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W ritten and Lettered by Richard C omely Pencils and Inks by George
Freeman • C olors by George Freeman and C laude St. Aubin
Additional Pencils and Inks by C laude C over Art by George
St. Aubin •
Additional Pencils and C olors by Richard C omely
Freeman • C ollection Edited by Justin Eisinger and Scott Dunbier • C ollection Design by N eil Uyetake
Digital restoration by Richard C omely and George Freeman, with special thanks to Jordan C omely.
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CAPTAIN CANUCK VOLUME 1 HC. JUNE 2009. FIRST PRINTING. Captain Canuck ™ and © 2009 Richard Comely. All Rights Reserved. All characters featured in this issue and the distinctive names and likenesses thereof and all related indicia are trademarks of Richard Comely. IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorial offices: 5080 Santa Fe St., San Diego, CA 92109. The IDW logo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All Rights Reserved. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea. IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork. Originally published as CAPTAIN CANUCK Issues #4–10.
INTRODUCTION The Library and Archives Canada Preservation building in Gatineau, Quebec, is reputed to be the cleanest, most dust free building in the world. It has also been home for many years to most of the original art from the Captain Canuck comic book series I published 30 or so years ago. A precedent was set, fortunately, when Jim Burant, manager of LAC art and photo archives and LAC art archivist Jennifer Devine allowed me to spend three days in a nearby high security building in February of 2009 with all the original art. Standing there over my Brother MFC6490CW scanning all those pages was a trip down memory lane, one that took me back to an earlier time. Captain Canuck was born in 1974. Ron Leishman, George Freeman and Claude St. Aubin are the other key players in Captain Canuck’s origin, and all are still dear friends. It was Ron (www.toonaday.com) who proposed the idea that we create the quintessential Canadian superhero, and he also designed the original costume. Ron then left me to make something of it while he traveled to parts far and wide. When it came to creating comic books I was reinventing the wheel, experimenting. In the 1970s, photo masks were the standard procedure for producing colour comic books. With the help of Dick Thomas I came up with a technique that allowed for a wider colour range, colour blending and gradient tones; quite revolutionary at the time.
George Freeman, who was a Godsend, eventually did most of the penciling and inking on Captain Canuck. Claude St. Aubin, our resident French Canadian, and also divinely delivered, did much of the colouring, some inking and pencil art. I had George be my editor while I focused on the writing. We enjoyed working together as a team. When it came time to do the colouring we all chipped in. Because George had (and still has) the best eye for colour combinations we looked to him for direction. This spring George and I spent many hours at our computers compositing all the pages of line art and color acetate overlays I scanned at LAC in Gatineau, and doing clean up in preparation for this printing. My son Jordan, who works as a graphic designer, gave me plenty of guidance. So now, for the first time, Captain Canuck will look the way it always should have. Even 30 years later, while looking at the original artwork with those vibrantly coloured overlays, I’m still in awe of George and Claude’s work. I hope you enjoy this collection. Issues 1, 2 and 3 will come out in its own book soon andVolume Two, collecting issues 11–14, and the Summer Special, will be released by IDW this December. Please check in at captaincanuck.com for current information on the release of the Captain Canuck Legacy series. Richard Comely Cambridge, Ontario,April 2009
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