Happy Canada Day, eh?! (yes, Rach - that's pronounced "eay?")
Patriotism swells in the heart of PapaJoeMambo...
"LongBox Playhouse Presents - The Canadian Whites" Dept.:
Who is this lady and why is she riding her dog?
When I was in High School there was a book of Canadian plays that either some teacher had used in their curriculum years before or someone else had just over-ordered. In any case, one of the plays in the book was a 1970's piece based on the Canadian Whites superhero characters as found in THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS - a retrospective put together by Micheal Hirsh and Patrick Loubert in 1971 (these two gentlemen would later found NELVANA LIMITED - the Canadian animation house responsible for the feature film ROCK N RULE and the BEETLEJUICE, DROIDS, EWOKS, CARE BEARS and TINTIN cartoon series of the 80's to name a few).
Well, I found a copy of that book in the 90's when I moved to Toronto, and shortly after that, at a garage sale, bought a series of microfiches with a lot of these comics reproduced on them as well. I immediately became enamoured with the Canadian Whites superhero characters of the 40's, and I submit for your approval JOHNNY CANUCK and NELVANA OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS.
Nelvana was created by ADRIAN DINGLE after doing a painting trip with Franz Johnson, a GROUP OF SEVEN artist, who told him the Native Candian legend
that was the basis of her story. When the WWII publications ban that eliminated American comics from Canadian newstands struck in 1940, Dingle created NELVANA for BELL Features in TRIUMPH COMICS, one of the first books to hit the stands up here. The contents were entirely in black and white - which is here the Canadian Whites took their name. This also means that Nelvana pre-dates Wonder Woman by about a year.
Here's that cover full-size:
And here's the first few pages of her first appearance:
Don't look kids! Staring into Tanero's face will blind you or drive you mad! This is why he takes on animal form (usually a huge dog - as seen in the teaser image I posted earlier, or a polar bear - as found in the logo for NELVANA ANIMATION) whenever he deals with those who are not native to the Arctic.
There were lots and lots of adventures with Nelvana - and if I can get the microfiches transfered to digital images I'll post more up here.
But my favourite, as well as that of a lot of other fans of this stuff, if only for the audacity of his name, is JOHNNY CANUCK, who first appeared in DIME COMICS in 1941 (roughly around the same time that CAPTAIN AMERICA did in his own comic down South, unable to be read in Canada due to the paper ban).
but by the end of that story he's already planning to take the battle directly to the Reichstag:
Johnny, after paratrouping into Germany via glider, steals a German officer's uniform and bullshits his way into Berchstesgarten - this is great!:
Sock 'em Johnny! Sock some sense into those Nazi f*ckers!
Taste like more? I got more!