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The French Canadian Geek Experience

For my 2000th post (already!), and coming off Canada Day, I thought I might delve into my geekly roots a little. A geek is a geek is a geek, but history and geography does shape and mold the KIND of geek we become, and for my "ethnic" group, at least, there is a shared set of geek values. I'm French-Canadian, you see, and that has made a great deal of difference.

French-Canadians, whether Acadian (as I am), Quebequois, Franco-Ontarian or the rarer FCs to the West, have a number of geekly touchstones that bring them together, often transcendent of age so long as we're talking about under-40s.

The first is bande dessinée (or b.d.), what we call "comics" in English, but usually of higher quality (better production values and often, better craftsmanship) than their more disposable American cousins. Tintin, Asterix, Achilles Talon, Valerian, Spirou, Lucky Luke, Les Schtroumpfs, Les Tuniques Bleues, Buck Danny, Boule et Bill, and many many more. Most have been translated, and some have had a measure of success in the States and English Canada, but it's not even a question for French readers. If every English-speaking child has read at least one Archie in his or her life, then every French-speaking child in the West has read a Tintin or an Asterix. Probably more.

And if you're asking me to choose between Archie's recycled Happy Days jokes and Hergé, well... You're not really asking me that, are you? No. No you are not.

Tintin is not a "bathroom reader" or a stack of floppies. It's finely crafted comic art, hardbound to last. Your son will read your copy, and your grandson. And it won't ever require you to put it in a clear plastic bag either. Does this cultural background mean Francophones are more generally exposed to a stronger comics aesthetic? Does it make them better able to appreciate the form? Does the greater variety of content make them more open to that variety?

And this isn't to say that Anglo-centric comics are bad. I read a ton of them every week, and some of them are really quite excellent. I wouldn't take anything away from Eisner or Kirby or Kubert either. I think they're wonderful. But my pre-second language years weren't filled with superheroes, which has certainly informed my tastes.

The other Francophone universal constant seems to lie in certain specific anime series, translated into French and broadcast on our side of the ocean(s) for years. I watched these religiously through the 70s and though I thought they weren't on anymore, 20-somethings and 17 year olds I meet have all seen them. My brother-in-law is right this minute showing episodes to his young children, even if the violence might seem harsh by today's Care Bear-modified standards.

The golden jewel of these is Goldorak (which Americans may have seen as UFO Robot Grendizer). People in the English-speaking world I've spoken to about this have told me it's just another giant robot show surfing the wave of that particular craze, but French Canadians know the warcries for each of the robot's myriad weapons, let me tell you. Goldorak was so popular here that teenage singing sensation Nathalie Simard (think Céline Dion with a children's show instead of Vegas) even remade one of the title songs and put it on an album. Goldorak is extremely culturally significant for us.

But there are others. Albator is a great, strange, and tragic favorite (you might know it as Captain Harlock), as is Demetan, the brutal story of a frog navigating the catfish's underworld of the pond. He always wound up getting the crap beat out of him by the crayfish for some reason. Lots of sci-fi for the boys: Capitaine Flam (Captain Future), Ulysse-31, La Bataille des Planètes (Battle of the Planets has at least made a dent in the American market, as has Astro-Boy, which we only know as Astro). But beautiful stories for girls as well: Candy (a Russian tragedy that always ran after Goldorak and that I peevishly admit to watching - I probably cried too, I'm such a nancy-boy) - Belle et Sebastien, and Heidi. Coming in late so that the younger set universally love them, but I might not have a particular attraction to them: Rémi Sans Famille, Cités d'Or, Le Petit Castor, and others.

So while English-language channels brought us the flavor of the time, whether the somewhat static yet still exciting adventure cartoons of the 70s and early 80s, or the pacified 30-minute toy adverts of later days, French channels were filled with all manner of product made or translated in France. Cartoons from both Europe and Japan also came from different time periods. There's no such thing as "new programming" in translated markets, which also accounts for a certain time delay on television shows I might have watched. For example, though I wasn't born when Time Tunnel first aired, I was quite able to watch and enjoy it in translation. Same with cartoons.

Again, language, history and geography allowed me to experience a wider panorama of "geek material" much sooner than I might on my own power. You could say my culture ENABLES geekdom by putting the tools at our disposal. I don't know how this compares to others' experiences however. Perhaps cable stations (rarely in French, and unheard of when I was growing up) probably served the same function as the needs of translation for English-speaking geeks.

But I'd like to hear it from you! Did your (pop) cultural background help you become a geek? Or was it hard work and completely isolating?

The Homage Crossover

ACTION COMICS #579, DC Comics, May 1986
Not a crossover per se, but still finishing Company Crossover Week with this: Superman kind of met the world of Asterix in Action Comics #579 by Cheval Noir translator Jean-Marc Lofficier. He's also paid homage to Tintin, but with disastrous results (unless a postapocalyptic Hergé is your idea of good), but "Prisoners of Time" is a much tamer attempt at revisionism. Still, is it any good? With Keith Giffen and Bob Oksner on art, it's at least got style.

The story occurs during the last few issues of Action before the post-Crisis reboot, another in a series of what looks like inventory material for the power-bloated, slightly ridiculous, Superman. Many stories in this era were all premise and no insight, and there wasn't a single menace Superman couldn't handle with two hands tied behind his back. Everything hinged on his powers getting out of control or his being "not himself". This comic takes that second option.

It all starts with Jimmy Olsen visiting a museum with his girlfriend Lucy Lane, when a couple of thugs try to steal the Arverne Shield, the very same surrendered to Caesar by the Gaul chief Vercingetorix when everything but one tiny village fell to the Roman Empire. French-speaking readers will already know the story, as we were all raised on Asterix comics and cartoons. Anyway, as per Action Comics' standards at the time, don't look for too much logic even in this early scene: Jimmy uses his signal watch to call Superman, thinking "I hope they don't spot me pressing my signal-watch!" Well, Jimmy, even if they do, are they really gonna care that a hostage just looked at his watch? And then one of the mooks bent on stealing the priceless shield slams it upside Jimmy's head and destroys it like so much pottery (no wonder Gaul fell). You might've seen it on America's Stupidest Criminals.

Meanwhile, back in 253 AD (only in comics would a phrase like that make any sense)... waitamminit, doesn't Asterix take place in 50 BC? Yes, but see, here's Lofficier's "what happened next": Panoramix the druid (here, "Picturix") not only makes the magic potion that gives the villagers super-strength and thus keeps the Romans at bay, but he also cast a spell that put the region in a time bubble, free from the ravages of time. So it's been the same old stand-off for 300 years, with the 4 surrounding Roman camps also frozen in time.

So a soothsayer from Lutecia's looking for the village and comes upon those archaic Romans. His plan to get his hands on the magic potion is to grab a super-strong person from the future using the Arvergne Shield's location in time. So that's how Superman and Jimmy Olsen get whisked to Gaul. The soothsayer gives Superman a whiff of something that makes him a slave and he is dubbed Superix. (Tell me, if you have the power to control men's' minds and grab people from the future, why do you need the recipe to a super-strength potion so badly?)

Jimmy will instead be found and adopted by the Gaul village, and they dress him up in Asterix's clothes:
If you've ever seen Asterix, you should wonder how the thing fits tall Jimmy here, but as with everything else in the comic, I don't think you're supposed to ask questions. They probably couldn't use Asterix as he's too distinctive, but it's a shame to pay homage to his book without having him in it. Obelix (called "Columnix") IS here though, but they never show his face. Oh, like the body, small white dog, menhirs, and origin story of him falling into the potion when he was a baby aren't dead giveaways. I do kind of like Giffen's Obelix though.
If you're familiar with the source material, all the old shticks are there: puns in every name (Mikimus probably being the best), the old "how do I know this potion isn't poison?" dilemma trick, the big banquet at the end, and cowardly Romans. For example, here's something that's been done before: After saying they were attacked by a "slew" of enemies, they negotiate it down...
So there's nothing new here, but if you haven't read Asterix before, do track it down. This is a fun enough wink at Uderzo & Goscinny's landmark series, but there's really no substitute for the real thing. And I've read the English translations. They took particular care in crafting all-new puns and jokes of the same quality as the French version, so you don't have to learn another language if you don't want to. As Superman himself says at the end of this (frankly daft) issue when Jimmy feels like writing their story: "It's already been done."

Bored, Jaded Knockouts Through History

Been participating in Bahlactus' Friday Night Fights for a while now, and as this particular round (Knockout!) ends, I have cause to remember History's first ass-kickers. Asterix and Obelix. They kick ass without having to think about it.