlington's San Francisco Comic Book Company (est. April 1968), by two years. One year later, in May 1967, the store was renamed Memory Lane Books after it had relocated to Markham Street in the same city, and as such became an inspiration for pioneering retailer Harry Kremer and Bill Johnson to open Now & Then Books in Kitchener, Ontario. Its newsletter, the Now and Then Times, published early work by the young Dave Sim in its inaugural issue in 1972, and later employed him from 1976 to 1977.

In the late 1960s, along with the countercultural movement, a new form of comic art appeared from the avant-garde and literary scenes—underground comics (or "comix") aimed at an adult audience. Early examples appeared in certain magazines, but an early precursor of Canadian underground comic books was Scraptures, as a special issue of the Toronto avant-garde literary magazine grOnk in 1967. In 1969, Canada saw its first true underground comics, with SFU Komix and Snore Comix. These comix drew their inspiration from the American underground movement that exploded after the release of Robert Crumb's Zap in early 1968. Martin Vaugh-James produced an early graphic novel when he had Elephant released by Press Porcépic in 1970. The underground movement paralleled that of the US, in that it peaked from 1970 to 1972 with the peak of the counterculture, and witnessed a sharp decline afterward. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan's Dave Geary and Vancouver, British Columbia's Rand Holmes were key figures, Holmes being the creator of the Harold Hedd comic strip.

Humour magazine Fuddle Duddle, named after a famous euphemism by then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was a short lived attempt at a Canadian Mad-style satirical magazine. It was the first comic book of Canadian content to be available on newsstands since 1956. Two of its contributors, Peter Evans and Stanley Berneche, would soon go on to bring superheroes back to Canada for the first time since the demise of Nelvana in 1947, with Captain Canuck.

The fan press and fandom grew throughout this period, and was bolstered when Patrick Loubert and Michael Hirsh, the founders of the animation company Nelvana, published of The Great Canadian Comic Books in 1971, a book-length study of the Bell Features comics, and the touring of a related exhibition mounted by the National Gallery of Canada, Comic Art Traditions in Canada, 1941-45, which together served to introduce English-Canadian comics creators and fans to their lost heritage.

Towards the middle of the 1970s, comics aimed at children gradually disappeared. The new breed of underground, alternative and independent comics was aimed at a more mature audience, which ran counter to the public's perception, as well as to legal restrictions. The first wave of alternative comics in the seventies was largely made up of science fiction and fantasy comics, made by budding cartoonists like Gene Day, Dave Sim, Augustine Funnell, Jim Craig, Ken Steacy, Dean Motter, and Vincent Marchesano.

#### New wave (mid-1970s–1980s)

The mid-1970s saw the beginning of a new wave of Canadian comics, one in which the creators chose to remain in Canada, rather than seeking their fortunes south of the border. Richard Comely's Captain Canuck appeared in July 1975, the first appearance of a non-satirical superhero in Canada since the 1940s. During the 1950s and 1960s, the idea of native comics seemed unattainable to Canadian kids, and the appearance of Captain Canuck gave these kids the optimism to make their own. This was followed up with James Waley's more professional, newsstand-distributed Orb, which featured a number of talents that would later take part in the North American comics scene.

The comics magazines showing up in Canada at the time suffered from promotion and distribution problems, however, getting most of their support from the fan press. Phil Seuling's California-based comics distributor Bud Plant was supportive of these underground and alternative comics, though, and helped get them into stores. Eventually, distributors like Bud Plant and the emergence of specialty comic shops would form a distribution network for small press comics that would thrive independently of the traditional newsstands.

The world of comic strips saw a number of works pop up. Ben Wicks was doing The Outsiders and Wicks, Jim Unger's Herman debuted in 1975, and Ted Martin's Pavlov in 1979. In 1978, Lynn Johnston, living in Lynn Lake, Manitoba, began For Better or For Worse, which was noted for following the lives of the Patterson family as they grew older in real time, and dealt with real-life issues. The strip based a number of its storylines on Johnston's real-life experiences with her own family, as well as social issues such as the midlife crisis, divorce, the coming out of a gay character, child abuse, and death. In 1985, she became the first female cartoonist to win a Reuben Award, and the Friends of Lulu added her to the Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame in 2002. The strip was very popular, appearing in over 2000 newspapers in 25 countries.

Editorial cartoonists held considerable sway between the 1950s through the 1970s. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark has been quoted that he lost votes in the election of 1980 due to political cartoons about him. They have also experienced the fear of censorship through the courts, or "libel chill". In 1979, Robert Bierman and the Victoria Times was the subject of a libel suit when he criticized the policies of William Vander Zalm, the British Columbia Minister of Human Resources, with a cartoon of the Minister pulling the wings off flies. When the courts ruled in Vander Zalm's favour, newspapers across the nation ran their own versions of the cartoon in support, until the BC Court of Appeal reversed the ruling in 1980, deeming the cartoon "fair comment". It was later acquired by the National Archives of Canada.

Captain Canuck and Orb both folded by 1976, but in Kitchener, Ontario in December 1977, Dave Sim's independent comic book Cerebus debuted, and would become the longest-lived original Canadian comic book. Benefiting from distribution in the emerging comic shop market, it started as a Howard the Duck-like parody of Barry Windsor-Smith's Conan the Barbarian comics. The story eventually grew to fit Sim's expanding ambitions, both in content and technique, with its earth-pig protagonist getting embroiled in politics, becoming prime minister of a powerful city-state, then a Pope who ascends to the moon—all within the first third of its projected 300-issue run. Sim came to conceive the series as a self-enclosed story, which itself would be divided into novels—or graphic novels, which were gaining in prominence in the North American comic book world in the 1980s and 1990s. While Sim and his partner Gerhard's technical achievements impressed and influenced his peers, Sim also spoke out for creators' rights, promoted his peers and up-and-coming creators, and fiercely promoted self-publishing as an ideal. Americans Jeff Smith with Bone and Terry Moore with Strangers in Paradise took Sim's cue, as did Canadian M'Oak (Mark Oakley) with his long-running Thieves and Kings. Eddie Campbell took Sim's personal advice to self-publish the collected From Hell at the turn of the century. Sim also stirred considerable controversy, sometimes with the content of Cerebus, and sometimes with his editorials and personal interactions.

David Boswell was amongst those in the 1980s who made the jump from the fanzine world when he began self-publishing Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman in 1980. From out of the same scene, Bill Marks started publishing the anthology Vortex in Toronto in 1982. Marks' Vortex Comics expanded into publishing other comics. The publisher gained publicity for Mister X, which employed the talents of Dean Motter, Gilberto and Jaime Hernandez and, later, Torontonians Seth and Jeffrey Morgan. Most notably, Marks picked up Chester Brown's Yummy Fur, a taboo-breaking series which started in 1983 as a self-published, photocopied minicomic. It had generated some buzz, and Vortex started publishing it professionally at the end of 1986. Yummy Fur's stories were a mix of genres, with the improvised, surreal Ed the Happy Clown, straight adaptations of the Gospels, and revealing, bare-all autobiographical stories. Brown would become a major figure in Canadian comics.

As the content of comics matured throughout the 1980s, they became the subject of increasing scrutiny. In 1986, Calgary comic shop Comic Legends was raided and charged with obscenity. In response, Derek McCulloch and Paul Stockton of Strawberry Jam Comics established the Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund to help retailers, distributors, publishers, and creators fight against obscenity charges. To raise funds, they published two True North anthologies of Canadian talent.

During this time, large numbers of Canadian artists were making waves in the American comic book market as well, such as John Byrne, Gene Day and his brother Dan, Jim Craig, Rand Holmes, Geof Isherwood, Ken Steacy, Dean Motter, George Freeman and Dave Ross. Byrne was particularly popular for his work on X-Men, and also originated Alpha Flight, about a team of Canadian superheroes.

#### 1990s

In 1990, Montreal-based publisher Drawn & Quarterly began with an anthology title also named Drawn & Quarterly. It quickly picked up a number of other titles, such as Julie Doucet's semi-autobiographical, bilingual Dirty Plotte, which, like Yummy Fur, had started out as a minicomic; Seth's Palookaville; illegal resident from the US Joe Matt's Peepshow; and Yummy Fur, which made the jump with its twenty-fifth issue. At the time, an autobiographical comics trend took place. Brown, Seth and Matt in particular were thought of as a Toronto comics rat pack, depicting one another in their comics and doing signings and interviews together.

Drawn & Quarterly was at the forefront of the maturation comic books saw in the 1990s, publishing and promoting the works of adult-oriented Canadian and international artists. The publisher avoided genres like superheroes, which publisher Chris Oliveros saw as stifling comics' growth. These comics had artistic aspirations, and graphic novels became increasingly prominent, with Brown's autobiographical The Playboy and I Never Liked You, and Seth's faux-autobiographical It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken garnering considerable attention.

Todd McFarlane from Calgary had been making waves since the late 1980s illustrating comics for DC and Marvel Comics, becoming a fan favourite writer/artist for Spider-Man. He eventually left to co-found the creator-owned comics publishing collective Image Comics, where he debuted the enormously successful Spawn. Spawn holds the record for most copies sold of an independent comic, and was the most financially successful comics franchise of the decade.

#### 21st century

At the dawn of the 21st century, the comics industry had changed considerably. The graphic novel had come into its own, and traditional comics sales dropped significantly. Louis Riel, who had been a major target of John Bengough's caricatures in the early days of Confederation, was the protagonist in Chester Brown's award-winning, best-selling "comic-strip biography". With his graphic novels and book collections, he gained a wider audience than he had with his serial comic books, and he abandoned serial comics entirely to focus on original graphic novels after Louis Riel. Greater appreciation of the artform was shown when Brown and Seth became recipients of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. Dave Sim's Cerebus completed its planned 26-year, 300-issue run in 2004.

Foreign comics, especially Japanese, became quite successful in Canada, and stood out for gaining large numbers of female fans, who had traditionally stayed away from comic books. They also had a significant influence on artists such as Bryan Lee O'Malley and his Scott Pilgrim series. Due to differing social norms, the content of these comics are sometimes censored or ran afoul of Canadian customs officials. Incidental nudity could be interpreted by them as child pornography and result in jail terms.

Drawn & Quarterly has become known as a house for art comics, translations of non-English works, like Montrealer Michel Rabagliati's Paul series, and archive editions of classic comics, such as Wright's Little Nipper. The publisher has earned a reputation for the special attention they put into book design, and has played a pivotal rôle in shaping comics' rise in artistic prominence, and in getting comics into mainstream book stores in both Canada and the US. D&Q publisher Chris Oliveros, along with Art Spiegelman, lobbied bookstores to include a section for graphic novels, which would be subdivided by subject.

Webcomics, such as Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant, Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza's Looking for Group, and Karl Kerschl's The Abominable Charles Christopher, became an increasingly popular outlet for Canadian cartoonists. The popularity of Beaton's work has led to it being published in book form, with Time magazine placing it in the top 10 fiction books of 2011.

The comics community in Canada has grown, and has grown appreciative of its talent, celebrating it with awards such as the Doug Wrights and Joe Shusters, as well as with classy events such as the international Toronto Comic Arts Festival, which has been cosponsored by the Toronto Public Library since 2009.

### French Canada

The comics of Québec, also known as "BDQ" (bande dessinée québécoise), have followed a different path than those of English Canada. While newspapers tend to populate their funny pages with syndicated American comic strips, in general comics there have followed Franco-Belgian comics, with The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix being particularly popular and influential. Comics also tend to be printed in the comic album format that is popular in Europe. Aside from humorous parodies, there is no superhero tradition in Québec comics.

#### Early history (1790s–1960s)

Québec comics have alternately flourished and languished, seeing several brief periods of intense activity followed by long periods of inundation with foreign content. Comics first appeared in the humour pages of newspapers in the 19th century, following the trends coming from Europe. In the late 19th century, Henri Julien published two books of political caricatures, L'album drolatique du journal Le Farceur, after which the number of cartoonists began to increase in newspapers in Québec City and Montreal. 1904 saw, in the newspaper La Patrie, the publication of Les Aventures de Timothée (The Adventures of Timothée) by Albéric Bourgeois. This is said to be the first French-language comic to feature speech balloons. Joseph Charlebois's comic-strip adaptation of Le Père Ladébauche (Father Debauchery) also debuted in 1904, in La Presse, a popular strip that would last until 1957.

Raoul Barré had the first comic strip to appear in a Québec daily newspaper in 1902, called "Pour un dîner de Noël" ("For a Christmas Dinner"). In 1912, he created a strip called Noahzark Hotel for the New York-based McClure Syndicate, which he brought to La Patrie in French the next year. Soon after he moved into animation, becoming an innovative pioneer in the field.

Québécois cartoonists would propose a number of strips to compete with the American strips that dominated the Sundays and dailies. The native Québec presence on those pages would become more dominant after 1940, however, with the introduction of the War Exchange Conservation Act, which restricted the import of foreign strips. Albert Chartier created the comical character Onésime in 1943, a strip that would have the longest run of any in Québec. After World War II, during the Great Darkness, comics publication became dominated with religious comics, most of which were imported from the US. Native Québec comics did flourish for a brief period between 1955 and 1960, however, but were soon replaced again with American content, while also facing competition from the new Franco-Belgian publications, which appeared in full-colour, and by the mid-1960s had put the local Catholic publications out of business.

#### Springtime of BDQ (1970s–present)

The revolutionary 1960s and the Quiet Revolution in Québec saw a new vigour in BDQ. What Georges Raby called the Spring of Québécois comics (printemps de la BD québécoise) is said to have begun in 1968 with the creation of the group Chiendent, who published in La Presse and Dimanche-Magazine. Jacques Hurtubise (Zyx), Réal Godbout, Gilles Thibault, and Jacques Boivin were particularly notable cartoonists, and numerous short-lived publications with strange names appeared, like Ma®de in Québec and L'Hydrocéphale illustré. The comics no longer focused on younger audiences, instead seeking confrontation or experimenting with graphics, drawing influence from French comics for mature audiences like those published in Pilote magazine, as well as translations of American undergrounds, translations of which were published in the journal Mainmise. During the 1970s, BDQ were sometimes called "BDK", bande dessinée kébécoise.

In 1979, Jacques Hurtubise, Pierre Huet and Hélène Fleury would establish the long-lived, satirical Croc, which published many leading talents of the era, many of whom were able to launch their careers through the magazine's help. Croc begat another magazine, Titanic, dedicated to comic strips, and in 1987, Safarir, a Mad-like publication patterned after the French Hara-Kiri, rose in competition with Croc. By the mid-1980s, a number of professional comics publishers began to flourish.

In Montreal in the 1980s and 1990s, in parallel to mainstream humour magazines, a healthy underground scene developed, and self-published fanzines proliferated. Julie Doucet, Henriette Valium, Luc Giard, Éric Thériault, Gavin McInnes and Siris were among the names that were discovered in the small press publications.

In the 21st century, Michel Rabagliati and his semi-autobiographical Paul series has seen Tintin-like sales levels in Québec, and his books have been published in English by Drawn & Quarterly.

Around the turn of the century, the government of Québec mandated La Fondation du 9e art ("The 9th Art Foundation") to promote francophone cartoonists in North America. There have also emerged events such as the Festival de la bande dessinée francophone de Québec in Québec City and la Zone internationale du neuvième art (ZINA).

## Publication, promotion and distribution

As in the US, large Canadian newspapers typically have a page of comic strips in their daily editions and a full-colour Sunday comics section on Saturdays or Sundays. Editorial cartoonists are also common; the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists is a professional association founded in 1988 to promote their interests.

There are a number of English- and French-language publishers active in Canadian comics. Drawn & Quarterly is a Montreal-based English-language publisher of arts comics, translations, and classic comic reprints. Founded by Chris Oliveros in 1990, Drawn & Quarterly is one of the most influential publishers in alternative comics. Arcana Studio of British Columbia publishes a large number of titles, and Koyama Press joined the fray in 2007. In French, Les 400 coups, Mécanique Générale, La Pastèque and the Québec arm of Glénat are amongst the active publishers. The small press has played an important rôle; self-publishing is a common means of putting out comics, largely influenced by the success of Dave Sim's Cerebus. Minicomics is another form that has remained popular since the 1980s, when Chester Brown and Julie Doucet got started by distributing self-published photocopied comics. The minicomics scene has been spurred on by Broken Pencil, a magazine dedicated to promoting the zines.

A number of fan conventions are held throughout Canada, including the Central Canada Comic Con, Fan Expo Canada, Montreal Comiccon, Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon, Ottawa Comiccon, and Toronto Comicon. The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF), modeled after European festivals such as Angoulême and the American Small Press Expo, has grown since 2003, and since 2009 has enjoyed the support of the Toronto Public Library.

### Awards

A number of awards for Canadian comics and cartooning have appeared, especially since the beginning of the 21st century.

The National Newspaper Awards was established in 1949 with a category for Editorial Cartooning honouring those that "embody an idea made clearly apparent, good drawing, and striking pictorial effect in the public interest". The award's first recipient was Jack Booth of The Globe and Mail.

The Bédélys Prize (French: Prix Bédélys) has been awarded to French-language comics since 2000. It comes with bursaries for the Prix Bédélys Québec (for Best Book from Québec) and Prix Bédélys Fanzine.

Since 2005 the Joe Shuster Awards have been handed out by the Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association, named after the Toronto-born co-creator of Superman. It is open to all Canadians, including those living abroad, as well as permanent residents, for comics in any language. Along with awards for Outstanding Cartoonist, Outstanding Writer, Outstanding Artist and others, it also features the Joe Shuster Hall of Fame, and the Harry Kremer Retailer Award, named after the founder of Canada's oldest surviving comic shop.

The Doug Wright Awards also began in 2005. Awards are given for Best Book, Best Emerging Talent, and since 2008 the Pigskin Peters Award for non-narrative (or nominally-narrative) comics; Pigskin Peters was a character in Jimmy Frise's Birdseye Center. The Doug Wright Awards also inducts cartoonists into Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame.

## Academia

From the 1990s onward an increasing amount of literature on Canadian comics has appeared, in both official languages. Books such as Guardians of the North (1992) and Invaders from the North (2006) appeared by comics historian John Bell, who became senior archivist at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. American magazine Alter Ego ran a special issue on Canadian comics in 2004. In French, Michel Viau wrote a book on francophone comics called BDQ: Répertoire des publications de bandes dessinées au Québec des origines à nos jours (2000). Bart Beaty and Jeet Heer have been writing about comics academically and professionally, and regularly have articles educating the public on comics published in newspapers such as the National Post and the Boston Globe, as well as comics and literary magazines. Canadian feminist scholars such as Mary Louise Adams, Mona Gleason, and Janice Dickin McGinnis have done research into the anti-crime comics campaigns of the late 1940s and 1950s, from the point of view of the moral panic and social and legal history of the era, and the sociology of sexuality.

## See also

- List of Canadian comics creators
- Canadian humour
- Culture of Canada
- Comic book collecting
- Comics! was a Canadian television program
- History of Canadian animation
- Prisoners of Gravity

Comic originating in Canada