A BRIEF HISTORY OF "CANADA'S OWN SUPERHERO"


In 1975 Marvel and DC comics dominated the newsstands. Archie, Capital, Western and for a very short time Atlas, were the smaller players. In May of that year (cover dated July 1975) a full colour comic book appeared on newsstands across Canada, in selected U.S. cities and in comic book specialty shops - the few that there were - in the U.S. and Canada. CAPTAIN CANUCK was at that time the only "independent" full colour superhero comic book being published anywhere.

Captain Canuck comic books were ahead of the times in a number of ways. It was printed on better quality stock on heat set webs - now the norm, in 1975 it certainly stood out. The cover price was 35 cents rather than the 25 cents which was the industry's standard price at the time. All the other publishers were quick to follow that example. Actual photos were used as backgrounds in a number of panels and a "how to draw" page was featured.

Captain Canuck was published on a shoestring budget and originally produced and published by one person, Richard Comely, who did absolutely everything - write, draw, colour, sell ads, sell comics to dealers, etc. etc.

A new colouring method was devised by Comely with the help of Dick Thomas who at the time worked for a colour separation/film house in Winnipeg. Dick Thomas became co- owner, along with Lovern Kindzerski of Digital Chameleon, one of comicdom's foremost computer colouring and colour separation companies. George Freeman who became the primary artist for Captain Canuck would become one of Digital Chameleon’s principal colourists. In 1975 computer based colouring was still years away.

With the "Comely" method, derived by Comely with Thomas’s help, animators' colours are painted on to an acetate overlay placed over the finished line art. The colour overlay is separated into yellow, cyan, magenta and a line shot negative is made from the black line art. This method was later used by a few other publishers - particularly Capital when they published Nexus and Badger.


CAPTAIN CANUCK IS BORN

Captain Canuck was "born" in 1971 when art student Ron Leishman met Richard Comely. They soon became friends and both being artists, Ron suggested the idea of doing a Canadian superhero comic book series. There wasn't one at the time and Canada was experiencing some feelings of nationalism. The idea hit home with Comely though he had no background in comic book art.

Richard Comely had worked as a sign painter, crest designer and fashion and embroidery designer since leaving high school in 1967. In 1971 he worked as an illustrator/paste-up artist for a printer as well as a part time janitor in his apartment building in Winnipeg.

When Ron first suggested a Canadian superhero, Captain Canada was the obvious first choice for a name. A few weeks later, Richard saw a sweat shirt on sale in the Hudson's Bay Company featuring a poorly drawn, flying, caped figure sporting that name and decided then to use the name Captain Canuck. Ron or Richard were not aware at that time that there had been a Johnny Canuck comic book published in Canada in 1941-46. Johnny Canuck was a heroic soldier who fought Hitler bare chested. Ron designed the original Captain Canuck costume which has been altered by George Freeman and Richard Comely over the years.

Over the next three years, while working as an illustrator, crest designer, sign painter and portrait artist, Comely put together a business plan to publish Captain Canuck as a comic book series. Researching the distribution, printing and marketing took most of the time as only 4 actual pages of art were produced. No storyline had been established. Ron Leishman's involvement had lessened by this time. Though he remained encouraging and supportive, he worked to raise the funds needed to support himself while on a two year excursion in the Arctic.

The publishing operation began in 1975 when 24 year old Comely got an $8000 loan, a newsstand distributor and a printer willing to extend credit. 21 year old Dave Abbott came on board for six months as advertising salesman and general business promoter.

The Canadian news media gave the comic book series an unprecedented amount of coverage when the first issue appeared in late May of 1975. Even the U.S. media noticed. Time Magazine gave it the best part of a page and a number of newspapers picked up the wire service articles. In 1980 it made the front page of the Los Angeles Times.

George Freeman and Jean Claude St. Aubin come on board

The media attention drew two artists to Comely's office. George Freeman, who was designing tombstones at the time, came in with artwork samples and Comely, recognizing his outstanding talent, hired him soon after. George came in time to assist in the colouring of #2. He inked issue #3 and pencilled and inked issue #4. Jean-Claude St. Aubin saw the comic book in Montreal, packed his backpack and got on a train to Winnipeg. Comely met him for the first time when he returned home from a trip in the fall of 1975 and found Jean-Claude playing ball with his younger brother, Tim.

Jean-Claude spoke very little English and he was immediately taken under wing by Richard and George. He worked as colourist, assistant inker and when needed - French translator. Jean-Claude later did penciling and inking. He created a back up feature (Chaos Corps) published in Captain Canuck in 1980. Only 3 issues were published in the first year of operations (1975/1976). Financing and cash flow were the main problems. Printing costs were much higher (almost 3 times) that of what it would cost at World Color's Sparta, Illinois plant. Jean-Claude's old home, Montreal, is currently the main printing centre for comics as Quebecor presently dominates in comic book printing.

Comely moved the fledgling operation to Cardston, Alberta in September 1976 to run their local weekly newspaper. George and Jean-Claude moved with the Comelys and also worked on the newspaper. The idea was to have the newspaper support the comic book publishing. Cardston (population 3200) was an interesting and for the most part pleasant experience but the newspaper was definitely not prosperous enough to support the three of them let alone the comic book publishing. Three artists working on the paper did make for lots of interesting graphics and cartoons - possibly making it the leading weekly in the country when it came to cartoons. Richard wrote the articles, edited and sold ad space while George and Jean-Claude did most of the paste up.

In February of 1977 they all moved to Calgary and soon the group dissolved. George went back to Winnipeg. Jean-Claude and Richard took jobs and Comely soon went to freelancing as a commercial artist. In 1978 Comely put together another business plan and set out again to try to raise financing. After months of door knocking CKR Productions was formed in early 1979. George Freeman and Jean-Claude St. Aubin were brought back on board and this time the comics were printed in Sparta, Illinois because their lower prices (and quality) were felt necessary for the operation to survive.

Issues 4 to 14 and a 64 page summer special were published through CKR. The direct market was larger - not significantly but it was growing. Some bad business decisions, the collapse of their newsstand distributor and other problems saw the demise of CKR in less than 2 years. Comely was forced to leave the business in July 1980. This was just after issue #12 was completed and #13 begun. Issue #14 was produced without any involvement from Richard Comely. CKR closed its doors for good at the beginning of 1981. Issue #14 was the last issue published although #15 was near completion.

Comely went on to do two issues of Star Rider and the Peace Machine, a self-published black and white magazine featuring 4 series, STAR RIDER AND THE PEACE MACHINE, THE RAFT, STEEL CHAMELEON and COMPUTER KEENE. The magazine was sold on the direct market and on the newsstands in the U.S. and Canada.

STAR RIDER AND THE PEACE MACHINE was created, written and illustrated by Comely. THE RAFT was created and written by Comely with art by Tom Grummett (who went on to become one of the busiest pencillers in comics). STEEL CHAMELEON was created and written by Comely with art by Royston Evans. The character was later licensed to Matrix and used in Mark Shainblum's superbly written NORTHGARD series.

Ric Estrada, who started working in comic books in the late nineteen forties wrote and illustrated his own COMPUTER KEENE. He later worked between 1980 and 2002 as a storyboard artist in animation. He worked at Hanna Barbera for over ten years

CAPTAIN CANUCK EVOLVES

Before leaving Alberta, Richard Comely and Ron Leishman illustrated and published a giant size colouring/activity book for the 1986 Calgary Stampede.

Comely moved his family to Cambridge, Ontario in April 1985. After moving to Ontario, Comely operated under the name Star Rider Productions, illustrating children's books and children’s book covers - mostly for Grolier, greeting cards (over 250 for Image Craft), covers for the weekly Farming Today, advertising, signs, logos, etc.

Members of the entire Comely family (7 sons and 1 daughter) also worked as extras in film and T.V. series between 1988 and 1990 appearing in more than a dozen productions. Richard Comely became a member of the Director's Guild, did some freelance illustration for TV productions and did some writing for series that did not see production.

A new business plan for Captain Canuck was begun as early as 1985. During that time Comely produced a children's newspaper feature - TRUMPET AND FRIENDS FUNSTUF’ which ran in more than 60 papers in Canada, the U.S. and overseas (South Africa and Australia) between 1985 and 1991. This newspaper feature was also brought back in a limited way when the Captain Canuck newspaper strip ran in eight newspapers in 1995 and 1996.

The Comely’s took over a Toronto Star wholesale operation in June of 1991 to supplement their income. On December 7 of 1991, while finishing a delivery run in bad weather, Richard hit black ice and crashed into a large tree stump. He shattered his right elbow, broke his left wrist, cut his head open and badly bruised his ribs and right knee. Surgeons at the Guelph hospital repaired the arm with 16 screws, steel plates, wire and a 3 1/2" bolt. They considered it the second worst elbow injury they'd ever dealt with. At first they felt that his arm would not be able to move beyond a very limited range. It took 9 months of wearing an uncomfortable arm brace to correct the right arm radius of motion. Fortunately he regained complete use of his right arm. It just isn’t quite as straight any more.

In 1992 the Canadian National Archives acquired all the available original artwork for Captain Canuck from Richard Comely. Comely had purchased it along with all the remaining copies of issues 1 to 14 of the original series as well as the Summer Special from his previous partner. He also purchased the artwork for the unpublished issue #15 which was also sold to the National Archives. They displayed some of it along with scripts, T-shirts and other Captain Canuck items at the cartoonist museum in Ottawa beginning in the spring of 1992.

COMING SOON:

In the next chapter Comely talks about his Captain Canuck Reborn series which ran from 1993 to 1996.