Chester Brown
Encyclopedia
Chester William David Brown (born May 16, 1960 in Montreal
), is an award-winning, best-selling Canadian alternative
cartoonist
and, since 2008, the Libertarian Party of Canada
's candidate for the riding
of Trinity-Spadina in Toronto
, Canada
.
Brown has gone through several periods in his work, most famously the improvised, surreal
, scatalogical Ed the Happy Clown
in the 1980s, his controversial confessional autobiographical
comics of the early 1990s, his biographical
graphic novel
of rebellious Métis
leader Louis Riel
, and his pro-prostitution
polemic
, Paying for It
. His work has tended towards controversial themes and content, which has caused it to be dropped from a distributor and a printer, and has been held up at the Canadian border.
His underground work was initially self-published
as a minicomic
called Yummy Fur. Yummy Fur was picked up by the Toronto-based independent comics publisher Vortex Comics
in 1986, and became a regular black-and-white comic book. Since 1991, most of his output has been published by the Montreal
-based Drawn and Quarterly
. As of the publiction of Paying for It, he has given up on serializing his work and has started to publish his work directly as graphic novels. He has received grants from the Canadian government to complete his work on Louis Riel and Paying for It.
Especially in the 1990s, Brown was strongly associated with fellow Toronto cartoonists Seth
and Joe Matt
, and the autobiographical comics
trend during that period. The three would often depict one another in their own comics, do comics and minicomics together, and appear in interviews together.
Brown often signs his work CWDB.
on May 16, 1960, at the Royal Victoria Hospital, but grew up in Châteauguay, Quebec
. His mother suffered from schizophrenia
, and died while in Montreal General Hospital
when Brown was 17 years old.
Brown was a "nerd
y teeneager" who was attracted to comic book
s, especially about superhero
es, since a young age, and decided he wanted to make drawing superhero comics
his career. He attended Dawson College
in Montreal, but since the program wasn't one that aimed at a career in comics, he dropped out
after a little more than a year.
Around the age of twenty, Brown started to move away from superhero comics and more towards undergrounds like Robert Crumb
. He also came across Heavy Metal
and Will Eisner
's A Contract with God
around this time.
mini-comic called Yummy Fur
, which he made in his spare time while working for a copy shop.
Later, Bill Marks of Vortex Comics
approached Brown to publish Yummy Fur as a full-sized comic. In 1986, the first three issues of Yummy Fur reprinted the contents of the seven issues of the earlier mini, and Brown quit his job at the copy shop. Its contents included the surreal
black comedy
strip Ed the Happy Clown
, collected in graphic novel
form first in 1989 and later in a "Definitive" edition 1992, both from Vortex. The bizarre misfortunes of the title character include being chased by cannibalistic pygmies
and having the tip of his penis replaced by the head of a miniature Ronald Reagan
from another universe. The book was selected as one of the best comics of 2003 by Time
columnist Andrew D. Arnold and was nominated for a 2004 Eisner Award
. Brown has begun to reprint the original, unaltered versions of the Ed stories with the publisher Drawn & Quarterly. They plan to eventually publish a revised third and definitive book-length version of the saga.
In later Vortex issues of Yummy Fur, Brown experimented with autobiography
, and in the early 1990s had structured narratives about his childhood serialized in his comic. Yummy Fur switched publishers to Drawn and Quarterly
in 1991. The two longer autobiographical stories were later collected as the graphic novels The Playboy
in 1992 and I Never Liked You
in 1994. The former deals with his obsessive preoccupation with Playboy
magazines in his youth, and is promoted as "[a]n autobiographical look at how pornography
has affected my life" by the author. I Never Liked You (originally titled Fuck when serialized in Yummy Fur) is an often grim coming-of-age tale, which depicts the author as an introvert who is constantly picked on by his schoolmates and cannot relate to the opposite sex. It also briefly touches on his mother's schizophrenia
.
Brown's longest-running work was a series of adaptations
of the Christian
gospel
s: he finished the Gospel of Mark
as a backup feature in Yummy Fur, and the still unfinished Gospel of Matthew
appeared in Yummy Fur and Underwater. These adaptations adhere closely to Biblical events but use colloquial language and often grotesque caricature
; Brown's portrayal of Jesus
not only is idiosyncratic and often harsh, but varies considerably between the two books, reflecting the differences in emphasis between gospels. The gospel strips have not been reprinted; Brown had long said he intended to finish them, but in a 2011 interview with The Comics Journal
, he said it is no longer likely, as his "heart just isn’t in it." Recently Chester was asked by Cerebus comic book creator Dave Sim
for permission to print previously unpublished material related to this work. At last mention Chester hadn't said yes or no.
, Brown's first series after Yummy Fur, was an experimental work that attempted to portray life from the point of view of an infant, starting with seemingly incomprehensible events and dialogue which gradually become more coherent as the child matures. The series was not well received by critics and sold poorly; Brown abandoned it in an unfinished state. He followed it up with the series Louis Riel
, which was supported in part by a CAD
$16,000 grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts
. The collected version appeared in hardcover in 2004, and in softcover in 2006.
Following Louis Riel was the longest gap between published works for Brown. For the first time, Brown produced a full-length graphic novel
without the benefit of serializing it first. The result was the long awaited Paying For It
, about Brown's "two competing desires--the desire to have sex, versus the desire to NOT have a girlfriend." Brown's solution to the problem is to forgo traditional boyfriend/girlfriend relationships and marriage and to take up the life of a "john" by frequenting prostitutes.
In 2007, Brown provided six weeks worth of strips to Toronto
's NOW
magazine as part of the "Live With Culture" ad campaign, featuring a male zombie
and a living human girl participating in various cultural activities, culminating in the two going to the movies to watch Bruce McDonald's as-yet-unmade Yummy Fur adaptation.
that Brown dislikeshe would have preferred to call the book I Pay For Sex.
, basing his comedy on free-form association, much like the surrealist technique Automatism
. An example of such methods in Brown's work can be found in short one-pagers where he randomly selects comic panels from other sources and then mixes them up, often altering the dialogue. This produced an experimental, absurdist
effect in his early strips.
Brown first discusses mental illness in his strip "My Mother Was A Schizophrenic". In it, he puts forward the anti-psychiatric
idea that what we call "schizophrenia
" isn't a real disease
at all, but instead a tool our society
uses to deal with people who display socially unacceptable beliefs and behaviour. Inspired by the evangelical tracts of Jack T. Chick, Brown left Xeroxes
of these strips at bus stops and phone booths around Toronto
so its message would reach a wider audience. It first appeared in Underwater
#4, and is also reprinted in the collection The Little Man
.
Brown's Louis Riel book was inspired by the alleged mental instability of Riel
, and Brown's own anarchist
politics, and he began his research for the book in 1998. Over the course of researching for the book, he shifted his politics over the course of several years until he was a libertarian
. Regarding anarchy, Brown has said, "I’m still an anarchist to the degree that I think we should be aiming towards an anarchist society but I don’t think we can actually get there. We probably do need some degree of government."
s and brushes for his black-and-white cartooning, and has used paints for some colour covers (notably in Underwater
).
s The Playboy
and I Never Liked You
, this allowed him to rearrange the panels on the page as he saw fit. In the case of I Never Liked You
, this resulted in a different page count when the book was collected than when it was serialized in Yummy Fur. The panels were slightly rearranged again when the "New Definitive Edition" of I Never Liked You was released in 2002.
Brown depicted himself making comics in this way in the story Showing Helder in Yummy Fur #20 (also collected in The Little Man
).
, Brown says his earliest childhood cartoon was an imitation of Doug Wright
's Little Nipper. He frequently mentions Steve Gerber
as amongst his foremost influences of his teenage years. From about the age of 20, Brown discovered the work of Robert Crumb
and other underground
artists, as well as class comic strip artists such as Harold Gray, whose influence is most evident in Brown's Louis Riel
.
Brown often talks of contemporaries Seth
, Joe Matt
and Julie Doucet
's influence on his work, especially during his autobiographical
period. He also had been reading the Little Lulu Library
around this time, and credit's the cartooning of Little Lulus John Stanley
and Seth with his desire to simplify his style during this period.
The stiff, stylized look of Fletcher Hanks
' comics, reprints from Fantagraphics
of which Brown had been reading around the time, was the primary influence on the style Brown used in Paying For It
.
household. He considered himself a Christian until his early 20s, when he started to do a lot of reading on Christianity.
Brown took on his retelling of the Gospels "trying to figure out what I believed about this stuff. It was a matter of trying to figure out whether I even believed the Christian claimswhether or not Jesus was divine."
While doing the Gospels, Brown came to abandon Christianity. At the time he said, "I just realized that this was something that didn't make sense to me". He returned to it later, but as of 2011, he once again no longer considers himself a Christian.
and Seth
, Brown has been regularly featured in their autobiographical comics over the years, and collaborated with them on various projects. The three were often mentioned together, and have been called "the Three Musketeers of alternative comics"
forming "a kind of gutter rat pack
trying to make it through their drawing boards in 1990s Toronto
."
Brown dedicated The Playboy
to Seth, "for his example as an artist", and Seth dedicated his graphic novel George Sprott to Brown ("Best Cartoonist, Best Friend").
Brown had a long-term relationship with the musician
, actress and media personality Sook-Yin Lee
from 1992 until 1996. She is depicted in several of his comics. He moved to Vancouver for two years to be with her, and moved back to Toronto with her when she became a VJ for MuchMusic
. He also drew the cover for her 1996 solo album
Wigs 'n Guns
. Brown's relationship with Lee is the last boyfriend/girlfriend relationship he had, as he explains in Paying For It
. They remain good friends, and Brown has contributed artwork to her productions as recently as 2009's Year of the Carnivore
.
's candidate for the riding of Trinity-Spadina in the 2008 federal election
; he came in fifth out of seven candidates. He stood in the same riding for the same party in the Canadian federal election, 2011,
coming in fifth out of six candidates.
s and numerous Harvey and Ignatz award nomitions. "The autobiographical comics from Yummy Fur"
placed #38 on the Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century.
Brown was one of the cartoonists to appear in the first volume of Fantagraphics Books
' two-volume The Best Comics of the Decade (1990. ISBN 9781560970361).
Brown was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame, on June 18, 2011 at the Joe Shuster Awards
in Calgary
.
; and he illustrated the cover for Penguin Books
' Deluxe Classics edition of Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
.
He has done the cover for Sook-Yin Lee
's 1996 solo album
Wigs 'n Guns
(to which he also contributed lyrics for one song), and the poster for her film, Year of the Carnivore.
Brown illustrated the cover to the July 11, 2004 issue of The New York Times Magazine
, an issue whose theme was graphic novels.
's American Splendor
#15 in 1990, and "How This Forward Got Written" in The New American Splendor Anthology in 1991.
He inked
Seth
's pencils
for the story "Them Changes" in Dennis Eichhorn
's Real Stuff #6 in 1992, and shared artwork duties with Sook-Yin Lee
on the story "The Not So Great Escape" in Real Stuff #16 in 1993.
He also inked
Steve Bissette's pencils
for the story "It Came From...Higher Space!" in Alan Moore
's 1963 #3 in 1993.
A jam piece with Dave Sim
was included in the Cerebus
World Tour Book in 1995.
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
), is an award-winning, best-selling Canadian alternative
Alternative comics
Alternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
and, since 2008, the Libertarian Party of Canada
Libertarian Party of Canada
The Libertarian Party of Canada is a political party in Canada that subscribes to the tenets of the libertarian movement across Canada.-History:...
's candidate for the riding
Electoral district (Canada)
An electoral district in Canada, also known as a constituency or a riding, is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based...
of Trinity-Spadina in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Brown has gone through several periods in his work, most famously the improvised, surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, scatalogical Ed the Happy Clown
Ed the Happy Clown
Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of an award-winning and influential comic book story by the Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. It is dark and surreal, and largely improvised, having started from a series of unrelated short comic stories that Brown soon went on to tie together...
in the 1980s, his controversial confessional autobiographical
Chester Brown's autobiographical comics
Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown attracted a lot of attention from critics and his peers in the early 1990s alternative comics world when he began writing autobiographical comics in his comic book series Yummy Fur....
comics of the early 1990s, his biographical
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
of rebellious Métis
Métis people (Canada)
The Métis are one of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada who trace their descent to mixed First Nations parentage. The term was historically a catch-all describing the offspring of any such union, but within generations the culture syncretised into what is today a distinct aboriginal group, with...
leader Louis Riel
Louis Riel
Louis David Riel was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political and spiritual leader of the Métis people of the Canadian prairies. He led two resistance movements against the Canadian government and its first post-Confederation Prime Minister, Sir John A....
, and his pro-prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
, Paying for It
Paying For It
Paying for It, "a comic strip memoir about being a john", is a 2011 bestselling graphic novel by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, released by Drawn and Quarterly....
. His work has tended towards controversial themes and content, which has caused it to be dropped from a distributor and a printer, and has been held up at the Canadian border.
His underground work was initially self-published
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
as a minicomic
Minicomic
A minicomic is a creator-published comic book, often photocopied and stapled or with a handmade binding. In the United Kingdom and Europe the term "small press comic" is equivalent with minicomic reserved for those publications measuring A6 or less...
called Yummy Fur. Yummy Fur was picked up by the Toronto-based independent comics publisher Vortex Comics
Vortex Comics
Vortex Comics was a Canadian independent comic book publisher that operated during the years 1982 to 1994. Under the supervision of president, publisher, and editor Bill Marks, Vortex was known for such titles as Dean Motter's Mister X, Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss, and Chester Brown's Yummy Fur...
in 1986, and became a regular black-and-white comic book. Since 1991, most of his output has been published by the Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
-based Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
. As of the publiction of Paying for It, he has given up on serializing his work and has started to publish his work directly as graphic novels. He has received grants from the Canadian government to complete his work on Louis Riel and Paying for It.
Especially in the 1990s, Brown was strongly associated with fellow Toronto cartoonists Seth
Seth (cartoonist)
Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant , a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He is best known for comics such as Palookaville.Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto...
and Joe Matt
Joe Matt
Joe Matt is an American cartoonist. He started drawing comics in 1987 and is best known for his autobiographical work, Peepshow. In addition to his cartooning career, he is known for his large collection of vintage Gasoline Alley comic strips. Matt lived in Canada from 1988 to 2002...
, and the autobiographical comics
Autobiographical comics
Autobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comics movement and has since become more widespread...
trend during that period. The three would often depict one another in their own comics, do comics and minicomics together, and appear in interviews together.
Brown often signs his work CWDB.
Biography
Brown was born in MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
on May 16, 1960, at the Royal Victoria Hospital, but grew up in Châteauguay, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. His mother suffered from schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, and died while in Montreal General Hospital
Montreal General Hospital
The Montreal General Hospital is a hospital in Montreal, Canada, established on May 1, 1819 and an early teaching hospital. First located on the corner of Craig and St-Lawrence Streets with only 24 beds, it moved in 1822 to a new 72-bed building on Dorchester Street. It is currently situated on...
when Brown was 17 years old.
Brown was a "nerd
Nerd
Nerd is a derogatory slang term for an intelligent but socially awkward and obsessive person who spends time on unpopular or obscure pursuits, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Nerds are considered to be awkward, shy, and unattractive...
y teeneager" who was attracted to comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, especially about superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
es, since a young age, and decided he wanted to make drawing superhero comics
Superhero comics
Superhero comics is a form of American comic books. The form rose to prominence in the 1930s and 1940s and has remained the dominant form of comic book in North America since the 1960s...
his career. He attended Dawson College
Dawson College
Dawson College was the first English CEGEP and is located in Westmount, just west of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Dawson College is located near the heart of downtown Montreal in a former nunnery on 4.85 hectares of green space...
in Montreal, but since the program wasn't one that aimed at a career in comics, he dropped out
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
after a little more than a year.
Around the age of twenty, Brown started to move away from superhero comics and more towards undergrounds like Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
. He also came across Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal (magazine)
Heavy Metal is an American science fiction and fantasy comics magazine, known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy/science fiction and erotica. In the mid-1970s, while publisher Leonard Mogel was in Paris to jump-start the French edition of National Lampoon, he discovered the French...
and Will Eisner
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
's A Contract with God
A Contract with God
A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories is a graphic novel by Will Eisner that takes the form of several stories on a theme. Published by Baronet Books in October 1978 in simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback editions — the former limited to a signed-and-numbered print-run of 1,500 —...
around this time.
Career
At the urging of his girlfriend, Kris, Brown made his debut in comics in 1983 with a sporadically self-publishedSelf-publishing
Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
mini-comic called Yummy Fur
Yummy Fur (comic)
Yummy Fur was an award-winning and highly influential alternative minicomic and comic book series written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown from 1983 until 1994...
, which he made in his spare time while working for a copy shop.
Later, Bill Marks of Vortex Comics
Vortex Comics
Vortex Comics was a Canadian independent comic book publisher that operated during the years 1982 to 1994. Under the supervision of president, publisher, and editor Bill Marks, Vortex was known for such titles as Dean Motter's Mister X, Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss, and Chester Brown's Yummy Fur...
approached Brown to publish Yummy Fur as a full-sized comic. In 1986, the first three issues of Yummy Fur reprinted the contents of the seven issues of the earlier mini, and Brown quit his job at the copy shop. Its contents included the surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
strip Ed the Happy Clown
Ed the Happy Clown
Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of an award-winning and influential comic book story by the Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. It is dark and surreal, and largely improvised, having started from a series of unrelated short comic stories that Brown soon went on to tie together...
, collected in graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
form first in 1989 and later in a "Definitive" edition 1992, both from Vortex. The bizarre misfortunes of the title character include being chased by cannibalistic pygmies
Pygmy
Pygmy is a term used for various ethnic groups worldwide whose average height is unusually short; anthropologists define pygmy as any group whose adult men grow to less than 150 cm in average height. A member of a slightly taller group is termed "pygmoid." The best known pygmies are the Aka,...
and having the tip of his penis replaced by the head of a miniature Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
from another universe. The book was selected as one of the best comics of 2003 by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
columnist Andrew D. Arnold and was nominated for a 2004 Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
. Brown has begun to reprint the original, unaltered versions of the Ed stories with the publisher Drawn & Quarterly. They plan to eventually publish a revised third and definitive book-length version of the saga.
In later Vortex issues of Yummy Fur, Brown experimented with autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, and in the early 1990s had structured narratives about his childhood serialized in his comic. Yummy Fur switched publishers to Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
in 1991. The two longer autobiographical stories were later collected as the graphic novels The Playboy
The Playboy: A Comic Book
The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood....
in 1992 and I Never Liked You
I Never Liked You
I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex....
in 1994. The former deals with his obsessive preoccupation with Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazines in his youth, and is promoted as "[a]n autobiographical look at how pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
has affected my life" by the author. I Never Liked You (originally titled Fuck when serialized in Yummy Fur) is an often grim coming-of-age tale, which depicts the author as an introvert who is constantly picked on by his schoolmates and cannot relate to the opposite sex. It also briefly touches on his mother's schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
.
Brown's longest-running work was a series of adaptations
Chester Brown's Gospel adaptations
Chester Brown's "eccentric adaptations" of some of the Gospels appeared in his comic books Yummy Fur and Underwater starting with the Gospel of Mark in Yummy Fur #4 in 1987....
of the Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
s: he finished the Gospel of Mark
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
as a backup feature in Yummy Fur, and the still unfinished Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
appeared in Yummy Fur and Underwater. These adaptations adhere closely to Biblical events but use colloquial language and often grotesque caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
; Brown's portrayal of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
not only is idiosyncratic and often harsh, but varies considerably between the two books, reflecting the differences in emphasis between gospels. The gospel strips have not been reprinted; Brown had long said he intended to finish them, but in a 2011 interview with The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
, he said it is no longer likely, as his "heart just isn’t in it." Recently Chester was asked by Cerebus comic book creator Dave Sim
Dave Sim
David Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
for permission to print previously unpublished material related to this work. At last mention Chester hadn't said yes or no.
After Yummy Fur
UnderwaterUnderwater (comics)
Underwater was an alternative comic book by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown that was published from 1994 until 1997, when the ambitious project was abandoned unfinished by its creator....
, Brown's first series after Yummy Fur, was an experimental work that attempted to portray life from the point of view of an infant, starting with seemingly incomprehensible events and dialogue which gradually become more coherent as the child matures. The series was not well received by critics and sold poorly; Brown abandoned it in an unfinished state. He followed it up with the series Louis Riel
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly...
, which was supported in part by a CAD
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
$16,000 grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts
Canada Council
The Canada Council for the Arts, commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown Corporation established in 1957 to act as an arts council of the government of Canada, created to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. It funds Canadian artists and...
. The collected version appeared in hardcover in 2004, and in softcover in 2006.
Following Louis Riel was the longest gap between published works for Brown. For the first time, Brown produced a full-length graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
without the benefit of serializing it first. The result was the long awaited Paying For It
Paying For It
Paying for It, "a comic strip memoir about being a john", is a 2011 bestselling graphic novel by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, released by Drawn and Quarterly....
, about Brown's "two competing desires--the desire to have sex, versus the desire to NOT have a girlfriend." Brown's solution to the problem is to forgo traditional boyfriend/girlfriend relationships and marriage and to take up the life of a "john" by frequenting prostitutes.
In 2007, Brown provided six weeks worth of strips to Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
's NOW
NOW (magazine)
Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
magazine as part of the "Live With Culture" ad campaign, featuring a male zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
and a living human girl participating in various cultural activities, culminating in the two going to the movies to watch Bruce McDonald's as-yet-unmade Yummy Fur adaptation.
Title changes
Many of his books have undergone title changes, sometimes at the behest of his publisher, sometimes without his permission. Ed the Happy Clown: the Definitive Ed Book was given the Definitive title, despite the fact that he "didn't want to put that as the subtitle of the second edition. Vortex did it for marketing reasons." The Playboy was originally titled Disgust and then The Playboy Stories, and I Never Liked You was called Fuck (the German translation retains that title). Underwater was originally intended to appear in Yummy Fur, but Brown's new publisher felt they could attract more readers with a different title. Paying For It carries the sense of a double entendreDouble entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
that Brown dislikeshe would have preferred to call the book I Pay For Sex.
Thematic subjects
Regarding his early work, Brown has explained that "the Ed story came automatically, without any thought." Throughout his early years as a cartoonist he mostly experimented with drawing on the darker side of his subconsciousSubconscious
The term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a definition-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings....
, basing his comedy on free-form association, much like the surrealist technique Automatism
Surrealist automatism
Automatism has taken on many forms: the automatic writing and drawing initially practiced by surrealists can be compared to similar, or perhaps parallel phenomena, such as the non-idiomatic improvisation of free jazz....
. An example of such methods in Brown's work can be found in short one-pagers where he randomly selects comic panels from other sources and then mixes them up, often altering the dialogue. This produced an experimental, absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
effect in his early strips.
Brown first discusses mental illness in his strip "My Mother Was A Schizophrenic". In it, he puts forward the anti-psychiatric
Anti-psychiatry
Anti-psychiatry is a configuration of groups and theoretical constructs that emerged in the 1960s, and questioned the fundamental assumptions and practices of psychiatry, such as its claim that it achieves universal, scientific objectivity. Its igniting influences were Michel Foucault, R.D. Laing,...
idea that what we call "schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
" isn't a real disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
at all, but instead a tool our society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
uses to deal with people who display socially unacceptable beliefs and behaviour. Inspired by the evangelical tracts of Jack T. Chick, Brown left Xeroxes
Photocopier
A photocopier is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process using heat...
of these strips at bus stops and phone booths around Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
so its message would reach a wider audience. It first appeared in Underwater
Underwater (comics)
Underwater was an alternative comic book by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown that was published from 1994 until 1997, when the ambitious project was abandoned unfinished by its creator....
#4, and is also reprinted in the collection The Little Man
The Little Man (comics)
The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995 is a collection of short works by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, published by Drawn and Quarterly in 1998...
.
Brown's Louis Riel book was inspired by the alleged mental instability of Riel
Louis Riel
Louis David Riel was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political and spiritual leader of the Métis people of the Canadian prairies. He led two resistance movements against the Canadian government and its first post-Confederation Prime Minister, Sir John A....
, and Brown's own anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
politics, and he began his research for the book in 1998. Over the course of researching for the book, he shifted his politics over the course of several years until he was a libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
. Regarding anarchy, Brown has said, "I’m still an anarchist to the degree that I think we should be aiming towards an anarchist society but I don’t think we can actually get there. We probably do need some degree of government."
Style
Brown's style has evolved and changed a lot throughout his career. He's been known to switch between using Rapidograph pens, dip penDip pen
A dip pen or nib pen usually consists of a metal nib with capillary channels like those of fountain pen nibs, mounted on a handle or holder, often made of wood. Other materials can be used for the holder, including bone, metal and plastic, while some pens are made entirely of glass...
s and brushes for his black-and-white cartooning, and has used paints for some colour covers (notably in Underwater
Underwater (comics)
Underwater was an alternative comic book by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown that was published from 1994 until 1997, when the ambitious project was abandoned unfinished by its creator....
).
Working Method
Brown does not follow the tradition of drawing his comics by the pagehe draws them one panel at a time, and then arranges them on the page. In the case of his acclaimed graphic novelGraphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s The Playboy
The Playboy: A Comic Book
The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood....
and I Never Liked You
I Never Liked You
I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex....
, this allowed him to rearrange the panels on the page as he saw fit. In the case of I Never Liked You
I Never Liked You
I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex....
, this resulted in a different page count when the book was collected than when it was serialized in Yummy Fur. The panels were slightly rearranged again when the "New Definitive Edition" of I Never Liked You was released in 2002.
Brown depicted himself making comics in this way in the story Showing Helder in Yummy Fur #20 (also collected in The Little Man
The Little Man (comics)
The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995 is a collection of short works by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, published by Drawn and Quarterly in 1998...
).
Drawing influences
In an interview with SethSeth (cartoonist)
Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant , a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He is best known for comics such as Palookaville.Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto...
, Brown says his earliest childhood cartoon was an imitation of Doug Wright
Doug Wright (cartoonist)
Douglas Austin Wright was an English-born Canadian cartoonist. Creator of the long-running comic strip Doug Wright's Family, or Nipper, he is the namesake for the Canadian Wright Awards....
's Little Nipper. He frequently mentions Steve Gerber
Steve Gerber
Stephen Ross "Steve" Gerber was an American comic book writer best known as co-creator of the satiric Marvel Comics character Howard the Duck....
as amongst his foremost influences of his teenage years. From about the age of 20, Brown discovered the work of Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
and other underground
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
artists, as well as class comic strip artists such as Harold Gray, whose influence is most evident in Brown's Louis Riel
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly...
.
Brown often talks of contemporaries Seth
Seth (cartoonist)
Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant , a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He is best known for comics such as Palookaville.Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto...
, Joe Matt
Joe Matt
Joe Matt is an American cartoonist. He started drawing comics in 1987 and is best known for his autobiographical work, Peepshow. In addition to his cartooning career, he is known for his large collection of vintage Gasoline Alley comic strips. Matt lived in Canada from 1988 to 2002...
and Julie Doucet
Julie Doucet
Julie Doucet is a Canadian former underground cartoonist and artist, best known for her autobiographical works such as Dirty Plotte and My New York Diary...
's influence on his work, especially during his autobiographical
Chester Brown's autobiographical comics
Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown attracted a lot of attention from critics and his peers in the early 1990s alternative comics world when he began writing autobiographical comics in his comic book series Yummy Fur....
period. He also had been reading the Little Lulu Library
Little Lulu Library
The Little Lulu Library was an 18 volume deluxe hardcover series of books reprinting a long run of Little Lulu comics from the period when John Stanley was writing the stories. Most of the stories collected were drawn by either Stanley or Irving Tripp...
around this time, and credit's the cartooning of Little Lulus John Stanley
John Stanley
-Leaders:* John I Stanley of the Isle of Man , Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and King of Mann* John II Stanley of the Isle of Man , Knight of the Garter and King of Mann-Politicians:...
and Seth with his desire to simplify his style during this period.
The stiff, stylized look of Fletcher Hanks
Fletcher Hanks
Fletcher Hanks, Sr. was a cartoonist from the Golden Age of Comic Books, who wrote and drew stories detailing the adventures of all-powerful, supernatural heroes and their elaborate punishments of transgressors...
' comics, reprints from Fantagraphics
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
of which Brown had been reading around the time, was the primary influence on the style Brown used in Paying For It
Paying For It
Paying for It, "a comic strip memoir about being a john", is a 2011 bestselling graphic novel by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, released by Drawn and Quarterly....
.
Religious beliefs
Brown was brought up in a strictly Christian BaptistBaptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
household. He considered himself a Christian until his early 20s, when he started to do a lot of reading on Christianity.
Brown took on his retelling of the Gospels "trying to figure out what I believed about this stuff. It was a matter of trying to figure out whether I even believed the Christian claimswhether or not Jesus was divine."
While doing the Gospels, Brown came to abandon Christianity. At the time he said, "I just realized that this was something that didn't make sense to me". He returned to it later, but as of 2011, he once again no longer considers himself a Christian.
Personal relations
A longtime friend of fellow cartoonists Joe MattJoe Matt
Joe Matt is an American cartoonist. He started drawing comics in 1987 and is best known for his autobiographical work, Peepshow. In addition to his cartooning career, he is known for his large collection of vintage Gasoline Alley comic strips. Matt lived in Canada from 1988 to 2002...
and Seth
Seth (cartoonist)
Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant , a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He is best known for comics such as Palookaville.Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto...
, Brown has been regularly featured in their autobiographical comics over the years, and collaborated with them on various projects. The three were often mentioned together, and have been called "the Three Musketeers of alternative comics"
forming "a kind of gutter rat pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...
trying to make it through their drawing boards in 1990s Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
."
Brown dedicated The Playboy
The Playboy: A Comic Book
The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood....
to Seth, "for his example as an artist", and Seth dedicated his graphic novel George Sprott to Brown ("Best Cartoonist, Best Friend").
Brown had a long-term relationship with the musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, actress and media personality Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
from 1992 until 1996. She is depicted in several of his comics. He moved to Vancouver for two years to be with her, and moved back to Toronto with her when she became a VJ for MuchMusic
MuchMusic
MuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...
. He also drew the cover for her 1996 solo album
Solo album
A solo album, in popular music, is an album headlined by a current or former member of a band. A solo album may feature simply one person performing all instruments, but typically features the work of other collaborators; rather, it may be made with different collaborators than the artist is...
Wigs 'n Guns
Wigs 'n Guns
Wigs 'n Guns is the second solo album by Sook-Yin Lee, released in 1996 on Zulu Records.The cover was drawn by Lee's then-boyfriend, cartoonist Chester Brown.The song "Knock Loud" was covered by Neko Case on her 2001 release Canadian Amp....
. Brown's relationship with Lee is the last boyfriend/girlfriend relationship he had, as he explains in Paying For It
Paying For It
Paying for It, "a comic strip memoir about being a john", is a 2011 bestselling graphic novel by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, released by Drawn and Quarterly....
. They remain good friends, and Brown has contributed artwork to her productions as recently as 2009's Year of the Carnivore
Year of the Carnivore
Year of the Carnivore is a 2009 Canadian romantic comedy about a grocery store detective with a crush on a boy who rejects her because she has too little sexual experience....
.
Politics
In September 2008, Brown entered politics as the Libertarian Party of CanadaLibertarian Party of Canada
The Libertarian Party of Canada is a political party in Canada that subscribes to the tenets of the libertarian movement across Canada.-History:...
's candidate for the riding of Trinity-Spadina in the 2008 federal election
Canadian federal election, 2008
The 2008 Canadian federal election was held on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 40th Canadian Parliament after the previous parliament had been dissolved by the Governor General on September 7, 2008...
; he came in fifth out of seven candidates. He stood in the same riding for the same party in the Canadian federal election, 2011,
coming in fifth out of six candidates.
Recognition
Over the years, Brown has received four Harvey AwardHarvey Award
The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are...
s and numerous Harvey and Ignatz award nomitions. "The autobiographical comics from Yummy Fur"
Chester Brown's autobiographical comics
Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown attracted a lot of attention from critics and his peers in the early 1990s alternative comics world when he began writing autobiographical comics in his comic book series Yummy Fur....
placed #38 on the Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century.
Brown was one of the cartoonists to appear in the first volume of Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
' two-volume The Best Comics of the Decade (1990. ISBN 9781560970361).
Brown was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame, on June 18, 2011 at the Joe Shuster Awards
Joe Shuster Awards
The Joe Shuster Awards are given out annually for outstanding achievements in the creation of comic books, graphic novels and webcomics by Canadians, there are additional awards for Retailers and Publishers. The full name is the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards.The Joe Shuster Awards...
in Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
.
Awards
| Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Organization | Award for | Award |
| 1990 | Harvey Award Harvey Award The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are... s |
Chester Brown | Best Cartoonist |
| Ed the Happy Clown Ed the Happy Clown Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of an award-winning and influential comic book story by the Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. It is dark and surreal, and largely improvised, having started from a series of unrelated short comic stories that Brown soon went on to tie together... |
Best Graphic Album for the first edition |
||
| U.K. Comic Art Award | Ed the Happy Clown | Best Graphic Novel/Collection for the first edition |
|
| 1999 | Urhunden Prizes Urhunden Prizes Urhunden Prizes have been given out each year by the Svenska Seriefrämjandet since 1987. There are three categories, Best Swedish Album of the Year , Best Foreign Album of the Year , and the "Unghunden" for best children's comics .The award is named after the comic strip "Urhunden" by... |
Ed the Happy Clown | Foreign Album |
| 2004 | Harvey Award Harvey Award The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are... s |
Louis Riel Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly... |
Best Writer |
| Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work |
Nominations
| Award Nominations | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Organization | Award for | Award |
| 1989 | Harvey Award Harvey Award The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are... s |
Yummy Fur Yummy Fur (comic) Yummy Fur was an award-winning and highly influential alternative minicomic and comic book series written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown from 1983 until 1994... |
Best Writer |
| Best Cartoonist | |||
| Best Continuing or Limited Series | |||
| Special Achievement in Humor | |||
| 1990 | Chester Brown | Special Award for Humor | |
| 1991 | Yummy Fur Yummy Fur (comic) Yummy Fur was an award-winning and highly influential alternative minicomic and comic book series written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown from 1983 until 1994... |
Best Continuing or Limited Series | |
| "The Playboy The Playboy: A Comic Book The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood.... Stories" in Yummy Fur #21-23 |
Best Single Issue or Story | ||
| Yummy Fur Yummy Fur (comic) Yummy Fur was an award-winning and highly influential alternative minicomic and comic book series written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown from 1983 until 1994... |
Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist) | ||
| 1992 | Best Cartoonist | ||
| 1993 | The Playboy The Playboy: A Comic Book The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood.... |
Best Graphic Album of Previously Released Material | |
| 1998 | Ignatz Awards | The Little Man The Little Man (comics) The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995 is a collection of short works by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, published by Drawn and Quarterly in 1998... |
Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection |
| 1999 | Harvey Award Harvey Award The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are... s |
Special Award for Excellence in Presentation | |
| 1999 | Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work | ||
| 2000 | Louis Riel Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly... |
Best New Series | |
| 2002 | Ignatz Awards | Outstanding Artist | |
| 2003 | Harvey Award Harvey Award The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are... s |
Chester Brown | Best Cartoonist |
| Louis Riel Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly... |
Best Continuing or Limited Series | ||
| 2004 | Ignatz Awards | Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection | |
| Outstanding Artist |
Comic book series
| Date | Title | Publisher | Issues | Notes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983-1986 | self-published Self-publishing Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR... |
7 | ||||||||||||
| 1986-1995 | Yummy Fur Yummy Fur (comic) Yummy Fur was an award-winning and highly influential alternative minicomic and comic book series written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown from 1983 until 1994... |
EWLINE
|
32 | |||||||||||
| 1995-1998 | Underwater Underwater (comics) Underwater was an alternative comic book by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown that was published from 1994 until 1997, when the ambitious project was abandoned unfinished by its creator.... |
Drawn and Quarterly Drawn and Quarterly Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s... |
11 | Left unfinished | ||||||||||
| 1999-2004 | Louis Riel Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly... |
10 | ||||||||||||
| 2004-2006 | Ed the Happy Clown Ed the Happy Clown Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of an award-winning and influential comic book story by the Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. It is dark and surreal, and largely improvised, having started from a series of unrelated short comic stories that Brown soon went on to tie together... |
9 | Reprinted material from Yummy Fur with extra background information |
Graphic novels and collections
| Year | Title | Publisher | ISBN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Ed the Happy Clown: a Yummy Fur Book Ed the Happy Clown Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of an award-winning and influential comic book story by the Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. It is dark and surreal, and largely improvised, having started from a series of unrelated short comic stories that Brown soon went on to tie together... |
Vortex Comics Vortex Comics Vortex Comics was a Canadian independent comic book publisher that operated during the years 1982 to 1994. Under the supervision of president, publisher, and editor Bill Marks, Vortex was known for such titles as Dean Motter's Mister X, Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss, and Chester Brown's Yummy Fur... |
|
|
| 1992 | Ed the Happy Clown: the Definitive Ed Book Ed the Happy Clown Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of an award-winning and influential comic book story by the Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. It is dark and surreal, and largely improvised, having started from a series of unrelated short comic stories that Brown soon went on to tie together... |
|
||
| The Playboy: A Comic Book The Playboy: A Comic Book The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood.... |
Drawn and Quarterly Drawn and Quarterly Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s... |
|||
| 1994 | I Never Liked You I Never Liked You I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex.... |
|||
| 1998 | The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995 The Little Man (comics) The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995 is a collection of short works by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, published by Drawn and Quarterly in 1998... |
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| 2002 | I Never Liked You (Second Edition) I Never Liked You I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex.... |
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| 2006 | Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly... |
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| 2011 | Paying For It Paying For It Paying for It, "a comic strip memoir about being a john", is a 2011 bestselling graphic novel by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, released by Drawn and Quarterly.... |
Robert Crumb Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded... |
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| 2012 | Ed the Happy Clown: a Graphic Novel Ed the Happy Clown Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of an award-winning and influential comic book story by the Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. It is dark and surreal, and largely improvised, having started from a series of unrelated short comic stories that Brown soon went on to tie together... |
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Illustration
Brown has also done a certain amount of illustration work. In 1998, he did the cover to Sphinx Productions' Comic Book Confidential #1; in 2005 he did the cover to True Porn 2 from Alternative ComicsAlternative Comics (publisher)
Alternative Comics is a U.S. independent graphic novel and comic book publisher which operated from 1993–2007. Located in Gainesville, Florida, it is owned and operated by its founder, attorney Jeff Mason...
; and he illustrated the cover for Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
' Deluxe Classics edition of Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
.
He has done the cover for Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
's 1996 solo album
Solo album
A solo album, in popular music, is an album headlined by a current or former member of a band. A solo album may feature simply one person performing all instruments, but typically features the work of other collaborators; rather, it may be made with different collaborators than the artist is...
Wigs 'n Guns
Wigs 'n Guns
Wigs 'n Guns is the second solo album by Sook-Yin Lee, released in 1996 on Zulu Records.The cover was drawn by Lee's then-boyfriend, cartoonist Chester Brown.The song "Knock Loud" was covered by Neko Case on her 2001 release Canadian Amp....
(to which he also contributed lyrics for one song), and the poster for her film, Year of the Carnivore.
Brown illustrated the cover to the July 11, 2004 issue of The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
, an issue whose theme was graphic novels.
Collaborations
Brown provided the illustrations for the story "A Tribute To Bill Marks" in Harvey PekarHarvey Pekar
Harvey Lawrence Pekar was an American underground comic book writer, music critic and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a critically acclaimed film adaptation of the same name.Pekar described American Splendor as "an...
's American Splendor
American Splendor
American Splendor is a series of autobiographical comic books written by the late Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. The first issue was published in 1976 and the most recent in September 2008, with publication occurring at irregular intervals...
#15 in 1990, and "How This Forward Got Written" in The New American Splendor Anthology in 1991.
He inked
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
Seth
Seth (cartoonist)
Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant , a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He is best known for comics such as Palookaville.Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto...
's pencils
Penciller
A penciller is an artist who works in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms.The penciller is the first step in rendering the story in visual form and may require several steps of feedback with the writer. These artists are concerned with layout to showcase...
for the story "Them Changes" in Dennis Eichhorn
Dennis Eichhorn
Dennis P. Eichhorn is an award-winning American writer best known for his adult-oriented autobiographical comic book series Real Stuff...
's Real Stuff #6 in 1992, and shared artwork duties with Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
on the story "The Not So Great Escape" in Real Stuff #16 in 1993.
He also inked
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
Steve Bissette's pencils
Penciller
A penciller is an artist who works in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms.The penciller is the first step in rendering the story in visual form and may require several steps of feedback with the writer. These artists are concerned with layout to showcase...
for the story "It Came From...Higher Space!" in Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
's 1963 #3 in 1993.
A jam piece with Dave Sim
Dave Sim
David Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
was included in the Cerebus
Cerebus the Aardvark
Cerebus the Aardvark, or simply Cerebus , is an independent comic book, written and illustrated by Canadian artist Dave Sim, with backgrounds by fellow Canadian Gerhard. Cerebus ran for 300 issues from December 1977 to 2004, and was over 6000 pages long, the longest-running original...
World Tour Book in 1995.
See also
- Alternative comicsAlternative comicsAlternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...
- Chester Brown's Gospel adaptationsChester Brown's Gospel adaptationsChester Brown's "eccentric adaptations" of some of the Gospels appeared in his comic books Yummy Fur and Underwater starting with the Gospel of Mark in Yummy Fur #4 in 1987....
- Chester Brown's autobiographical comicsChester Brown's autobiographical comicsCanadian cartoonist Chester Brown attracted a lot of attention from critics and his peers in the early 1990s alternative comics world when he began writing autobiographical comics in his comic book series Yummy Fur....
- Libertarian Party of CanadaLibertarian Party of CanadaThe Libertarian Party of Canada is a political party in Canada that subscribes to the tenets of the libertarian movement across Canada.-History:...
Sources
- Juno, Andrea. Dangerous Drawings. Interview with Chester Brown. Juno Books, LLC, (1997). pp 130–147. ISBN 0-9651042-8-1.
- Brown, Chester. I Never Liked YouI Never Liked YouI Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex....
(Second Edition). Drawn and QuarterlyDrawn and QuarterlyDrawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
, 2002. ISBN 978-1-896-59714-0. - Sim, DaveDave SimDavid Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
. "Getting Riel" interview Part 1 2 3. Cerebus (295–297). Aardvark-Vanaheim. Retrieved 2011-04-07. - Bell, John. Invaders from the North: How Canada Conquered the Comic Book Universe. Dundurn Press Ltd.Dundurn GroupDundurn is a Canadian book publishing company, focusing on works of Canadian literature, history, biography, politics and arts. it was founded in 1972 by Kirk Howard. Dundurn has over 2500 titles in print and currently publishes over 100 new titles a year...
, 2006. ISBN 978-1-550-02659-7 - Rogers, Sean. A John’s Gospel: The Chester Brown Interview part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. The Comics JournalThe Comics JournalThe Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
. 2011-05-09. Retrieved 2011-05-10.
External links
- News Briefs featuring Chester Brown at Drawn and QuarterlyDrawn and QuarterlyDrawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
's website - Time.com interview with Chester Brown
- CBC Arts Online article about Chester Brown's Ed The Happy Clown series
- Chester Brown induction into CBC Arts Online's Alternative Canadian Walk of Fame
- Interview with Chester Brown on twohandedman.com
- Audio interview of Brown by Seth
- Brown's candidacy in Eye WeeklyEye WeeklyEye Weekly was a free weekly newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was owned by Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, and was published by their Star Media Group until its final issue on May 5, 2011. The following week, Torstar launched a successor publication, The Grid.-...
in 2008 - Zombies Take Toronto