The boom in graphic novels for the young is easily understood. Ever since Art Spiegelman’s stunning Maus, published in 1986, expanded the genre to include weighty themes, artists have realized the elastic potential of the form. However, the graphic novel’s quick emotional semaphore still makes it an ideal medium for the young and reading-averse: the scribble of a half-drawn face leaves ample room for projection, the visual code translates instantly into speed and momentum, and written language is pared to an urgent minimum while the pure force of pictures carries the narrative.
Nicolas Debon, a French-born children’s illustrator who has lived and worked in Canada, used the form brilliantly in previous works. In Four Pictures by Emily Carr, he wrote and illustrated a sensitive biography of the artist, with stunning graphic panels that made Carr’s inner turmoil and distinctive artistic vision leap to life.

Debon has a less rewarding subject in Louis Cyr, the turn-of-the-20th-century Quebec strongman. In The Strongest Man in the World, Cyr – having just been told by his doctor that he must retire for the sake of his health – looks back over his life as he tells his young daughter about his youth, marriage, and rise to fame. (Cyr died in 1912 of chronic kidney disease at the age of 49).

Cyr’s personal narrative could have been a perfect opportunity for some shading and irony to seep into the tale. With Cyr’s affectionate child as an eager audience, Debon might have allowed for some personal insights, regrets, or affecting nostalgia. Instead, he opts for a relatively straightforward recounting of Cyr’s life from rural Quebec boyhood to international fame as a powerful 300-pound weightlifter who could heft a Percheron off its hooves, or shoulder a platform carrying 18 heavy men. Debon sticks tightly to subdued grey, black, burnt sienna, umber, and ochre – muted hues that faithfully evoke a time before Kodachrome, neon, and plastics. But when even Louis Cyr’s circus appears in these dim colours (and we see none of its other acts), there’s a palpable lack of visual intensity and excitement.

Stranger still, Cyr is depicted as expressionless throughout. Even in the scenes of his greatest triumphs (hoisting a 553-pound weight with one finger) he remains poker-faced and flaccid. We don’t see his muscles straining, his legs braced, or his face drawn with effort. The extraordinary feats of strength, as a result, fall flat on the page. Only once in the entire book do we see Cyr laughing with pleasure – as he juggles 50-pound weights at the height of his happiness as a local hero and tavern owner. Debon was able to evoke subtle and powerful emotions in his depiction of Emily Carr, but here he sacrifices emotional connection with his hero in sticking to this poker-faced mode. (The most touching moment is the finale, when Cyr faces the forced end of his career with quiet dignity.)

There are also odd gaps in the narrative. Perhaps it’s too much to expect that an entire life story can be told in 25 pages of comic-book form without some of the threads being lost. But it’s a serious flaw when key people simply vanish from the page without explanation. What happened to Cyr’s beloved wife? She disappears halfway through the story. Cyr’s grandfather, a stern tutor of his early strength-training, is dominant in the first pages, but his father (who later ran the circus for him) is nowhere mentioned.

Still, the quaint ideal of a mighty-muscled “he-man” must hold some power among the very young and vulnerable. I have only to remember how proud I was of my father’s bone-crushing handshake to be reminded of a child’s need for the most elemental reassurance. The ideal of limitless human perfectability, the nobility of individual striving, and the goal of being “the world’s best” may seem hopelessly Victorian to us, but these concepts are perfectly relevant to a contemporary child.

On the endpapers, Debon provides a series of faux baseball cards, in this case depicting the circus stars from Cyr’s era. An afterword serves up reflections on the popular entertainments of Cyr’s time, along with photos of him and his family.

Boys used to thrill to the Charles Atlas advertisements on the back pages of their superhero comic books. Maybe pure strength – here embodied in a solid citizen, loving father, and self-made businessman – still signifies a longed-for (if illusory) safety. Even though Debon falls far short of his best in this work, the heroics of Louis Cyr may especially resonate with boys who are reluctant readers. And Debon has performed a service in bringing to our attention a little-known Quebec figure.