but I always root for the 'freedom fighters', underdogs, and bad guys anyway.īut the artwork is what makes this truly spectacular. Being Canadian adds a cool and righteous twist to the proceedings that Canadians rarely get from their fiction. The big fucking space opera epic that even non-comic readers love. It's a fun little tale about the White House being bombed and the US deciding to obliterate Canada and occupy the smoldering wreckage. And 'We Stand on Guard' is already my favorite of the two. And Vaughan's 'big-idea-generator' is obviously still functioning smoothly even if 'Saga' and 'We Stand on Guard' aren't as easy to pitch as 'Y: The Last Man', they're his best titles so far. He has his faults and weaknesses as a writer - lame, jokey dialogue being one of them, but those goofier tendencies are fading - but he's very talented. My point exactly.Īs terrible as BKV seems to be for television - 'Under the Dome' is a crime for which he will never be forgiven - he keeps doing things right in comics: 'Paper Girls', 'Runaways', 'Y: The Last Man', 'Ex Machina', 'Pride of Baghdad', 'Saga', 'The Private Eye', 'The Walking Dead: The Alien', etc. For any Canadians getting confused and irate, muttering something like 'what the fuck is this guy babbling aboot about?' Yes. We usually eschew guerilla warfare and rail-guns for petitions and novels by Margaret Laurence and Hugh Maclennan that nobody really likes. And our government doesn't seem that good at saying 'no' to the US. To be brutally honest, we don't seem to be all that good at revolution and overthrowing oppressive despots and whatnot. up to but probably NOT including manifest destiny and the draining of Great Slave Lake. At this point, we Canadians will take what we can get. it's speculative fiction that takes place 100 years in the future, and may have been dreamt up after Vaughan got stoned and watched 'The Empire Strikes Back' immediately after the 'South Park' movie, in a serendipitous twist of programming.

Vaughan and Genuine-Canadian Steve Skroce has finally given us a reason to be proud of our national heritage. Yay! More Canlit (sort of) that doesn't double as a sleep-aid! After decades of government grants and dull essays and hand-wringing over the Canadian identity, a comic-book by the Cleveland-born-Canadian-by-marriage B.K. NOTE: Some spoilers, but the summary doesn't give away much skipping the dramatic twists and turns.

Brian k vaughan we stand on guard