Interview with Thara Charland, new member at CIRM
Welcome to Thara Charland, CIRM's new member!
Thara is a postdoctoral researcher in the Département d'études littéraires at Université du Québec à Montréal. She recently won a prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, which will let her work on the emergence of documentary comics in Québec since 2000. To mark her arrival at CIRM, we asked her a few questions.
Your research interests include Québec comics in relation to Montréal. What are the main trends in representations of Montréal in Québec comics?
It is hard to pinpoint any major trends in representations of Montréal in contemporary Québec comics, since the corpus is so diverse, both in terms of the themes explored and the historical periods represented. Among the works published since 2000, some draw on the city's historical and architectural past (La femme aux cartes postales by Claude Paiement and Jean-Paul Eid), while others project the city into a disturbing dystopian future (Thierry Labrosse's Ab Irato series). For my research, I have been more interested in certain comics that focus on a specific neighborhood in order to offer a portrait of it, to capture its “soul”. In this type of work (Michel Hellman's Mile End, Richard Suicide's Chroniques du Centre-Sud, Skip Jensen's Lachine Beach, etc.), the relationship to the metropolis is subjective, sensitive and memorialized.
Is Montréal represented differently in comics than other cities? Put another way, what distinguishes the way Montréal is represented in comics?
During my research, I looked at works that feature places other than Montréal, in order to offer a counterpoint to my main analysis and to see how representations of the city of Montréal differ from or overlap with those of other places. In the course of my readings, however, it became clear that Montréal acts as a magnet, and that a large proportion of Québec comics published since 2000 feature the city. Among the works that propose visions outside the center, we note that certain commonplaces associated with the region are recuperated: the vastness of the Québec territory, the well-being linked to a return to the land, the healing power of nature, etc. In addition, a survey of works set in the suburbs and countryside, but almost invariably focusing on the metropolis, reveals a negative image of Montréal: suffocating city life, lack of green spaces, health problems, etc.
As a literature scholar, what particularly fascinates you about representations of the city?
I grew up in the suburbs, very close to Montréal. And yet, all my youth, the metropolis seemed inaccessible, too vast, a little threatening. I have been living here for 15 years now, and the metropolis still holds the greatest fascination for me. I feel as if I will never get around to it, that I will never be able to exhaust it. Literature and comics give me the opportunity to continue my exploration of the city. Each work in my body of work offers me an additional facet of Montréal, revealing a part of it that I hadn't yet explored. I wandered through the downtown area at the turn of the 20th century in Arthur Leclair: projectionniste ambulant, relived the 2012 student strike in Sophie Yanow's La guerre des rues et des maisons, and Michel Rabagliati took me on a stroll through Expo 67 with Paul.
Your postdoctoral project focuses on documentary comics in Québec since 2000. Why documentary comics? And how can the analysis of representations of the city contribute to the analysis of documentary comics?
As a scholar interested in contemporary comics, my job is to pay close attention to the major trends driving the comics field. One of these trends is the unprecedented rise of non-fiction. Comics have increasingly entered the realm of reality, and as a result, the use of documentary practices has intensified. In certain works in the corpus, the analysis of representations of the city will show how the documents on which the research is based (photos, archives, newspaper articles, etc.) are used, but above all recycled and reinterpreted.
You're also an author. How does your research into Québec comics and Montréal influence your creative work?
I see my approach to creative writing and my research as one and the same. For me, it's the question of places and the relationship we all have with them that interests me. How does the place where we live settle within us? In my novel, I decided to write about a neighborhood I know only from the stories I've heard: Cartierville. It's the neighborhood where the Charland family home was located, and it was also a stone's throw from Belmont Park. The question that guided my writing was: what is the experience of living near an amusement park when our family life is particularly tragic?
A perfect day in Montréal?
A morning stroll through Summit Woods to get some fresh air. Then a bike ride along the bike path that runs alongside the river, stopping to watch the surfers at Vague à Guy, then ending up at Canal Lachine Canal Park. Read a little by the water in the afternoon. Join friends for an aperitif at Verdun Beach.
3 must-see symbols?
The Mount Royal Cross
The Orange Julep
The exterior wrought-iron staircase
Favorite neighborhood?
Côte-des-Neiges (my neighborhood for 15 years)
Reference works on Québec comics and representations of the city:
- Anna Giaufret (2021), Montréal dans les bulles : représentations de l’espace urbain et du français parlé montréalais dans la bande dessinée, Presses de l'Université Laval, 288 p.
- Michel Viau (2021), BDQ. Tome 1: Les origines à 1968, Station T, 400 p.
- Michel Viau (2022), BDQ. Tome 2: Le printemps de la bande dessinée québécoise : de 1968 à 1976, Station T, 464 p.
- Philippe Rioux (2022), Alter Ego: Le genre superhéroïque dans la BD au Québec (1968-1995), Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 368 p.
- Carmélie Jacob et Catherine Saouter (dir.) (2018), «La bande dessinée québécoise», dossier de la revue Voix et Images, vol. 43, no 2.