 From D&Q's Official Press Release
Montreal, QC Chester Brown's critically acclaimed graphic novel LOUIS RIEL; A COMIC-STRIP BIOGRAPHY has landed at #7 on the hardcover non-fiction bestseller list of the Canadian publishing trade Quill & Quire.
The list is compiled from sales results of more than 170 independent booksellers across Canada.
Regionally, LOUIS RIEL has also appeared on the bestseller lists of The Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal.
The book also was the cover review of the national newspaper The Globe & Mail and included in the newspaper's "Globe 100" list. G&M reviewer Bernice Eisenstein stated "if you love to read a gripping story, if you are awed by the talent of an artist, then look no further: Chester Brown's LOUIS RIEL is comix history in the making, and with it, history never looked so good.".
LOUIS RIEL also made "the best of 2003" lists for Time.com and Quill & Quire and has been the subject of a staggering number of feature stories and reviews across North America, espechialy in Canada, including ones appearing in The National Post, The Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun, The Onion, Boston Phoenix, Montreal Hour, Montreal Review of Books, The Coast, Halifax Chronicle Herald, The Vue Weekly, Exclaim!, Prairie Dog, The Manitoban, Montreal Mirror, Fast Forward Weekly and The Georgia Straight. Not to mention the previously noted Globe & Mail and Quill & Quire!
Chester has been interviewed on several CBC radio shows recently, including The Arts Today, Brave New Waves, Definitely Not The Opera and Richardson's Roundup, as well as the television show Imprint. In addition to numerous store signings and library events, Brown was the guest of several literary festivals this past Fall including the Winnipeg Writers Festival, Toronto's Word on the Street, Ottawa International Writers Festival and the Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival.
Brown's next appearance for LOUIS RIEL will be at "This Is Not A Reading Series" presented by Pages Books and Magazines & Now Magazine. (Rivoli, 332 Queen St W, 3/31/04, 6:30-8:30 PM)
Chester Brown is one of the pioneers of the 1980s comix renaissance. He is the author of the literary graphic novel classics I NEVER LIKED YOU in which he documented his adolescence and his mother's schizophrenia, THE PLAYBOY, THE LITTLE MAN and ED THE HAPPY CLOWN as well as the comic book series YUMMY FUR and UNDERWATER. Brown was born in 1960 in Montreal and lives in Toronto.
About the book: Martyr or Madman? LOUIS RIEL is the passionate rebel history can't close the book on. Legendary cartoonist Chester Brown reveals in this dusty closet of Canadian history that there are some skeletons that won't stop rattling. To some Louis Riel was one of the founding fathers of a nation but to others he was a murderer who nearly tore a country apart. A man so charismatic he was elected to government twice while exiled with a prize on his head. A man so impassioned his dramatic behaviour cast serious doubts on his sanity. Riel took on the army, the government, the Queen, and even the Church in the name of freedom. Will Riel's visionary democracy ever be enough to defend him from the verdict of history?
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