The Loxleys and the War of 1812 earned Canmore-based Renegade Arts Entertainment two awards at the recent Alberta Book Publishing Awards.
The Book Publishers Association of Alberta presented Renegade with the Book Illustration of the Year award and the Children and Young Adult Book of the Year Award at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel in Calgary, Friday evening (June 6).
Renegade editor and publisher Alexander Finbow said the awards tell him, above everything, that the publishing industry is beginning to take graphic novels more seriously.
“It is affirmation that the publishing industry is embracing graphic novels as a valid literary form because this is a graphic novel winning a prize open to all forms of literature,” he said. “I think that is what it means more than anything.”
Anecdotally, Finbow said he has received a lot of positive feedback from schools, history buffs and stores, including an Afghanistan veteran who approached him at the Calgary Entertainment Expo.
“A guy came up to me at the Calgary expo and tears were streaming from his eyes, and he was a veteran of Afghanistan and he said we needed this book and he left because he couldn’t handle the conversation,” Finbow said.
“And when he left and I was stunned. When those kinds of things happen they are the biggest affirmation for me and it’s nice to get the industry affirmation. We are a group of creators, writers and artists and we’ve learned how to be editors and we had no idea about publishing, so it is nice to find out we are on the right track.”
Work on the Loxleys began with research in 2007 and from the outset Finbow wanted to share the history of the war with Canadian readers in a manner that would be accessible to all ages and interests. He also didn’t want readers, especially reluctant ones, to get bogged down in the history.
He wanted a human story married with artwork that was simple and yet conveyed Canada without pushing away readers who may not be familiar with comics or graphic novels.
“We needed to find something that wouldn’t alienate readers familiar with a graphic novel, but at the same time would be easy to sit down and understand and fall in love with the artwork for anyone who hasn’t read a comic book before. It’s a tough one,” he said.
“Graphic novels cover such a wide genre artistically and some of it can be quite dense and hard to get into. Unless you’re experienced with graphic novels, some of it can be really simple to garner to a five year old,” he said.
He envisioned the immediacy of Disney illustrations combined with European, Japanese and Canadian sensibilities and to capture that he turned to illustrator Claude St. Aubin and colourist Lovern Kindzierski – both Canadian and both highly respected in the comics world.
The National Film Board (NFB) teamed up with Renegade Arts in 2012 to create an iPad app and a motion comic based on the graphic novel, allowing Finbow and the rest of the team to update and improve parts of the story and the art that focuses on Aboriginal people.
“They (NFB) were able to bring in two great First Nations historians who were able to really help with the accuracy in the First Nations artwork. It was a dream come true to be able to go back in it and update it rather than just do another straight second printing.”
The digital offerings created by the NFB, instead of draining sales by offering free products, have in fact spurred sales as people who discover the motion comic or the app move to buy the hardcover comic, he said.
Renegade is currently working on part two of the Loxleys story with a comic that moves into Confederation. Still focusing on the Loxleys, Confederation looks at the birth of Canada as a nation through the eyes of 15-year-old Lillian Loxley.
Renegade is also working on a First World War story from the point of view of an Aboriginal brother and sister, both of whom go overseas with the brother serving as sniper and his sister, a nurse.
“It (is) my dream to bring in people who wouldn’t normally think about Canadian history as a gateway to read more,” said Finbow.
