Captain Canuck is back! Did you hear me? Captain Canuck is BACK! Sorry but I am a massive Canuck fan. Huge! So much so that I created a little fan site at http://captaincanuck.net that catalogues as many Captain Canuck appearances as possible. I’m excited the book is back!.
Captain Canuck was created by Richard Comely and Ron Leishman back in the mid-70’s and Richard went on to publish 15 issues of the Captain Canuck comic. Getting an independent comic book on magazine racks and comic shops wasn’t as easy back then as self-publishing is now so the publishing history of the original Issues 1-13 and the Summer Special is a story onto itself. Flash forward to 2014 when an entrepreneur fan, Fadi Hakim, teamed up with Richard Comely and licensed the character creating Chapterhouse Publishing. This new Captain Canuck ran for 11 issues before taking a bit of a hiatus.
Chapterhouse decided to switch gears a little and rather than solicit an ongoing series they are adopting a more Dark Horse-like scheme of creating and releasing four issue arcs as monthly “mini” series and to borrow from TV they are labeling each arc as a “Season”. Since this new, four issue arc represents the third story arc in the revamped Captain Canuck it gets the label of Season 3. What a great way to create easily accessible jumping on points for fans. And for the hard core folks like myself, Chapterhouse is continuing to acknowledge the old numbering and this issue is also labeled as Issue 12 of the full series.
Following the events of the last arc, Tom has walked away from the Captain Canuck costume and the folks at Equilibrium. Without a Captain Canuck around, PACT – the paranormal investigation branch of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service – has been alone in their dealing with a massive alien threat. A threat so unstoppable that the entire planet is at risk. The issue gives us the full brief of what has been going on in Agents of PACT, another series set in the same Chapterverse that just about wrapped up its first four issue arc. The crossovers happening within this shared Chapterverse are really exciting and bringing depth to the Chapterhouse comic line. But what about Tom? What has our humble hero been up to? Turns out Tom has been working as a Search and Rescue tech in Manitoba and living near his father’s old cabin leading a relatively quiet life. Quiet that is until PACT Director, Manon DesChamps sends Northguard to Manitoba in the hopes of drafting Tom back into the Captain Canuck suit.
Kalman Andrasofszky returns as writer and having written the previous two arcs he is definitely steering the ship in a coherent direction. The story does a good balancing act making sure that first time readers are not lost and long-time readers are not bored. Heck of a cliffhanger too! Leonard Kirk also returns on art chores but this time with some assists by Emmanuelle Chateauneuf. Leonard is obviously a top-notch artist having worked for both DC and Marvel. I’m not sure what the work balance is between Leonard and Emmanuelle but the art is great. Definitely you don’t get the feeling that two artists worked on the linework. Nice team that is complimenting each other seamlessly. Colourist Yinfaowai Harrison does a fantastic job setting the mood with an appropriate colour palette for the different types of scenes in the comic book. And a kudos to letterer Andrew Thomas.
Needless to say, this book has been on my pull list since day one. I wouldn’t miss it. I’ve said it before and this has been repeated by the newest member of the Chapterhouse team, actor Jay Baruchel … Chapterhouse is producing top tier comics with Captain Canuck leading the way.
Pick … this … comic … up!
Issue: Captain Canuck Season 3 Issue 1 (Issue #12) | Publisher: Chapterhouse Publishing
Written by: Kalman Andrasofszky | Art by: Leonard Kirk, Emmanuelle Chateauneuf & Yinfaowai Harrison
Letters by: Andrew Thomas | Cover art by: John Gallagher
Price: $3.99 – 32 pages
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