Pretty much any time you see the term “the Golden Age of Comics,” it’s shorthand for the U.S. Golden Age, that roughly 13-year span, starting circa 1938, that spawned Superman, Batman, the two Captains (Marvel and America) and a host of other superheroes. Canada also had its own Golden Age of Comics then, between 1941 and 1946, in fact, when the Canadian government, keen to conserve its reserve of American dollars during the Second World War, banned the importation of “non-essential goods” from the United States, comics included. To fill the vacuum, Canadian companies began to churn out their own pulp fictions.
The debut of Nelvana of the Northern Lights preceded that of Wonder Woman by about six months.
Among their creations: Johnny Canuck, Brok Windsor and the legendary Nelvana of the Northern Lights (whose debut, in a miniskirt, preceded that of Wonder Woman by about six months). To mark these achievements and more contemporary ones such as Lemire’s Essex County and Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series, Library and Archives Canada is hosting an eye-popping, reproduction-heavy showcase in Ottawa now through mid-September. Titled Alter Ego: Comics and Canadian Identity, the wham of its bam seems preordained to swell visitors’ hearts and triceps with pride (bac-lac.gc.ca/eng).