La vie en rose, Quebec style

The tiny hamlet of Rapide Blanc in northern Quebec would hardly garner anyone’s attention, even if the town still existed. Created in the late 1920s to house workers at the nearby hydroelectric plant, Rapide Blanc was just as summarily wiped from the map when a nationalized utility company determined the cost of manning the dam would be more than simply running it remotely. So in 1971, the people who had founded the town packed their cars and left the area to return to its natural state.

Rapide Blanc no longer exists, but Quebecois artist Pascal Blanchet creates a fine portrait of the town in his graphic novel White Rapids (his own translation from the original French). As far as plot goes, there’s not a whole lot: the bigwigs at the power company decide to build a dam and a town for its workers, people enjoy their lives far in the Quebecois wilderness, the town becomes more connected to the world, the power company decides to put an end to it all. That’s pretty much it. But the story is simply justification for Blanchet’s lovely, stylized silhouetted figures with a sort of composition reminiscent of 1950s era advertising. They’re warm, glowing images, colored in varying shades of brownish gray, brilliant whites and muted oranges. Blanchard’s art conveys not a utopia—this is a working town, not one founded on any particular moral premise—but a definite sense of camaraderie and whimsy. One particular image of a house party in full mid-50s swing practically pulses with the bonhomie of good music, good company and a fine summer night. In fact, not even the eventual decline of the town can cast a shade over the pictorials; the final sensation is not that of loss, but more like the natural passing that comes with sunset.

Blanchet’s errors are limited to the types of fonts chosen for the text. Some were virtually impossible to make out either due to letter design or color. The story of Rapide Blanc would hardly constitute a paragraph, but in graphic format it works. Blanchet has had little else published in either French or English, focusing instead mainly on illustration and cartooning. His other work La Fugue might be worth tracking down, or else hope that more of this talented artist’s work becomes available in the U.S.