New stamp series celebrates Canada's iconic graphic novelists (2)

From Canada Post.

Canada Post announces the issuance of a series of six stamps – the second of a diptych (the first was issued in 2024) – paying tribute to Canadian graphic novel authors: Kate Beaton, Jimmy Beaulieu, Guy Delisle, Julie Doucet, Bryan Lee O’Malley and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, in self-portraits reading one of their most famous books.

The Graphic Novelists issue celebrates the work of some of Canada’s most talented and influential graphic novelists:

• Kate Beaton – Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
• Jimmy Beaulieu – Non-aventures : planches à la première personne
• Guy Delisle – Chroniques de Jérusalem
• Julie Doucet – Journal
• Bryan Lee O’Malley – Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life 
• Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas – Red, A Haida Manga 

About the artists:

Kate Beaton

Known for her sharp wit and keen sense of the absurd, Kate Beaton (b. 1983 in Mabou, Nova Scotia) launched her career in 2007 with the irreverent webcomic series Hark! A Vagrant – parts of which later appeared in award-winning collections. 

A history graduate and self-taught artist, Beaton published her first full-length graphic novel, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, in 2022. 

The memoir, about her “migration” to the Northern Alberta oil sands to work off her student debt, has been hailed by critics as an intimate, damning, yet profoundly human exposé of the industry. In 2023, Ducks became the first graphic novel to win CBC’s prestigious Canada Reads competition.

Jimmy Beaulieu

A prolific member of Quebec’s comic book scene, Jimmy Beaulieu (b. 1974 in L’Île-d’Orléans, Quebec) has been involved in the industry as a bookseller, author, illustrator, publisher, teacher and critic. 

Although his only training was a drawing class he took as a teen, the award-winning artist moved to Montréal in his mid-20s to become a cartoonist and published his first comic book in 2000. 

His graphic novel Non-aventures : planches à la première personne (2013) is a collection of anecdotes and reflections on the “non-adventures” of his daily life. 

The 2015 edition won the Prix de la critique de la bande dessinée québécoise from the Association des critiques et journalistes de bande dessinée.

Guy Delisle

Internationally acclaimed for his candid and largely autobiographical graphic novels, Guy Delisle (b. 1966 in Québec, Quebec) studied and worked in animation before branching out into comics. 

His more than dozen works are characterized by captivatingly simple line drawings and a spare style of storytelling. 

Tinged with dry humour, they explore everything from the peculiarities of parenting to life in communist North Korea. 

Chroniques de Jérusalem (2011; Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, 2012) is Delisle’s sensitive and insightful travelogue about a year spent in Jerusalem while his wife was there on assignment. 

It won several major awards, including the Fauve d’or at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Julie Doucet

Julie Doucet (b. 1965 in Montréal, Quebec) is considered one of the most daring and influential women in her field. 

Also an accomplished printmaker, she made her foray into comics in 1988 with a series of frank, funny and often unsettling strips about her day-to-day life, dreams, angst and fantasies. 

One of her many graphic novels, Journal (2004; 365 Days, 2007) chronicles a year in her life as an artist through a unique mix of drawing, collage and text. 

Doucet’s achievements include induction into the Canadian Comic Book Hall of Fame and winning the prestigious Grand Prix for lifetime achievement at the Angoulême International Comics Festival – the highest award in European cartooning.

Bryan Lee O’Malley

Cartoonist Bryan Lee O’Malley (b. 1979 in London, Ontario) based the six graphic novels in his wildly popular Scott Pilgrim series (2004-10) on his life at the time. 

The cult hit – a quirky, action-packed love story about a young slacker in a Toronto garage band who sets out to defeat his new girlfriend’s evil exes – spawned a major motion picture, a video game and an animated series. 

Of French-Canadian and Korean descent, O’Malley uses a drawing style reminiscent of Japanese anime and manga in the award-winning series, which kicked off with Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life (2004).

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

A self-taught multimedia visual artist, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (b. 1954 in Prince Rupert, British Columbia) created his own method of painting and illustration by blending Asian brush techniques with Indigenous iconography. 

In his graphic novel Red, A Haida Manga (2009), Yahgulanaas uses this distinct style to pay homage to his roots on Haida Gwaii in the northeast Pacific. 

The tragic story – passed down through oral tradition – tells of two orphaned siblings whose peaceful lives are destroyed by the desire for revenge. 

The pages of the printed book can be removed and connected by their flowing “framelines” to recreate a 7.5-square-metre watercolour fresco by Yahgulanaas.