Quebec comics, usually called in French « BDQ » for bande dessinée québécoise (or « BDK » in the seventies [1]), are comics created by one or several Québécois creators, released by a Quebec publisher, distributed and sold in Québec. Note that, however, many Quebec creators are published in other countries.
The first Quebec comics appeared in the humour pages of a few newspapers in the late 19th century and early 20th century, following the trends coming from Europe.
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Les Aventures de Timothée (The Adventures of Timothée) by Albéric Bourgeois was first published in the newspaper La Patrie in 1904 and was the first French-language comic to feature speech balloons. Also in 1904, the Adventures of Le Père Ladébauche (Father Debauchery), created by Hector Bethelot in La Presse. The comical character Onésime was created by Albert Chartier in 1943.
First presented in serial fashion in Croc, The Adventures of Jerome Bigras in Bungalopolis were published as albums in 1992 Bungalopolis and 1994 On a marché sur mon gazon. Jerome Bigras lives in an absurdist version of suburbia with his pet, a leaking lawnmower. Both albums received the Onésime Prize. The author, Jean-Paul Eid, has also done the drawings for Memoria, a fantastic adventure set in a parallel world, to a text written by Claude Paiement.
In Montreal, in parallel to mainstream humour magazines, a healthy underground scene developed. Julie Doucet, Henriette Valium, Luc Giard, Eric Theriault, Gavin McInnes and Siris were among the names that were discovered in the small press publications.
Historical precedents have made it difficult for comic strips and comic books to be considered separately from humour in Quebec. For example, the most popular sources of comics in Quebec were magazines such as Croc (now defunct) and Safarir. In 2005, a large comic book event called BD Montreal, was organized and sponsored partly by the producers of the Juste Pour Rire Comedy Festival (Just For Laughs) in cooperation with Le Salon Du Livre de Montreal. However, the festival's president Jean-Paul Eid has publicly said that their mandate was to be careful not to automatically link comics with humour. The situation might be evolving.
Comics are well distributed in bookstores where they are great sellers, although local products are difficult to find outside speciality store like Fichtre or Studio 9. Quebec-based comics are rarely published in the large news paper networks, even in Francophone publications. Instead, publishers favour American-based syndicated series.
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