Canada’s Baruchel plans bold new adventures for Captain Canuck
Actor/director works on taking comics character to film and TV — and invests in his publisher
He has tackled the world of hockey enforcers, been a Man seeking Woman and is now helping Captain Canuck get back to a place of proper respect among the ever-rising ranks of superheroes.
To his title of actor/writer/director/producer, Jay Baruchel is adding chief creative officer — and an investor — at Toronto-based Chapterhouse Comics, where along with the company’s president, Fadi Hakim, he hopes to create a universe of new and old Canadian heroes that can hold their own from the printed page and make the jump to film and television.
Of course, what exactly does that new job title mean?
“Oh jeez, that’s a good question,” Baruchel says from his Toronto home.
“Basically, I am there to kind of chime in and help add to the world building (and) helping to map out the next decade worth of issues with all of our other creatives — and also kind of staying out of the way, because the machine is up and running and they’ve been doing incredible work.”
World building is the hot concept in media, and so Baruchel is going to try to guide the budding list of characters in the company’s stable into crossing over into each other’s stories.
Since 2015, Chapterhouse has been helping Captain Canuck substantially just by regularly getting new issues out.
Created in 1975 by Richard Comely and Ron Leishman, the character has had a spotty publication history since, reflecting independent comics’ publishers often-fragile finances.
Yet, though the patriotic hero might have started out rather generically — another white guy in long johns with a strong jaw — comics fans in his homeland never quite forgot about him.
Baruchel first got involved with Chapterhouse as the company sought to develop the character for other media such as film and television; the good captain has already starred in his own web series.
Hakim, Chapterhouse founder, was thinking of taking on an investment partner, but says he turned down three interested parties — he didn’t just want money, he wanted someone who shared his passion for the medium and these characters.
“Jay is such a great fit as a partner,” says Hakim, a restaurateur who started Chapterhouse because of his passion for Captain Canuck.
“I wanted someone who actually cared about this, because there’s 75 years of Canadian comics and history that we can mine and help put forward to a new generation.”
As Baruchel got more involved with the company, he only wanted to do more, so he made the decision to invest in the company — financial terms were not disclosed — and is co-writing a Captain Canuck origin story arc called “Year 1,” with the first part of the story having been published in May as part of Free Comic Book Day.
The TV and movie star says the draw of creating for comics comes from feeling like a kid again, but he notes it’s also quicker paced than his day jobs.
“It’s incredible, there is no idea too big or too small for comics. There is something incredibly freeing about that medium, that it’s a home for pure ideas. And that’s f------ really, really exciting,” he says.
In film and TV, he notes, “from the time that you have an idea to the time it might become a movie is anywhere from half a decade on. And also, you constantly have to reduce and censor and sort of (let) budgetary restraints dictate all sort of creative decisions as well.
“There’s none of that in comics, which is why I have always read them.
“Now, to get in to create and work in them, it’s the closest thing in my adult life that I’ve felt how it was when I was 10 years old and hanging out with my friends and just talking about, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to have this power?’ . . . The sky is the limit.”
Chapterhouse comics also recently got distribution through Diamond Books, one of the industry’s biggest players, which will get the company’s products into stores across North America and Europe.
Of course, Baruchel and Hakim know that this is going to take some time, particularly with a character who has been resurrected and rebooted a number of times without taking the medium by storm.
Canadian comics fans are aware of him, but Baruchel wants more prominence.
“If you grow up a kid in Canada, and hang out in comic-book shops, you always see him, but sadly more often than not, he’s relegated to the back of the store,” Baruchel says.
“He’s been a in street fight for shelf space for the entirety of his existence, and yet, in spite of all that, we all know Canuck.
“There’s a reason they put him on a stamp, there is a degree of import to him, because of the symbol he wears on this mask, and what he represents.”
“It’s incredible, there is no idea too big or too small for comics. There is something incredibly freeing about that medium, that it’s a home for pure ideas.” JAY BARUCHEL