posted March 13, 2003 06:11 PM               

Because they were Canadian comics, they aren't listed in the Overstreet price guide. I got a hold of The Great Canadian Comic Book Heroes, a 1970s book that has a few reprints, and Canadian Comix, a 1980s one-shot guide/price guide. While there were 3 or 4 different Canadian companies publishing during WWII, the major publisher (Bell Features Syndicate)'s copyrights were bought sometime in the 1970s by the Nelvana animation company, I think.

posted March 13, 2003 07:26 PM               

I later noticed I was getting hits from a link on a National Library of Canada web site. Here's the site:
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/3/3/index-e.html

Great info on all eras of Canadian superheroes.

posted March 14, 2003 11:45 PM               

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Originally posted by Corrosive Kid:
Doc Stern, aka Mr. Monster, was a Canadian character from the WW II days. Michael T. Gilbert consulted with a lawyer over twenty years ago about the copyright, and was told that the character was in the public domain. If he was in the public domain then, then the rest should all be now.

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posted March 14, 2003 11:58 PM               

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Originally posted by BillNolan:
I used to publish a reprint "web-zine" a while back. I once reprinted a story featuring Canada's Commander Steele.

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posted March 17, 2003 12:07 AM               

"On September 15, 1939 shortly after Canada's declaration of war against GErmany, the Foreign Exchange Control Board was established to oversee th rationing of foreign money, something it would do with varying severity until 1951. In December 1940, as Canada's trade deficit with the U.S. grew and British gold shipments were curtailed, government intervention in the economy broadened with the introduction of the War Exchange Conservation Act. Aimed at countries outside the sterling bloc, it was primarily designed to conserve American dollars by restricting the importation of non-essential goods from Canada's largest trading partner.

"Among the items banned were fiction periodicals and comic books. As a result, the government inadvertently layed the groundwork for an indigenous comic industry. As long as foreign comic books flowed freely into Canada, none of the nation's publishers could afford to compete. Printing costs, market size, distribution obstacles, and other factors all militated against the possibility of a Canadian firm wrestling any appreciable portion of the market from American publishers like Fawcett and National Periodicals."

The ban was instituted in Dec. 1940, and the first Canadian comic books appeared around March, 1941. Some of the comics were printed in full color, some in partial color (2- or 3-color printing, instead of 4-color). Most of the comics eventually had just color covers and black-and-white interiors, so the Canadian comics of WWII are called "Canadian whites."

Bell Features Syndicate of Toronto put out 7 monthly titles featuring original characters and stories--including the most famous super heroes, Nelvana of the Northern Lights (who seems like an obvious influence on Marvel's Snowbird of Alpha Flight) and Johnny Canuck. Anglo-American Publishing of Toronto put out some original material, including the super heroes Commander Steel, Doctor Destine, and Freelance. They also bought scripts from Fawcett, which they then had drawn by Canadian artists, for their own Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher, and Whiz Comics. (The book notes that Fawcett's Commando Yank was drawn with the Union Jack on his chest!) Educational Projects of Montreal put out a comic called Canadian Heroes, featuring Canada Jack, their rival for Bell's Johnny Canuck. Maple Leaf of Vancouver put out 4 comics--they featured Brok Windsor, a Canadian hero of the North, Sgt. Canuck, and the Black Wing, a Spirit-like crimefighter. By the late 1940s, most of these companies had either gone out of business or else become just reprint houses, and three new Toronto companies--Superior publishers, F. E. Howard, and Export Publications, had also begun to reprint American comics.

In 1948, Canada became caught up in a _Seduction of the Innocent_ kind of panic about comic books and juvenile delinquancy. There was a notorious juvenile-delinquant thrill killing that I believe Frederic Wertham writes about in his book. Again, from Canuck Comics (1986): "The Act [of the Canadian Parliament] which became known as the Fulton Bill, made 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.'" Following this, Superior Publishers renamed E. C.'s Crime Suspenstories "Weird Suspense Stories" in its reprint series.

In 1951, the restrictions on the importation of American comics were lifted.

The 1971 book The Great Canadian Comic Books is better than nothing, and you can probably find it at an on-line used book site. But it deal only with the Bell Features titles--so no Canada Jack, or Freelance, or Sgt. Canuck, etc. And it gives only a small taste of characters like Johnny Canuck and Nelvana--you get several pages of a story, but not every single page. The story jumps.

posted March 17, 2003 12:50 AM            

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Originally posted by Stan Brown:
...including the most famous super heroes, Nelvana of the Northern Lights (who seems like an obvious influence on Marvel's Snowbird of Alpha Flight)

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John Byrne has always said that Nelvanna was (nudge nudge wink wink) Snowbird's mother. If Marvel had done any research into copyrights, they probably could have said it officially.

posted March 19, 2003 03:04 PM            

Hopefully I can track down some collectors in my area that would let me look at their collection.

I'm most interested in finding out about Maple Leaf Publishing, which published comics right here in my own hometown of Vancouver.

There are many themes to this history which one could exploit (I have a degree in Canadian Studies which taught me to exploit such themes)--such as political economy, preservation of cultural institutions, regional cultures (it interests me that in addition to the big five there were apparently several regional publishers--this plays into the idea of Canada as a collection of regions, the whole Confederation thing), as well as art history and wartime history.

Perhaps a third party would be interested in publishing such a project. I notice that Drawn & Quarterly (which publishes out of Montreal) has some interest in historical comics.

Of course the danger is that any third parties might decide to go to the Canada Council (and other public funding bodies) directly and cut me right out of the picture.

posted March 19, 2003 03:48 PM            

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Originally posted by India Ink:
I'm most interested in finding out about Maple Leaf Publishing, which published comics right here in my own hometown of Vancouver.

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I'm from Vancouver too, and I was thinking the same thing when I saw the mention of Maple Leaf publishing. I'd never heard of them before, and I'd be really interested to find out more.

posted March 19, 2003 06:55 PM               

This is what Bell says about Maple Leaf:

"Both Maple Leaf and Anglo-American managed to hit the newsstands with comics by March 1941 . . . .

Although Maple Leaf's first title, _Better Comics_ No. 1, was released about the same time as the first issue of Anglo-American's _Robin Hood and Company_, it was distinguished by both its contents and its format. Unlike its rival which initially appeared as a tabloid comprised of reprint strips, _Better_ consisted entirely of original material and was published in a regular comic book format, although without a glossy cover. Consequently, Maple Leaf should be viewed, perhaps, as the publisher of the first true Canadian comic book.

"Whatever the case, the Vancouver firm was evidently encouraged by the response to _Better_ as the title was soon followed by three more comic books: _Bing Bang Comics_, _Lucky Comics_, and _Rocket Comics_. Like the majority of pre-1945 comics produced during Canada's Golden Age, all four titles had colour covers and black and white interiors, thus giving rise to the term 'whites.' As well, they often relied on serial stories to induce kids to fork out their hard-earned dimes, issue after issue.

"Among the leading artists employed by Maple Leaf were Bert Bushell, Ernie Walker, Ley Fortune, and Jon St. Ables. The latter, whose best work surpassed that of most of his North American comic art contemporaries, was responsible for an elegantly rendered Burroughsian fantasy strip, 'Brok Windsor.' Set in the Canadian north, in the land beyond the mists, it debuted in the April-May 1944 issue of _Better_.

"On the whole, Maple Leaf comics were probably the most professional products of Canada's brief Golden Age. All of the company's titles were well drawn and designed, featuring engaging, sophisticated characters like Deuce Granville, Senorita Marquita, Bill Speed, Stuffy Buggs, and the Black Wing, a Spirit-like crime fighter."

Later, in reference to Educational Projects's character Canada Jack, Bell mentions that Maple Leaf published a character called Sergeant Canuck.

Again, later, when talking about the companies folding after WWII, he says this, "Maple Leaf . . . boldly switched to colour in an effort to hold its own on the nation's newstands. Creating such an expensive product exclusively for the limited Canadian market, though, was not a viable undertaking over the long-term. Consequently, by the summer of 1946 the firm had failed."

posted March 19, 2003 07:16 PM               

Denis Gifford's International Book of Comics (1984) doesn't feature any reprints, but short (2-page) essays on various topics (horror, romance, mystery, British comics, Australian comics, foreign-language translations of American super-heroes)including one feature on Canadian comics. He pictures 5 color covers of Golden Age titles, as well as a color picture of Captain Canuck No. 1--and 3 black and white pictures of other titles. This is his comment about Maple Leaf: "The best Canadian comics came from VAncouver, where the Maple Leaf Co. under editor Ted Ross and production director John St. Ables produced as stylish a series as any ever issued. Maple Leaf began with _Better Comics_ (1943--sic), and they certainly were. Although following the now standard Canadian format of coloured cover and black-and-white interior, here was none of the hasty crudity so typical of the Bell books. St. Ables rejected the usual poster effects of red, yellow, and blue for unusual oranges and greens, laid with a variety of tints. [Unfortunately, the picture of a Better cover was one of the black and white pictures on this spread.] His interior pages also used variegated dot tints for added effects, making a virtue of their economic monochrome. _Better_ featured St. Ables' own super hero, "Brok Windsor," and "Quest of the Solar Star" with spaceman Lon Martin, drawn by Bill Benz. The other Maple Leaf comics concentrated on comedy and adventure, save for _Rocket Comics_. This led off with the science-fiction saga of "Cosmo and his White Magic," an undersea science-fiction saga by Spike Brown (sic--he needed an editor for this!)

posted March 20, 2003 04:11 PM            

Both publications suffer from the misapprehensions and limitations of the time periods in which they were released--and any competent person could do a much better job today with the same material. On the other hand, the source material is great. The Bell comics in The Great Canadian... surpass my expectations, although the bulk of the pages are in black & white. If Bell is this good, I can only imagine how much better the colour Maple Leaf comics must be.

posted March 21, 2003 12:09 AM            

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Originally posted by India Ink:
Hopefully someone out there in electronic space has some scans of Maple Leaf pages.

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Yes Please!

posted March 21, 2003 12:21 AM            

Now I know I used to read Neil the Horse (back in the late seventies, I think), but I can't remember where.