Our story in full colour

The publisher, Renegade Arts Entertainment, is a story in itself. So is Canmore’s impressive war effort. But first the book.

It’s a richly coloured hardcover more than three years in the making that will be released April 27. The historically accurate comic-strip story by Scottish writer Alan Grant runs 101 pages, followed by a 64-page summary of the war by Canadian historian Mark Zuehlke. Illustration is by Claude St. Aubin, colouring by Lovern Kind

zierski, letters by Todd Klein.

BEHIND THE PROJECT is editor Alexander Finbow, a 40year-old creative dynamo from England and a founder of Renegade. It’s only three years since Finbow immigrated to Canada with his family. After looking at settling in Vancouver or Calgary, he figured he might be able to make a go of the little entertainment arts firm in Canmore.

“There are so many high achievers from sports, the arts,” he said. “There’s a real mix of people here, which means that you can get a lot more done than I think you could in some small towns.” Finbow and a group of colleagues had started Renegade a few years before he came to Canada. Like many good ideas, it first saw light of day in a pub — this one in Brighton, England. A group working on a film there, talking shop over a few pints after work, found they shared a vision. They wanted to start a small creative company that would “bring stories to life” through comic books, audiobooks, movies, animation and novels.

One of those sitting around the table was Grant, one of the most prolific writers in the comic-book industry. Grant, now 63, joined Renegade, and Finbow turned to him about three years ago to pitch the idea of a graphic novel on the war that many historians say made Canada.

Charmingly, Finbow had only recently become aware of the war at the time — at least from a Canadian perspective.

He’d been killing time in a Banff shop

while his wife, Karen, tried on clothes. He picked up a book on the War of 1812 and found it a terrific story. “It’s something that we don’t learn about in England. I knew the War of 1812 from Napoleon and the European conflict. We learn a lot about that. You’d think somewhere it would have been mentioned that something was going on in North America.”

IT TURNED OUT Grant knew even less than Finbow. While intrigued by the project, Finbow recalled, Grant was “terrified of trying to figure out how to do something with all the political, historical and military stuff in there. “How do you do that without making it really boring? It’s very easy to turn those things into a history book, and you lose the sense of a story.” Finbow suggested using a family as the medium through which to tell the story, and doing so through letters and journals. He researched Upper Canadian families, couldn’t settle on any one, so the Loxleys became “an amalgam of different stories from that area.” Grant was fed the research and, a famously fast writer, had a first draft within two weeks. Even after the book was done, Finbow was so taken with the history of the era that he wanted to find further ways to tell the story of 1812. “I have this slightly irritating habit of wanting to do more with things,” he said. He knew that no matter how good a graphic novel was, some people would never look at it “because they’d grown up thinking comic books are for kids.” As a result, Grant adapted the comic script into a prose novel. An animation is also in the works. “What else could we do to get people involved in the history and to make it come alive?” Finbow wondered. And it’s the fruits of that endless curiousity that really has Canmore buzzing.

AS IT HAPPENED, Finbow had led a workshop at his daughter’s school. He had the students improvise comic-book stories as an acting lesson. They loved it. “It reminded me what a good way doing a school play is to bring history alive,” he said. “Not only for the kids who are doing

it, but also for the community, the teachers, their parents.”

Finbow knew Tab Murphy, a Hollywood screenwriter who lives in Canmore much of the year. Murphy adapted the comic-book story for the stage. And on May10, the Grade 7 students of Lawrence Grassi Middle School of Canmore, Alta., mount their production of The Loxleys

and the War of 1812.

“It’s created a lot of buzz and interest from people in the town,” Finbow said after running a rehearsal this week.

Teachers Sonja Howatt and Ronda Krasnodemski are leading the production and also overseeing a student-produced magazine on the war. How pumped are the Canmore kids? “They all changed their Facebook profiles to their characters from the Loxley family,” Howatt said. “I am so impressed with how engaged they are.

“And then you start to hear other people in the community saying, ‘Hey, I hear you’re doing a play for the War of 1812.’ Then it leads to a conversation. It’s really interesting.”

Howatt said she wanted to make more of the learning opportunity than just a play.

“I wanted there to be a little more rigour attached to it. So we have them creating a magazine where they have to write a spe-

“It’s something that we don’t learn about in England. I knew the War of 1812 from Napoleon and the European conflict. We learn a lot about that. You’d think it would have been mentioned that something was going on in North America.”

ALEXANDER FINBOW THE BRITISH FOUNDER OF RENEGADE ARTS ENTERTAINMENT LTD.

cial report National Geographic- style, and they have to do an article where they take on the perspective of someone from that time, and an editorial. So when they’re not rehearsing the play, they’re working on this magazine.

“I couldn’t have even planned for all the learning that’s been happening with these kids. It’s been incredible.”

Howatt said graphic novels are often an easier sell to modern students than traditional academic texts.

“The way our brain works is to respond to visuals and to respond to stories, so it just makes sense,” she explained. “For this next 21st-century generation of learners, graphic novels are going to be a key piece in engaging these youths.”

BY NOW, OF COURSE, Alexander Finbow knows the Battle of Tippecanoe as well as he does Trafalgar Square. He’s also been a quick study in the regional sensibilities of his adopted homeland.

To his knowledge, no school in Upper Canada is doing such a play. “I’m hoping some of the schools in Ontario will see what we’re doing here and say, ‘Okay, give us that script, we’ll do it better!’

“I’m kind of hoping we can spur off a little bit of East vs. West rivalry.”

That’s never been much of a problem in this country before.