After signing Tintin and Quebec et Asterix among QuebecersTristan Demers once again explores the influence of popular culture heroes on our collective imagination by publishing with Hurtubise The wonderful Quebec of Walt Disney. This abundantly illustrated collection, rich in finds and anecdotes, shows to what extent the world of Walt Disney has been present in our country… for almost a hundred years!
Tristan Demers signs Walt Disney’s Marvelous Quebec.
© Editions Hurtubise
Without a doubt, Walt Disney, a notable figure in American popular culture and a visionary creator, had a profound impact on the imagination of Quebecers. In this well-documented work, Tristan Demers shows to what extent he has permeated Quebec culture, from the 1930s to today.
Disney has marked the journey of local people and left its mark on several emblematic places in our public space: the Jardin des Merveilles, Expo 67, the rooster of the Saint-Hubert rotisseries.
Tristan Demers explains how classics like Pinocchio, Mary Poppins or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were in symbiosis with a rapidly evolving Quebec society.
Research work
The author did a huge amount of iconographic research to find the illustrations that show how present Disney is in our cultural landscape. “At the beginning, I wasn’t sure that I was going to find enough material to have something substantial to tell!” he said in a telephone interview.
“I had already written a book on Tintin and Quebec for the same publisher. I had done Asterix among Quebecers: it seemed more obvious to me, because we often say that we are Gauls from America. We have a link with Asterix. We are in the fight for cultural resistance. It’s a bit like our magic potion, our language, our culture. I found it clearer.”
Go snooping…and find treasures!
For Walt Disney, he had a hunch it was worth digging around, but wasn’t convinced he was going to find that much material. What followed proved the opposite!
“Finally, I came across a bunch of things! I work by keywords. I go into archives a lot. I go through boxes with little cotton gloves, where I have access to old slides or old documents which often have been lying dormant in a box for 80 years.”
Tristan Demers explains that he uses key words to search in databases which lead him straight to old interviews and old photos.
“I cast a very wide net, then I narrow it down to find the story that accompanies a photo, to really understand what I have to tell for each of the themes. We discuss cinema as much as the Second World War, as well as dubbing. Finally, there are lots of things that connect us to Disney! I’m really happy!”
What makes the hearts of Quebecers so attached to Disney? “I wanted the book to also have a historical side, because I couldn’t have made 184 pages just to say that we loved Mickey Mouse. I had to go further. By reading the book, we understand to what extent it has pierced us, almost, in all spheres of our lives, for a long time.
The sense of wonder
“I also think that we are a people of good living. We love the party. We have a beautiful candor, a sense of wonder. I think we are a people who marvel, for all sorts of reasons. We are a people who don’t much like conflict or debate. When we celebrate, we forget what is going less well.”
“It’s in our DNA, this kind of sense of wonder and celebration. What Disney offers is the festive. We quickly embraced Walt Disney’s proposal, in the 1930s.”
Tristan Demers has been present in the Quebec cultural landscape for 40 years.
© Pierre-Paul Poulin / Le Journal de Montréal / Agence QMI
The wonderful Quebec of Walt Disney
Tristan Demers
Hurtubise Editions
184 pages
- Tristan Demers has been on the Quebec cultural scene for 40 years.
- He has created around sixty comic books.
- He is also a youth presenter on TV and author of several essays and documentary books.
“I had fun unearthing little treasures of stories that testify to the certain affection that we have had, for a hundred years, for the creations of one of the greatest visionaries of the last century. »
– Tristan Demers, The wonderful Quebec of Walt DisneyÉditions Hurtubise
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