Ian Brodie and Paul MacKinnon (illustrator). Old Trout Funnies: The Comic Origins of the Cape Breton Liberation Army. (Sydney, NS: Cape Breton University Press, 2015. Pp. viii +224, ISBN: 978-1-77206-041-6.)

It is tempting to pick up printed comics and assume that we can understand them. On the surface, this is possible as we make sense of what is “going on,” often without thinking much beyond what is in the frame, strip, or book. However, as analytical readers, we know that there is more that we can glean from an isolated page. This holds true for Paul MacKinnon’s Old Trout Funnies (OTF) comic art creations established in 1970s Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Ian Brodie’s book, Old Trout Funnies: The Comic Origins of the Cape Breton Liberation Army, does an admirable job in both presenting MacKinnon’s OTF collection and providing context and explication to allow readers to appreciate the comics and calendars while having information with which to consider the comics on a variety of analytical levels. The book opens with Brodie providing context for the period in which MacKinnon created the OTF. He discusses the broader social context of Cape Breton in the mid-1970s, including economic factors, such as industrial downturns and unemployment, and cultural responses to these situations. Brodie also describes the origins of the Cape Breton Liberation Army (CBLA) and the OTF themselves, based, sometimes closely and sometimes loosely, on friends, people, and places from MacKinnon’s experience and the region in general. The CBLA itself has its roots in the political and pop cultural discourse of the period as well as MacKinnon’s own social circle. The OLF emerged from the CBLA and other sketches MacKinnon shared with his friends, which were developed into a comic book as part of a college project. The OTF and CBLA evolved over the course of three issues, a series of calendars, and other work. Along with laying out the context and timeline for the development of MacKinnon’s work, Brodie also outlines a few approaches readers can take to interpret the OTF. He succinctly touches upon thematic considerations; nevertheless, Brodie advises us, “Before trying to read too much into the work, it is good to remember that MacKinnon’s intent . . . was to provide something humorous for a particular audience” (13). The central part of the book, which inhabits over half of the volume, is the reproduction of MacKinnon’s work itself. Beginning with the first issue, this section includes all the published issues, some shorter as well as unpublished materials, and the calendars. The content of the art is reproduced without modification or annotation, with the exception of some page transpositions for the flow of the material. In this way, the reader has the opportunity to encounter the OTF as much on its own terms as possible in a book of this nature. This presentation allows us, if we wish, to immerse ourselves into the world of the OTF and to go on adventures with the CBLA, without focusing on the contextual and interpretive sections that are on either side of the comics collection. The rare and unpublished materials offer us shorter stories with recurring characters and glimpses into incomplete works. The calendars continue to show us the development of MacKinnon’s work. Though less overtly narrative than the comic issues and strips, they provide insights into MacKinnon’s perspective on Cape Breton culture over the period the calendars were in production (1979-2000, with some exceptions). The 2000 calendar rounds out the OTF collection. A strength of the book is how it presents MacKinnon’s work. As much as it can, the book allows the reader to interact with the material on its own, to try to understand it without marginal notes. In part, this helps us try to keep in mind what Brodie advises us …