In ARE YOU WILLING TO DIE FOR THE CAUSE?, 'every part's under management'

Are You Willing to Die For The Cause?

Creator: Chris Oliveros
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly

Review by François Vigneault

An enchanting have a look at a turbulent and controversial second in Canadian historical past, this meticulously researched non-fiction graphic novel from creator Chris Oliveros (the founding father of comics writer Drawn & Quarterly) takes a deep dive into the early years of the Québec Liberation Front (FLQ), a militant separatist group that sought to ascertain an unbiased nation of Québec within the Sixties and 70s, and which embraced violent means to take action, together with deadly bombings.

Taking the type of archival interviews with former members of the FLQ, authorities officers, journalists, and different witness to the occasions (within the notes following the narrative Oliveros makes it clear that these interviews didn’t truly exist, however that the data in them was based mostly on many sources, an authorial sleight-of-hand that makes for an excellent narrative however could increase eyebrows, mine included), Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? chronicles the rise of separatist actions in Québec throughout the early Sixties, which could shock many readers. If you recognize something concerning the FLQ (and to be trustworthy most American readers in all probability received’t), it will likely be the notorious “October Crisis” in 1970, the place a sequence of high-profile kidnappings of presidency officers finally noticed troopers marching within the streets of Montréal and civil liberties suspended by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Oliveros leaves the October Crisis for a later quantity, and correctly makes the choice to delve deeper into the historical past of the FLQ, exploring figures from the early years of their marketing campaign of bombings and revolutionary violence corresponding to Georges Schoeters, François Schirm, and Pierre Vallières. The narrative situates the rise of separatism in Québec throughout the world context of the Sixties, together with a fleeting (and maybe fantastical) cameo by Fidel Castro.

In Oliveros’ telling the founders and early leaders of the FLQ largely come throughout as comically bumbling and silly, which is emphasised by the creator’s terribly exact but extraordinarily expressive drawing model that renders deadly explosions and shootouts in a cartoony, virtually goofy model, together with outsized onomatopoeia corresponding to “BOOM” and “BLAM BLAM.”

Oliveros by no means shies away from the very actual human value of the FLQ’s actions (and, occasionally, the over-zealous reactions of the police, one of many saddest and most pertinent moments within the e-book is a scene during which the cops shoot down an harmless man on the street throughout a theft gone flawed). Despite the FLQ’s ostensible objective of jump-starting a preferred revolution by destroying symbols of colonialism, from the beginning their marketing campaign of bombings creates unintended victims, from an evening watchman who comes throughout a bomb on the road on the flawed second and Thérèse Morin, a bookkeeper who dies in an explosion within the workplaces of a shoe manufacturing unit, to Jean Corbo, a younger member of the FLQ who was blown up on the age of simply 16. As the demise rely mounts, the reader is introduced face-to-face with the very actual human prices of a burgeoning revolution.

If Oliveros comes up quick on this graphic novel, it’s maybe in portray an image of the type of on a regular basis oppression and informal prejudice that created the circumstances for the rise of the FLQ and separatist thought within the first place. There are scenes that make the generalized anti-francophone and anti-worker biases of huge enterprise (run virtually fully by anglophone bosses) clear, and an early second the place a revolutionary performs anglophone discuss radio for his spouse and he or she is overwhelmed by the blatant and virulent anti-francophone sentiments on show seems like a transparent precursor to the growing break down of social discourse we live by way of as we speak.

But the reader who solely has a superficial familiarity with the interval (corresponding to myself) will certainly come away with the impression that the FLQ are “just a bunch of two-bit thugs” as Montréal mayor Jean Drapeau calls them within the opening chapter of this e-book (authority figures, and notably the violent police power, come throughout virtually as badly). Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? showcases the expansion of the FLQ, however I’m undecided if the narrative does sufficient to explain the soil that it sprang from. Only within the considerate appendix does the reader get little tidbits of data corresponding to the truth that in 1961 “francophones were earning barely half of their anglophone counterparts,” or that “the signage in the centre of Montreal was only in English, despite the fact that the anglophone share of the Quebec population was just 13% at the time.”

It would have been nice to have these bits of background info folded extra instantly into the story, however Oliveros is tackling a really huge and convoluted interval of historical past on this formidable e-book, so his choice to incorporate this info within the paratext of the graphic novel is definitely comprehensible. Like Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, it is a dense graphic narrative that calls for that the reader make the extra effort to rigorously learn by way of the notes, which make clear the general context of the period and the inventive license that Oliveros utilized to the historical past to make the story circulation easily throughout the pages.

What can’t be denied is that this graphic novel clearly situates Oliveros as a serious cartooning expertise. Every component of this e-book is meticulously and exactly marshaled for optimum impact, from the cartoony character designs and sometimes hilarious dialogue to Oliveros’ inhumanly exact hand-lettering. After a few years of operating the writer Drawn & Quarterly, Oliveros has retired and is now centered on his private inventive work. Are You Ready to Die for the Cause? is the work of an artist who has processed many years value of cartooning and publishing historical past and are available out with an entirely distinctive voice. I didn’t know what to anticipate from Oliveros as a creator and this e-book left me deeply impressed… He is an creator accountable for each facet of his artwork, and I actually don’t assume it’s any exaggeration to say that Oliveros can declare a spot within the pantheon of different intensely exact creators corresponding to Seth, Chester Brown, and Chris Ware.

Overall it is a fantastic, spectacular, and academic e-book that’s by no means lower than a page-turner. Oliveros retains the narrative constructing and the tensions excessive all the way in which to the top, the place the police discover letters from the FLQ that element plans to kidnap authorities officers. The cops snigger it off, “As if they could pull any of it off!” But the reader is aware of that one other darkish twist stays on this story, and that the notorious October Crisis is looming. I for one can’t wait to learn Oliveros’ tackle that chapter of Québec historical past.