title: Sicilian language

text: Another difference between the written and the spoken languages is the extent to which contractions occur in everyday speech. Thus a common expression such as ("we have to go and buy...") is generally reduced to in talking to family and friends.


title: Sicilian language

text: The circumflex accent is commonly used in denoting a wide range of contractions in the written language, particularly the joining of simple prepositions and the definite article: = ("of the"), = ("to the"), = ("for the"), = ("in the"), etc.


title: Sicilian language

text: Most feminine nouns and adjectives end in "-a" in the singular: ("house"), ("door"), ("paper"). Exceptions include ("sister") and ("fig"). The usual masculine singular ending is "-u": ("man"), ("book"), ("name"). The singular ending "-i" can be either masculine or feminine.


title: Sicilian language

text: Unlike Standard Italian, Sicilian uses the same standard plural ending "-i" for both masculine and feminine nouns and adjectives: ("houses" or "cases"), ("doors" or "harbors"), ("tables"). Some masculine plural nouns end in "-a" instead, a feature that is derived from the Latin neuter endings "-um, -a": ("books"), ("days"), ("arms", compare Italian "braccio, braccia"), ("gardens"), ("writers"), ("signs"). Some nouns have irregular plurals: "omu" has "òmini" (compare Italian "uomo, uomini"), "jocu" ("game") "jòcura" (Italian "gioco, giochi") and "lettu" ("bed") "lettura" (Italian "letto, letti"). Three feminine nouns are invariable in the plural: ("hand[s]"), ("fig[s]") and ("sister[s]").


title: Sicilian language

text: Sicilian has only one auxiliary verb, "to have". It is also used to denote obligation (e.g. "[he/she] has to go"), and to form the future tense, as Sicilian for the most part no longer has a synthetic future tense: "[he/she] will sing" ( or , depending on the dialect).


title: Sicilian language

text: As in English and like most other Romance languages, Sicilian may use the verb "to go" to signify the act of being about to do something. "I'm going to sing" (pronounced ) "I'm going to sing". In this way, + + infinitive can also be a way to form the simple future construction.


title: Sicilian language

text: Extracts from three of Sicily's more celebrated poets are offered below to illustrate the written form of Sicilian over the last few centuries: Antonio Veneziano, Giovanni Meli and Nino Martoglio.


title: Sicilian language

text: A translation of the Lord's Prayer can also be found in J. K. Bonner. This is written with three variations: a standard literary form from the island of Sicily and a southern Apulian literary form.


title: Sicilian language

text: Luigi Scalia translated the biblical books of Ruth, Song of Solomon and the Gospel of Matthew into Sicilian. These were published in 1860 by Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte.


title: Sicilian language

text: As one of the most spoken languages of Italy, Sicilian has notably influenced the Italian lexicon. In fact, there are several Sicilian words that are now part of the Italian language and usually refer to things closely associated to Sicilian culture, with some notable exceptions:


title: Sicilian language

text: Sicilian is estimated to have 5,000,000 speakers. However, it remains very much a home language that is spoken among peers and close associates. Regional Italian has encroached on Sicilian, most evidently in the speech of the younger generations.


title: Sicilian language

text: In terms of the written language, it is mainly restricted to poetry and theatre in Sicily. The education system does not support the language, despite recent legislative changes, as mentioned previously. Local universities either carry courses in Sicilian or describe it as , the study of dialects.


title: Sicilian language

text: The dialect of Reggio Calabria is spoken by some 260,000 speakers in the Reggio Calabria metropolitan area. It is recognised, along with the other Calabrian dialects, by the regional government of Calabria by a law promulgated in 2012 that protects Calabria's linguistic heritage.


title: Sicilian language

text: Outside Sicily and Southern Calabria, there is an extensive Sicilian-speaking diaspora living in several major cities across South and North America and in other parts of Europe and Australia, where Sicilian has been preserved to varying degrees.


title: Sicilian language

text: The Sicilian-American organization Arba Sicula publishes stories, poems and essays, in Sicilian with English translations, in an effort to preserve the Sicilian language, in "Arba Sicula", its bi-lingual annual journal (latest issue: 2017), and in a biennial newsletter entitled "Sicilia Parra".


title: Sicilian language

text: The nonprofit organisation Cademia Siciliana publishes a Sicilian version of a quarterly magazine, "UNESCO Courier".


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: Return of the Obra Dinn is an adventure and puzzle video game created by American video game designer Lucas Pope, and published by Japanese studio 3909. It was his second commercial game, following 2013's "Papers, Please", and was released for macOS and Microsoft Windows in October 2018 and for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One a year later.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: The game is set in 1807 with the player assuming the role of insurance inspector for the East India Company. The "Obra Dinn", a merchant ship missing for five years, has reappeared off the coast of England with no one alive aboard. The player is dispatched to the ghost ship to perform an appraisal, reconstruct the events of the voyage, and determine the fates of all sixty souls aboard, providing a cause of death for those deceased or a probable current location for those presumed living. Investigation is accomplished through the use of the "Memento Mortem", a pocket watch capable of transporting its user to the moment of death of any corpse located. The game, played in first-person perspective, uses a "1-bit" monochromatic graphical style inspired by games on early Macintosh computers.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: "Return of the Obra Dinn" was praised for its gameplay, art style, and narrative; it was cited as being among the best games of 2018 and won several awards, including the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: The "Obra Dinn", insured by the East India Company, went missing in 1803 as it was to sail around the Cape of Good Hope. It has since washed up in port with all sixty passengers and crew dead or missing. The player is tasked with determining the fate of all souls on board, including their names, where and how they met their fate, who their killer was, and their location should they be alive.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: "Return of the Obra Dinn" is effectively one large logic puzzle. The game is played as a first-person adventure game, allowing the player to fully explore the "Obra Dinn", using a monochromatic dithering style to mimic the shading and color methods of early computer games. To help track their progress, the player is given a logbook that includes a drawing of all the crew members, the crew roster, and blueprints of the ship. They are also given the "Memento Mortem", a pocketwatch-like device that can be used on a corpse. When activated, the player will hear the events that transpired in the seconds immediately before death, and can then explore the moment of death frozen in time. This is used to identify who was present, to capture moments in other rooms or on other decks, and to make note of details at the scene. These are used to help connect the faces of crewmates to their names and roles. While exploring a moment of death, the player can use the pocketwatch again to enter more corpses captured in the vision.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: With each death, the logbook automatically fills in basic information. The player is tasked only with naming those present and accurately describing their cause of death. Naming the crew is done through small clues, inferences, and logical deduction – mainly, narrowing possibilities as the game progresses. The causes of death are selected out of a catalogue, and some deaths will accept more than one solution. The player can revise their logbook as they gain more information, but to deter guesswork, correct "fates" are validated only in sets of three, with the exception of the last six fates discovered in a playthrough, which are validated in pairs.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: The "Obra Dinn", an East Indiaman trade ship, departs from Falmouth to the Orient in 1802 with 51 crewmen and 9 passengers. The ship fails to meet her rendezvous at the Cape of Good Hope, and is declared lost. Five years later, the "Obra Dinn" reappears off the coast of England with every hand either dead or missing. The East India Company sends its Chief Inspector to determine what happened aboard the ship. The inspector receives a logbook and the "Memento Mortem" stopwatch from Henry Evans, the ship's surgeon. The stopwatch, when used on a corpse, enables the user to experience and walk around the exact moment of the corpses death, frozen in time. With this and the logbook, the inspector sets out to unravel the fate of all 60 aboard.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: The "Obra Dinn" had launched with a number of passengers, including two royal Formosans and their guards carrying an exquisite treasure chest. Initial calamity struck after launch, with one crew member killed by falling cargo, and two others taken by pneumonia. However, a small group of the crew saw the potential of stealing the Formosan chest and, as they neared the Canary Islands, abducted the royal Formosans and the chest via rowboat and fled. However, three mermaids ambushed the boats, killing most of the group. The mermaids' attack was quelled when a Formosan used a magical shell pulled from the chest to stun the mermaids, but this killed himself as well. The remaining crew member returned to the "Obra Dinn", along with the captured mermaids (who also had shells), but he was shot on approach by the surviving Formosan guard. As they were brought aboard, the mermaids attacked and killed more of the crew before they were subdued and locked in the lazarette.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: The "Obra Dinn" circled around to return to England due to the increasing number of deaths. As they started their return, the mermaids caused a terrible storm to strike, and a pair of sea demons mounted on giant spider crabs boarded the ship intent on reaching the lazarette to liberate the mermaids, killing more of the crew before being put down. Shortly after dispelling the first assault, the ship was attacked by a kraken, killing more crewmen and the captain's wife. The captain went to the lazarette and threatened to kill all the mermaids in hopes of ending the attack. He executed two before the final one called off the kraken. The shells and the surviving mermaid were then tossed overboard by one of the Captain's mates, with the mermaid agreeing to guide the ship back to England. The surviving passengers and some of the crew decided to abandon the "Obra Dinn" and make for the western coast of Africa. Evans, knowing that the East India Company will investigate the ship via the "Memento Mortem", purposefully killed his pet monkey inside the locked lazarette, and kept its paw for safekeeping before leaving for Africa with the others. The three remaining crewmen turned on the captain, wanting to reclaim the chest and shells as compensation for their hardships, not knowing they were already thrown overboard. The captain killed the mutineers, and then, next to his wife's body, committed suicide.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: Several years later, the insurance inspector is able to catalogue all the deaths on the ship, except those within the locked lazarette. After the inspector leaves the ship, a fierce storm rolls in and the "Obra Dinn" sinks. The completed logbook is mailed back to Evans, and an insurance report is written, compensating or fining the estates of lost crewmen, depending on their conduct. A year later, Jane Bird, one of the survivors who fled with Evans, mails the book back to the inspector along with the monkey's paw and a letter saying that Evans had died shortly after receiving the logbook back. The Inspector then uses the "Memento Mortem" on the monkey paw in order to deduce what happened in the lazarette, thereby completing the whole story of the "Obra Dinn".


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: Over the course of his career, American video game designer Lucas Pope had developed an appreciation of "1-bit" graphics used in many early Macintosh games. Following his prior game "Papers, Please", Pope had wanted to use the 1-bit aesthetic in an experimental game, leading him to develop a game engine that allowed the player to move in a three dimensional space, rendered in a vintage style. Pope wanted to ensure the game was visually legible from most angles, challenging him on some of the rendering aspects. Separately, he found that while the 1-bit graphics worked fine when displayed in an on-screen window, at full screen resolution, players suffered from motion sickness. Rendering routines were modified to create the equivalent of motion blur for this dithering approach. At one point, Pope had considered creating a cathode ray tube render effect, but opted against this.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: With the style in place, Pope worked backwards to determine what game to make. His initial idea was one where the player character repeatedly died; the player would see the events of the death from their corpse, and would then be transported back one minute to manipulate the environment so as to recreate that death. However, Pope found this technically challenging, and instead sparked the idea of using freeze-frame flashbacks depicting moments of death to tell a story.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: The game's narrative took the longest portion of development. Pope had teased "Return of the Obra Dinn" in 2014 while completing "Papers, Please", anticipating a release the next year. Instead, it would take four more years; Pope released a limited demo for the 2016 Game Developers Conference, which had only six fates for the player to deduce. Feedback from this was positive, so he began to expand the game's story more than he expected. Internally, Pope created spreadsheets to link all the various characters and their fates, and to ensure that players would be able to logically follow chains of deaths. This ended with him writing the necessary dialog for some scenes and hiring voice actors, provided by locals Pope auditioned, who could mimic the accents of the time period.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: With a more complete story, Pope created a new demo to take to PAX Australia in November 2016, adding thirteen additional characters to the original demo. However, unlike the first demo, the deaths were presented out of chronological order, and players were confused about how to progress. Pope realized this confusion would become worse with the full cast of characters. He found a solution by having ten events in the narrative serve as a catalyst for deaths, breaking the story into sections and allowing the plot to be more digestible to the player. Dividing the game into "chapters" then led to the creation of the logbook, serving as the timeline for the game and cataloguing the ship's crew in the same manner as the real East India Company.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: Pope stated he was not worried about how well "Return of the Obra Dinn" would perform financially, as he was still earning appreciable revenue from "Papers, Please". He considered "Obra Dinn" a passion project and did not pressure himself with deadlines or marketing. "Return of the Obra Dinn" was released for Microsoft Windows and macOS computers on October 17, 2018, published by the Japanese-based studio 3909. Versions for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, ported by Warp Digital, were released on October 18, 2019. Physical Editions were released through Limited Run Games for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch in 2020.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: "Return of the Obra Dinn" received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator website Metacritic. "Polygon" Colin Campbell recommended the game, saying ""Return of the Obra Dinn" takes the whodunit's conventions and twists them into kaleidoscopic narratives that are perplexing and delightful. This isn't merely a great game, it's the work of an intense and creative intelligence." Patrick Hancock for "Destructoid" commented that Pope had "knocked it out of the park" as a follow up to "Papers, Please", and commented that even after finishing the game, he "could not stop thinking about" it. "Game Informer"s Javy Gwaltney called the art style "visually arresting", and praised the pacing and thought put into the game. However, they were less praising of the ending, commenting that the "ultimate payoff fails to complement the thoughtful gameplay".


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: The game received praise for being unique. Andreas Inderwildi of "Rock Paper Shotgun" commented that the game was more than just about logical reasoning, but that players were supposed to take into account how humans would act in an emergency. In his review for "Eurogamer", Christian Donlan commented that the graphical style in the game made it "feel like no other", and likened it to Sudoku. "Gamasutra"s Katherine Cross praised the game's minimalist feel, and that the characters "came off as people". Tom Marks for "IGN" described the game as being full of life, despite the use of still images to convey the story.


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: Some outlets favorably compared the game to "Her Story", a similar mystery-driven game where the player must work out the timeline of events and come to conclusions using numerous video clips. Campbell commented that the two games both made him reach for "a notepad and pen", whilst Andrew Webster writing for "The Verge" commented that both games were about creating clarity even in confusing situations. Webster went on to comment that there were many ways to enjoy the game, that a player could obsessively find the mysteries in the game, or simply enjoy the "grim, shocking story".


title: Return of the Obra Dinn

text: Several video game publications named "Return of the Obra Dinn" among 2018's best games, including "Edge", "Polygon", "USGamer", "GameSpot", "The Nerdist", "The Daily Telegraph", "The New Yorker", and "The Escapist". The game also won a series of awards:


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The Quebec sovereignty movement () is a political movement whose objective is to achieve the sovereignty of Quebec, a province of Canada since 1867, including in all matters related to any provision of Quebec's public order that is applicable on its territory. Sovereignists suggest that the people of Quebec make use of their right to self-determination – a principle that includes the possibility of choosing between integration with a third state, political association with another state or independence – so that Quebecois, collectively and by democratic means, give themselves a sovereign state with its own independent constitution.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Quebec sovereigntists believe that such a sovereign state, the Quebec nation, will be better equipped to promote its own economic, social, ecological and cultural development. Quebec's sovereignist movement is based on Quebec nationalism.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Ultimately, the goal of Quebec's sovereignist movement is to make Quebec an independent state. In practice, the terms “independentist”, “sovereignist” and “separatist” are used to describe people adhering to this movement, although the latter term is perceived as pejorative by those concerned as it de-emphasizes that the sovereignty project aims to achieve political independence without severing economic connections with Canada. Most of the Prime Minister of Canada's political speeches use the term "sovereignist" in French in order to moderate remarks made on the Québécois electorate. In English, the term separatist is often used in order to accentuate the negative dimension of the project.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The idea of Quebec sovereignty is based on a nationalist vision and interpretation of historical facts and sociological realities in Quebec, which attest to the existence of a Québécois people and a Quebec nation. On November 27, 2006, the House of Commons of Canada adopted, by 266 votes to 16, a motion recognizing that “Québécois form a nation within a united Canada”. On November 30, the National Assembly of Quebec unanimously adopted a motion recognizing "the positive character" of the motion adopted by Ottawa and proclaiming that said motion did not diminish "the inalienable rights, the constitutional powers and the privileges of the “National Assembly and of the Quebec nation”.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Sovereignists believe that the natural final outcome of the Québécois people's collective adventure and development is the achievement of political independence, which is only possible if Quebec becomes a sovereign state and if its inhabitants not only govern themselves through independent democratic political institutions, but are also free to establish external relations and makes international treaties without the federal government of Canada being involved.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Through parliamentarism, Quebecers currently possess a certain democratic control over the Quebec state. However, within the Canadian federation as it is currently constituted, Quebec does not have all the constitutional powers that would allow it to act as a true national government. Furthermore, the policies pursued by Quebec and those pursued by the federal government often come into conflict. So far, various attempts to reform the Canadian federal system have failed (most notably the defunct Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord), due to conflicting interests between the sovereignist elites of Quebec and the federalist elites of Quebec, as well as with the rest of Canada (see Constitutional Debate in Canada).


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Although Quebec's independence movement is a political movement, cultural and social concerns that are much older than the sovereignist movement, as well as Quebecers' national identity, are also at the base for the desire to emancipate Quebec's population. One of the main cultural arguments sovereigntists cite is that if Quebec were independent, Quebecers would have a national citizenship, which would solve the problem of Québécois cultural identity in the North American context (ex. who is a Québécois and who is not, what is uniquely Quebecois, etc.). Another example is that by establishing an independent Quebec, sovereigntists believe that the culture of Québécois and their collective memory – as defined by their intellectual elites – will be adequately protected, in particular against cultural appropriation by other nations – such as the incident with Canada's national anthem, originally a French Canadian patriotic song appropriated by the anglophone majority of Canada. An independent Quebec would also adequately and definitively resolve the issue of needing to protect the French language in Quebec; French is the language of the majority in Quebec, but since it is the language of a cultural minority in Canada – and since Quebec does not have the legislative powers of an independent state – French is still threatened.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Following the English's conquest of New France 1760, tension between the francophone and Catholic population of Quebec and the largely Anglophone and Protestant population of the rest of Canada has been a central theme of Canadian history, shaping the early territorial and cultural divisions of the country that persist to this day. Supporters of sovereignty for Quebec believe that the current relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada does not reflect Quebec's best social, political and economic development interests. Moreover, many subscribe to the notion that without appropriately recognizing that the people of Quebec are culturally distinct, Quebec will remain chronically disadvantaged in favour of the English-Canadian majority.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: There is also the question of whether the French language can survive within the geographic boundaries of Quebec. Separatists and Independentists are generally opposed to some aspects of the federal system in Canada and do not believe it can be reformed in a way that could satisfy the needs of Quebec's French-speaking majority. A key component in the argument in favour of overt political independence is that new legislation and a new system of governance could best secure the future development of modern Québécois culture. Additionally, there is wide-ranging debate about defense, monetary policy, currency, international-trade and relations after independence and whether a renewed federalism would give political recognition to the Quebec nation (along with the other 'founding' peoples, including Canadian First Nations, the Inuit, and the British) could satisfy the historic disparities between these cultural "nations" and create a more cohesive and egalitarian Canada.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Several attempts at reforming the federal system in Canada have thus far failed because of, particularly, the conflicting interests between Quebec's representatives and the other provincial governments' representatives. There is also a degree of resistance throughout Quebec and the rest of Canada to re-opening a constitutional debate, in part because of the nature of these failures – not all of which were the result simply of and federalists not getting along. To cite one case, in a recent round of constitutional reform, Elijah Harper, an aboriginal leader from Manitoba, was able to prevent ratification of the agreement in the provincial legislature, arguing that the accord did not address the interests of Canada's aboriginal population. This was a move to recognize that other provinces represent distinct cultural entities, such as the aboriginal population in Canada's Prairies or the people of Newfoundland (which contains significant and culturally distinct French-Canadian, English-Canadian, Irish-Canadian and Aboriginal cultures – and many more).


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Perhaps the most significant basis of support for Quebec's sovereignty movement lies in more recent political events. For practical purposes, many political pundits use the political career and efforts of René Lévesque as a marker for the beginnings of what is now considered the contemporary movement, although more broadly accepted consensus appears on the contemporary movement finding its origins in a period called the Quiet Revolution.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: René Lévesque, architect of the first referendum on sovereignty, claimed a willingness to work for change in the Canadian framework after the federalist victory in the referendum of 1980. This approach was dubbed ("the beautiful risk"), and it led to many ministers of the Lévesque's government to resign in protest. The 1982 patriation of the Canadian constitution did not solve the issue in the point of view of the majority of . The constitutional amendment of 1982 was agreed to by representatives from 9 of the 10 provinces (with René Lévesque abstaining). Nonetheless, the constitution is integral to the political and legal systems used in Quebec.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: There are numerous possible reasons the 'Yes' campaign went down to defeat: The economy of Quebec suffered measurably following the election of the Parti Québécois and continued to during the course of the campaign. The Canadian dollar lost much of its value and, during coverage of the dollar's recovery against US currency, there were repeated citations of the referendum and political instability caused by it cited as cause for the fall. Some suggest there were promises of constitutional reform to address outstanding political issues between the province and the federal government, both before and since, without any sign of particularly greater expectation those promises would be filled to any greater or lesser degree. There remains no conclusive evidence that the sovereignty movement derives significant support today because of anything that was promised back in the 1970s.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Proponents of the sovereignty movement sometimes suggest that many people in Quebec feel "bad" for believing the constitutional promises that the federal government and Pierre Trudeau made just before the 1980 Quebec referendum. Those were not delivered on paper or agreed upon in principle by the federal government or the other provincial governments. But, one conclusion that appears to be universal is that one event in particular—dubbed "the night of long knives"—energized the movement during the 1980s. This event involved a "back-room" deal struck between Trudeau, representing the federal government, and all of the other provinces, save Quebec. It was here that Trudeau was able to gain agreement on the content of the constitutional amendment, while the separatist Premier René Lévesque was left out. And it may well be that a certain number of Quebecers did and may even now feel "bad" both about the nature of that deal and how Trudeau (a Quebecer himself) went about reaching it.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Regardless of Quebec government's refusal to approve the 1982 constitutional amendment because the promised reforms were not implemented, the amendment went into effect. To many in Quebec, the 1982 constitutional amendment without Quebec's approval is still viewed as a historic political wound. The debate still occasionally rages within the province about the best way to heal the rift and the sovereignty movement derives some degree of support from a belief that healing should take the form of separation from Canada.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The failure of the Meech Lake Accord—an abortive attempt to redress the above issues—strengthened the conviction of most politicians and led many federalist ones to place little hope in the prospect of a federal constitutional reform that would satisfy Quebec's purported historical demands (according to proponents of the sovereignty movement). These include a constitutional recognition that Quebecers constitute a distinct society, as well as a larger degree of independence of the province towards federal policy.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The contemporary sovereignty movement is thought to have originated from the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, although the desire for an independent or autonomous French-Canadian state has periodically arisen throughout Quebec's history, notably during the 1837 Lower Canada Rebellion. Part of Quebec's continued historical desire for sovereignty is caused by Quebecers' perception of a singular English-speaking voice and identity that is dominant within the parameters of Canadian identity. (This is a point contested in other parts of Canada, particularly in places such as Manitoba, which has a significant French-speaking population and where, in the 1990s, that population tried to assert francophone language rights in schools. The separatist Parti Québécois-led government of Quebec offered up comment actually taking the side of the Manitoba government, which was opposed to granting those rights. Speculation persists that the Quebec government opposed this assertion of francophone identity outside of the province because of the impact it would have on the assertion of anglophone language rights within its own borders.)


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: For a majority of Quebec politicians, whether or not, the problem of Quebec's political status is considered unresolved to this day. Although Quebec independence is a political question, cultural concerns are also at the root of the desire for independence. The central cultural argument of the is that only sovereignty can adequately ensure the survival of the French language in North America, allowing Quebecers to establish their nationality, preserve their cultural identity, and keep their collective memory alive (see Language demographics of Quebec).


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: It has been argued by Jeremy Webber and Robert Andrew Young that, as the office is the core of authority in the province, the secession of Quebec from Confederation would first require the abolition or transformation of the post of Lieutenant Governor of Quebec; such an amendment to the constitution of Canada could not be achieved without, according to Section 41 of the "Constitution Act, 1982", the approval of the federal parliament and all other provincial legislatures in Canada. Others, such as J. Woehrling, however, have claimed that the legislative process towards Quebec's independence would not require any prior change to the viceregal post. Young also concluded that the lieutenant governor could refuse Royal Assent to a bill that proposed to put an unclear question on sovereignty to referendum or was based on the results of a referendum that asked such a question.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Sovereignty and sovereignism are terms derived from the modern independence movement which started during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. However, the roots of Quebecers' desire for political autonomy are much older than that.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Francophone nationalism in North America dates back to 1534, the year Jacques Cartier landed in the Gespe'gewa'gi district of Miꞌkmaꞌki claiming Canada for France, and more particularly to 1608, the year of the founding of Québec by Samuel de Champlain, the first permanent settlement for French colonists and their descendants in New France (who were called Canadiens, Canayens or Habitants). Following the British conquest of New France, the "Canadien movement", which lasted from 1760 to the late 18th century and sought to restore the traditional rights of French Canadians that had been abolished by the British with the Royal Proclamation of 1763, began. During this period, French Canadians began to express an indigenous form of nationalism which emphasised their longstanding residence in North America. To most French Canadians, the only Canadians were the descendants of the French settlers of New France, while the British colonists were viewed as an extension of Britain. The period was briefly interrupted by the Quebec Act of 1774, which granted certain rights to Canadiens but did not truly satisfy Canadiens, and was notably exacerbated by the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ceded parts of the Quebec to the United States, and the Constitutional Act of 1791, which established the Westminster system.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: "The patriote movement" was the period lasting from the beginning of the 19th century to the defeat of the Patriotes at the Battle of Saint-Eustache in 1838, the final battle in the Patriotes War. It began with the founding of the Parti Canadien by the Canadiens. It stands out for its notorious resistance to the influence of the Château Clique, a group of wealthy families in Lower Canada in the early 19th century who were the Lower Canadian equivalent of the Family Compact in Upper Canada.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: During the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s to 1980s, the modern "Québécois sovereignist movement" took off, with René Lévesque as one of its most recognizable figures. Various strategies were implemented since its rise, and it constitutes a continuity in French-speaking nationalism in America. Now the patriotism is Quebec-focused, and the identifier has been changed from French-Canadian nationalism or identity to Québécois nationalism or identity.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The Quiet Revolution in Quebec brought widespread change in the 1960s. Among other changes, support for Quebec independence began to form and grow in some circles. The first organization dedicated to the independence of Quebec was the Alliance Laurentienne, founded by Raymond Barbeau on January 25, 1957.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: On September 10, 1960, the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale (RIN) was founded, with Pierre Bourgault quickly becoming its leader. On August 9 of the same year, the Action socialiste pour l'indépendance du Québec (ASIQ) was formed by Raoul Roy. The "independence + socialism" project of the ASIQ was a source of political ideas for the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ).


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: On October 31, 1962, the Comité de libération nationale and, in November of the same year, the Réseau de résistance were set up. These two groups were formed by RIN members to organize non-violent but illegal actions, such as vandalism and civil disobedience. The most extremist individuals of these groups left to form the FLQ, which, unlike all the other groups, had made the decision to resort to violence in order to reach its goal of independence for Quebec. Shortly after the November 14, 1962, Quebec general election, RIN member Marcel Chaput founded the short-lived Parti républicain du Québec.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In February 1963, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was founded by three Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale members who had met each other as part of the Réseau de résistance. They were Georges Schoeters, Raymond Villeneuve, and Gabriel Hudon.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In 1964, the RIN became a provincial political party. In 1965, the more conservative Ralliement national (RN) also became a party.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: During this period, the Estates General of French Canada are organized. The stated objective of these Estates General was to consult the French-Canadian people on their constitutional future.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The historical context of the time was a period when many former European colonies, such as Cameroon, Congo, Senegal, Algeria, and Jamaica, were becoming independent. Some advocates of Quebec independence saw Quebec's situation in a similar light; numerous activists were influenced by the writings of Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, and Karl Marx.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In June 1967, French president Charles de Gaulle, who had recently granted independence to Algeria, shouted "" during a speech from the balcony of Montreal's city hall during a state visit to Canada. In doing so, he deeply offended the federal government, and English Canadians felt he had demonstrated contempt for the sacrifice of Canadian soldiers who died on the battlefields of France in two world wars. The visit was cut short and de Gaulle left the country.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Finally, in October 1967, former Liberal cabinet minister René Lévesque left that party when it refused to discuss sovereignty at a party convention. Lévesque formed the Mouvement souveraineté-association and set about uniting pro-sovereignty forces.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: He achieved that goal in October 1968 when the MSA held its only national congress in Quebec City. The RN and MSA agreed to merge to form the Parti Québécois (PQ), and later that month Pierre Bourgault, leader of the RIN, dissolved his party and invited its members to join the PQ.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Meanwhile, in 1969 the FLQ stepped up its campaign of violence, which would culminate in what would become known as the October Crisis. The group claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange, and in 1970 the FLQ kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte; Laporte was later found murdered.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Jacques Parizeau joined the party on September 19, 1969, and Jérôme Proulx of the Union Nationale joined on November 11 of the same year.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In the 1970 provincial election, the PQ won its first seven seats in the National Assembly. René Lévesque was defeated in Mont-Royal by the Liberal André Marchand.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In the 1976 election, the PQ won 71 seats — a majority in the National Assembly. With voting turnouts high, 41.4 percent of the electorate voted for the PQ. Prior to the election, the PQ renounced its intention to implement sovereignty-association if it won power.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: On August 26, 1977, the PQ passed two main laws: first, the law on the financing of political parties, which prohibits contributions by corporations and unions and set a limit on individual donations, and second, the Charter of the French Language.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: On May 17 PQ Member of the National Assembly Robert Burns resigned, telling the press he was convinced that the PQ was going to lose its referendum and fail to be re-elected afterwards.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: At its seventh national convention from June 1 to 3, 1979, the adopted their strategy for the coming referendum. The PQ then began an aggressive effort to promote sovereignty-association by providing details of how the economic relations with the rest of Canada would include free trade between Canada and Quebec, common tariffs against imports, and a common currency. In addition, joint political institutions would be established to administer these economic arrangements.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Sovereignty-association was proposed to the population of Quebec in the 1980 Quebec referendum. The proposal was rejected by 60 percent of the Quebec electorate.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In September, the PQ created a national committee of Anglophones and a liaison committee with ethnic minorities.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The PQ was returned to power in the 1981 election with a stronger majority than in 1976, obtaining 49.2 percent of the vote and winning 80 seats. However, they did not hold a referendum in their second term, and put sovereignty on hold, concentrating on their stated goal of "good government".


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: René Lévesque retired in 1985 (and died in 1987). In the 1985 election under his successor Pierre-Marc Johnson, the PQ was defeated by the Liberal Party.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The history of the relations between French-Canadians and English-Canadians in Canada has been marked by periods of tension. After colonizing Canada from 1608 onward, France lost the colony to Great Britain at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, in which France ceded control of New France (except for the two small islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon) to Great Britain, which returned the French West Indian islands they had captured in the 1763 Treaty of Paris.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Under British rule, French Canadians were supplanted by waves of British immigrants, notably outside of Quebec (where they became a minority) but within the province as well, as much of the province's economy was dominated by English-Canadians. The cause of Québécois nationalism, which waxed and waned over two centuries, gained prominence from the 1960s onward. The use of the word "sovereignty" and many of the ideas of this movement originated in the 1967 Mouvement Souveraineté-Association of René Lévesque. This movement ultimately gave birth to the Parti Québécois in 1968.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The Parti Québécois defines sovereignty as the power for a state to levy all its taxes, vote on all its laws, and sign all its treaties (as mentioned in the 1980 referendum question).


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The type of association between an independent Quebec and the rest of Canada was described as a monetary and customs union as well as joint political institutions to administer the relations between the two countries. The main inspiration for this project was the then-emerging European Community. In "Option Québec" Lévesque expressly identified the EC as his model for forming a new relationship between sovereign Quebec and the rest of Canada, one that would loosen the political ties while preserving the economic links. The analogy, however, is counterproductive, suggesting Lévesque did not understand the nature and purpose of the European Community nor the relationship between economics and politics that continue to underpin it. Advocates of European integration had, from the outset, seen political union as a desirable and natural consequence of economic integration.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The hyphen between the words "sovereignty" and "association" was often stressed by Lévesque and other PQ members, to make it clear that both were inseparable. The reason stated was that if Canada decided to boycott Quebec exports after voting for independence, the new country would have to go through difficult economic times, as the barriers to trade between Canada and the United States were then very high. Quebec would have been a nation of 7 million people stuck between two impenetrable protectionist countries. In the event of having to compete against Quebec, rather than support it, Canada could easily maintain its well-established links with the United States to prosper in foreign trade.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Sovereignty-association as originally proposed would have meant that Quebec would become a politically independent state, but would maintain a formal association with Canada — especially regarding economic affairs. It was part of the 1976 platform which swept the Parti Québécois into power in that year's provincial elections – and included a promise to hold a referendum on sovereignty-association. René Lévesque developed the idea of sovereignty-association to reduce the fear that an independent Quebec would face tough economic times. In fact, this proposal did result in an increase in support for a sovereign Quebec: polls at the time showed that people were more likely to support independence if Quebec maintained an economic partnership with Canada. This line of politics led the outspoken Yvon Deschamps to proclaim that what Quebecers want is an independent Quebec inside a strong Canada, thereby comparing the movement to a spoiled child that has everything it could desire and still wants more.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In 1979 the PQ began an aggressive effort to promote sovereignty-association by providing details of how the economic relations with the rest of Canada would include free trade between Canada and Quebec, common tariffs against imports, and a common currency. In addition, joint political institutions would be established to administer these economic arrangements. But the cause was hurt by the refusal of many politicians (most notably the premiers of several of the other provinces) to support the idea of negotiations with an independent Quebec, contributing to the Yes side losing by a vote of 60 percent to 40 percent.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: This loss laid the groundwork for the 1995 referendum, which stated that Quebec should offer a new economic and political partnership to Canada before declaring independence. An English translation of part of the Sovereignty Bill reads, "We, the people of Quebec, declare it our own will to be in full possession of all the powers of a state; to levy all our taxes, to vote on all our laws, to sign all our treaties and to exercise the highest power of all, conceiving, and controlling, by ourselves, our fundamental law."


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: This time, the lost in a very close vote: 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, or only 53,498 votes out of more than 4,700,000 votes cast. However, after the vote many within the camp were very upset that the vote broke down heavily along language lines. Approximately 90 percent of English speakers and allophones (mostly immigrants and first-generation Quebecers whose native language is neither French or English) Quebecers voted against the referendum, while almost 60 percent of Francophones voted Yes. Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau, whose government supported sovereignty, attributed the defeat of the resolution to "money and ethnic votes." His opinion caused an outcry among English-speaking Quebecers, and he resigned following the referendum.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: An inquiry by the director-general of elections concluded in 2007 that at least $500,000 was spent by the federalist camp in violation of Quebec's election laws. This law imposes a limit on campaign spending by both option camps. Parizeau's statement was also an admission of failure by the Yes camp in getting the newly arrived Quebecers to adhere to their political option.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Accusations of an orchestrated effort of "election engineering" in several polling stations located in areas with large numbers of non-francophone voters, which resulted in unusually large proportions of rejected ballots, were raised following the 1995 referendum. Afterward, testimony by PQ-appointed polling clerks indicated that they were ordered by PQ-appointed overseers to reject ballots in these polling stations for frivolous reasons that were not covered in the election laws.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: While opponents of sovereignty were pleased with the defeat of the referendum, most recognized that there were still deep divides within Quebec and problems with the relationship between Quebec and the rest of the country.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The PQ returned to power in the 1994 election under Jacques Parizeau, this time with 44.75% of the popular vote. In the intervening years, the failures of the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord had revived support for sovereignty, which had been written off as a dead issue for much of the 1980s.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Another consequence of the failure of the Meech Lake Accord was the formation of the Bloc Québécois (BQ), a federal political party, under the leadership of the charismatic former Progressive Conservative federal cabinet minister Lucien Bouchard. Several PC and Liberal members of the federal parliament left their parties to form the BQ. For the first time, the PQ supported pro-sovereigntist forces running in federal elections; during his lifetime Lévesque had always opposed such a move.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The Union Populaire had nominated candidates in the 1979 and 1980 federal elections, and the Parti nationaliste du Québec had nominated candidates in the 1984 election, but neither of these parties enjoyed the official support of the PQ; nor did they enjoy significant public support among Quebecers.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In the 1993 federal election, which featured the collapse of Progressive Conservative Party support, the BQ won enough seats in Parliament to become Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in the House of Commons.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: At the Royal Commission on the Future of Quebec (also known as the Outaouais Commission) in 1995, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada made a presentation in which the party leader, Hardial Bains, recommended to the committee that Quebec declare itself as an independent republic.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Parizeau promptly advised the Lieutenant Governor to call a new referendum. The 1995 referendum question differed from the 1980 question in that the negotiation of an association with Canada was now optional. The open-ended wording of the question resulted in significant confusion, particularly amongst the 'Yes' side, as to what exactly they were voting for. This was a primary motivator for the creation of the "Clarity Act" (see below).


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The "No" campaign won, but only by a very small margin — 50.6% to 49.4%. As in the previous referendum, the English-speaking (anglophone) minority in Quebec overwhelmingly (about 90%) rejected sovereignty, support for sovereignty was also weak among allophones (native speakers of neither English nor French) in immigrant communities and first-generation descendants. The lowest support for the Yes side came from Mohawk, Cree, and Inuit voters in Quebec, some first Nations chiefs asserted their right to self-determination with the Cree being particularly vocal in their right to stay territories within Canada. More than 96% of the Inuit and Cree voted No in the referendum. However, The Innu, Attikamek, Algonquin and Abenaki nations did partially support Quebec sovereignty. In 1985, 59 percent of Quebec's Inuit population, 56 percent of the Attikamek population, and 49 percent of the Montagnais population voted in favour of the Sovereignist Parti Québécois party. That year, three out of every four native reservations gave a majority to the Parti Québécois party.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: By contrast almost 60 percent of francophones of all origins voted "Yes". (82 percent of Quebecers are Francophone.) Later inquiries into irregularities determined that abuses had occurred on both sides: some argue that some "No" ballots had been rejected without valid reasons, and the October 27 "No" rally had evaded spending limitations because of out-of-province participation. An inquiry by "Le Directeur général des élections" concluded in 2007 that the "No" camp had exceeded the campaign spending limits by $500,000.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Expecting Bouchard to announce another referendum if his party won the 1998 Quebec general election, the leaders of all other provinces and territories gathered for the Calgary Declaration in September 1997 to discuss how to oppose the sovereignty movement. Saskatchewan's Roy Romanow warned "It's two or three minutes to midnight". Bouchard did not accept his invitation; organizers did not invite Chrétien. Experts debated whether Quebec was a "distinct society" or "unique culture".


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The Parti Québécois won re-election despite losing the popular vote to Jean Charest and the Quebec Liberals. In the number of seats won by both sides, the election was almost a clone of the previous 1994 election. However, public support for sovereignty remained too low for the PQ to consider holding a second referendum during their second term. Meanwhile, the federal government passed the "Clarity Act" to govern the wording of any future referendum questions and the conditions under which a vote for sovereignty would be recognized as legitimate. Federal Liberal politicians stated that the ambiguous wording of the 1995 referendum question was the primary impetus in the bill's drafting.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: While opponents of sovereignty were pleased with their referendum victories, most recognized that there are still deep divides within Quebec and problems with the relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In 1999, the Parliament of Canada, at the urging of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, passed the "Clarity Act", a law that, amongst other things, set out the conditions under which the Crown-in-Council would recognize a vote by any province to leave Canada. It required a majority of eligible voters for a vote to trigger secession talks, not merely a plurality of votes. In addition, the act requires a clear question of secession to initiate secession talks. Controversially, the act gave the House of Commons the power to decide whether a proposed referendum question was considered clear, and allowed it to decide whether a clear majority has expressed itself in any referendum. It is widely considered by as an illegitimate piece of legislation, who asserted that Quebec alone had the right to determine its terms of secession. Chrétien considered the legislation among his most significant accomplishments.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: "Sovereignty-Association" is nowadays more often referred to simply as "sovereignty". However, in the 1995 Quebec referendum, in which the sovereignty option was narrowly rejected, the notion of some form of economic association with the rest of Canada was still envisaged (continuing use of the Canadian dollar and military, for example) and was referred to as "Sovereignty-Partnership" (). It remains a part of the PQ program and is tied to national independence in the minds of most Quebecers. This part of the PQ program has always been controversial, especially since Canadian federal politicians usually refuse the concept.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In 2003, the PQ launched the ("Season of ideas") which is a public consultation aiming to gather the opinions of Quebecers on its sovereignty project. The new program and the revised sovereignty project was adopted at the 2005 Congress.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In the 2003 election, the PQ lost power to the Liberal Party. However, in early 2004, the Liberal government of Paul Martin had proved to be unpopular, and that, combined with the federal Liberal Party sponsorship scandal, contributed to a resurgence of the BQ. In the 2004 federal elections, the Bloc Québécois won 54 of Quebec's 75 seats in the House of Commons, compared to 33 previously. However, in the 2006 federal elections the BQ lost three seats and in the 2008 federal elections lost two additional seats, bringing their total down to 49, but was still the most popular federal party in Quebec up until the 2011 Canadian federal election, when the BQ was devastated by the federalist NDP, with the Bloc at a total of four seats and the loss of official party status in the Commons (compared to the NDP's 59 seats, Conservatives' five seats, and the Liberals' seven seats in Quebec).


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Polling data by Angus Reid in June 2009 showed the support for Quebec separation was very weak at the time and separatism unlikely to occur in the near future. Polling data showed that 32% of Quebecers believe that Quebec had enough sovereignty and should remain part of Canada, 28% thought they should separate, and 30% say they believe that Quebec does need greater sovereignty but should remain part of Canada. However the poll did reveal that a majority (79%) of Quebecers still desired to achieve more autonomy. The number one area of autonomy that those polled had hoped for was with regard to culture at 34%, the next highest areas of autonomy cherished were the economy at 32%, taxation at 26%, and immigration and the environment at 15% each.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The 2009 Angus Reid poll also revealed some effects of the "Clarity Act" in which they asked two questions, one a straightforward question for a separate nation, and the other a more muddled version on separation similar to the one posed in the 1995 referendum. The data on the questions revealed as follows to the first hard line question of "Do you believe that Quebec should become a country separate from Canada?" 34% replied yes, 54% said no, and 13% were unsure. To the less clear question of "Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within a scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec?" support for separation increased to 40% yes, the no vote still led with 41%, and the unsure increased to 19%. The most startling revelation of the poll was in the fact that only 20% or 1 in 5 polled believed that Quebec would ever separate from Canada.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: 2011 was considered a watershed year for the movement. In the aftermath of the 2011 federal election, Léger Marketing and pro- newspaper Le Devoir conducted a poll on the question. When asked whether they would vote Yes or No in the event of a referendum, 41% of the respondents said they would vote Yes. In 2011, the movement splintered, with several new parties being formed by disaffected politicians, with some politicians dissatisfied with slow progress towards independence, and others hoping to put the sovereignty question on the backburner. Leadership by PQ leader Pauline Marois was divisive.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In 2021, François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec government in Quebec proposed to amend the Charter of the French Language and the provincial constitution to more strongly entrench French as the sole official language. In response to this, the Bloc Québécois initiated a motion in the House of Commons endorsing the constitutionality of Legault's initiatives. The Commons passed the motion 281–2. There were 36 abstentions.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Justifications for Quebec's sovereignty are historically nationalistic in character, claiming the unique culture and French-speaking majority (78% of the provincial population) are threatened with assimilation by either the rest of Canada or, as in Metropolitan France, by Anglophone culture more generally, and that the best way to preserve language, identity and culture is via the creation of an independent political entity. Other distinguishing factors, such as religious differences (given the Catholic majority in Quebec), are also used to justify either separation or nationalist social policies advocated by the Parti Québécois.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The historical argument for Quebec independence stems from the region's history, as it was conquered by the British in 1760 and ceded to Great Britain in the 1763 Treaty of Paris; French Canadians in Canada were subsumed by waves of British immigrants. This argument makes the claim that Quebecers have the right of self-determination.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Eight of the other Canadian provinces are overwhelmingly (greater than 95%) English-speaking, while New Brunswick is officially bilingual and about one-third Francophone. Another rationale is based on resentment of anti-Quebec sentiment. With regard to the creation of the movement, language issues were but a sub-stratum of larger cultural, social and political differences. Many scholars point to historical events as framing the cause for ongoing support for sovereignty in Quebec, while more contemporary politicians may point to the aftermath of more recent developments like the "Canada Act" of 1982, the Meech Lake Accord or the Charlottetown Accord.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In a series of letters throughout the 1990s, Stéphane Dion (the federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister at the time) laid out an argument against sovereignty.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: It has also been argued by prominent Quebecers ( and ex-, including former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard) that sovereignty politics has distracted Quebecers from the real economic problems of Quebec, and that sovereignty by itself cannot solve those problems. In 2005 they published their position statement, "Pour un Québec lucide", ("For a lucid Quebec") which details the problems facing Quebec.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Many federalists oppose the Quebec sovereignty movement for economic and political reasons but many also oppose sovereignty on other grounds. For example, since the 1995 referendum, in regards to the declaration of Jacques Parizeau who blamed the loss on "money and ethnic votes", many federalists considered the sovereignty movement as an expression of ethnic nationalism.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Additionally, those in favour of Canadian federalism denounce Quebec separation as a 'Balkanization' of Canada.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Some arguments against sovereignty claim that the movement is illegitimate because of its Eurocentrism which alienates many among Canada's First Nations, as well as the Inuit, and Métis peoples and their sympathizers. This sentiment is summed up by a quotation from a Mohawk from Akwsasne: "How can Quebec, with no economic base and no land base, ask to become sovereign? How can Quebec be a nation when they have no constitution? We have had a constitution since before the American revolution." Here the argument expresses the claim that the Mohawk nation has a greater case for self-determination due to already having a more legitimate claim to distinct nationhood that is based on traditional lands and a constitution predating confederation as well as the creation of Quebec and a Québécois identity.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Similarly, the Cree have also asserted for many years that they are a separate people with the right to self-determination recognized under international law. They argue that no annexation of them or their territory to an independent Quebec should take place without their consent, and that if Quebec has the right to leave Canada then the Cree people have the right to choose to keep their territory in Canada. Cree arguments generally do not claim the right to secede from Canada; rather, the Cree see themselves as a people bound to Canada by treaty (see the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement), and as citizens of Canada. The Cree have stated that a unilateral declaration of independence by Quebec would be a violation of fundamental principles of human rights, democracy and consent. If secession were to proceed, the Cree argue that they would seek protection through the Canadian courts as well as asserting Cree jurisdiction over its people and lands.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Professor Peter Russell has said of Aboriginal peoples in Canada: "(they) are not nations that can be yanked out of Canada against their will by a provincial majority... With few exceptions (they) wish to enjoy their right to self-government within Canada, not within a sovereign Quebec." International human rights expert Erica-Irene Daes says the change "will leave the most marginalized and excluded of all the world's peoples without a legal, peaceful weapon to press for genuine democracy..." This concern is connected to the claim that if Quebec were to be considered its own autonomous nation-state then it need not honour the treaties and agreements that were signed between First Nations and the British and French Crowns and are now maintained by the Canadian federal government. Concern for this may stem from perception of neo-colonial or eurocentric attitudes in the leadership of former Quebec premiers, such as Robert Bourassa, the self-proclaimed "Conqueror of the North".


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The separatist movement draws from the left and right spectrum; a sizeable minority of more conservative Quebecers supporting the PQ's political agenda because of the sovereignty issue, despite reservations about its social democratic political agenda.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Right and Left must be interpreted within the provincial context; Liberal Party politics generally coincide with those of other liberal parties, while PQ politics are more social democratic in orientation. There is no mass conservative movement in Quebec's political culture on the provincial level, due notably to strong government interventionism and Keynesianism shared by all parties since the 1960s (the so-called "Quebec Consensus" since the Quiet Revolution), and the province's Catholic heritage.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In France, although openness and support is found on both sides of the political spectrum, the French political right has traditionally been warmer to as in the case of President Charles de Gaulle, who famously shouted his support of independence in Montreal in 1967, than the French left (like former President François Mitterrand).


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: This used to be a paradoxical phenomenon because of the Parti Québécois and most being to the political left and supporters of Quebec remaining a province tend to be politically on the right. Michel Rocard (who became Prime Minister of the French Republic) has been one of the French Socialists that broke that so-called rule the most, maintaining a close and warm relationship with Quebec . More recently, Ségolène Royal, a leader of the French Socialist Party, indicated support for "Quebec sovereignty" but it was seemingly a reflexive answer to an "out of the blue" question from a Quebec journalist in Paris. On a later visit to Quebec City she gave a more nuanced position, mentioning a Parliamentary motion recognizing the Québécois as a nation, but also describing 400 years of oppression and resistance of francophones in Canada.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The French Foreign Office motto concerning Quebec's national question is ""non-ingérence et non-indifférence"" ("no interference and no indifference"), which epitomizes the official position of the French State. In other words, while the Quebec people vote to stay within Canada, France will officially support the Canadian Confederation the way it is.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has stated on the record that he opposes the separation of Quebec from Canada. This changed back to the view of the French Foreign Office under Sarkozy's successor, François Hollande.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: The other nine provinces of Canada have generally been opposed to Quebec sovereignty. Aside from marginal movements, the only major secessionist movement in English Canada has been the Maritimes Anti-Confederation movement immediately after Confederation occurred.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: In general, francophones outside Quebec oppose sovereignty or any form of national recognition for Quebec, while non-francophones, particularly the anglophone minority in Montreal, also have remained opposed. After polling heavily on the subject, marketing firm president Mark Leger concluded: “These numbers surprise me, they're so clear across the country... You look at Francophones outside Quebec, it's the same result... Overall, outside the French in Quebec, all the other groups across the country are against this notion.” The exact question of the November 2006 poll was, "Currently, there is a political debate on recognizing Quebec as a nation. Do you personally consider that Quebecers form a nation or not?" Canadians from every region outside Quebec, non-Francophone Quebecers (62 percent), Francophone Canadians outside Quebec (77 percent) all rejected the idea.


title: Quebec sovereignty movement

text: Sovereignty has very little support among Quebec Anglophones or immigrant communities. About 60% of Francophones voted "Yes" in 1995, and with the exception of weak "Yes" support from Haitian, Arab and Latin American communities, most non-Francophones massively voted "No" (see Demolinguistics of Quebec). The opponents of the sovereignty movement view the project as ethnically exclusive, based on its rejection by non-Francophones. This position is disputed by the PQ, which claims its goal is all-embracing and essentially civic in nature.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy (originally Plainclothes Tracy), a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the "Detroit Mirror", and it was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977, and various artists and writers have continued it. Dick Tracy has also been the hero in a number of films, including "Dick Tracy" in which Warren Beatty played the lead in 1990. Tom De Haven praised Gould's "Dick Tracy" as an "outrageously funny American Gothic", while Brian Walker described it as a "ghoulishly entertaining creation" which had "gripping stories filled with violence and pathos".


title: Dick Tracy

text: Basing the character on U.S. federal agent Eliot Ness, Gould drafted an idea for a detective named "Plainclothes Tracy" and sent it to Joseph Medill Patterson of the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Patterson suggested changing the hero's name to Dick Tracy, and he also put forward an opening storyline in which Tracy joined the police after his girlfriend's father was murdered by robbers. Gould agreed to these ideas, and "Dick Tracy" was first published on October 4, 1931. The strip was instantly popular and was soon appearing in newspapers across the United States. The strip's popularity also resulted in the creation of numerous "Dick Tracy" merchandise, including novelizations, toys, and games. In April 1937, a poll of adult comic strip readers in "Fortune" voted "Dick Tracy" their third favorite comic strip after "Little Orphan Annie" and "Popeye". However, "Dick Tracy" was also attacked by some journalists as being too violent, a criticism that would dog Gould throughout his time on the strip.


title: Dick Tracy

text: On January 13, 1946, the two-Way Wrist Radio, was introduced, and would become one of the strip's most immediately recognizable icons. This radio wristwatch, worn by Tracy and members of the police force, inspired Martin Cooper's invention of the mobile phone and may have inspired later smartwatches. The two-Way Wrist Radio was upgraded to a two-Way Wrist TV in 1964. This development also led to the introduction of an important supporting character, Diet Smith, an eccentric industrialist who financed the development of this equipment. In a conspicuous coincidence, the idea of a radio built into a wristwatch played an important role in "The Adventures of Superman" radio series storyline, "Superman – The Talking Cat," broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System from January 9 through 28, 1946 (episodes 878 through 891).


title: Dick Tracy

text: In late 1948, a botched security detail led to the death of the semi-regular character Brilliant, the blind inventor of the Two-Way Wrist Radio (among other devices) whereupon Chief Brandon, Dick Tracy's superior on the police force and a presence in the strip since 1931, resigned in shame and Pat Patton was promoted to police chief in Brandon's place on Tracy's recommendation after declining promotion himself, previously having been Tracy's buffoonish partner. A new character was introduced named Sam Catchem to take Patton's place as Tracy's sidekick.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Gould introduced topical story lines about television, juvenile delinquency, graft, organized crime, and other developments in American life during the 1950s; and elements of soap opera depicted Dick, Tess, and Junior (along with the Tracys' baby daughter Bonnie Braids) at home as a family. Depictions of family life alternated with the story's crime drama, as in the kidnapping of Bonnie Braids by fugitive Crewy Lou, or Junior's girlfriend Model being accidentally killed by her brother.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Gould incurred some controversy when he had Tracy live in an unaccountably ostentatious manner on a police officer's salary, and he responded with a story wherein Tracy was accused of corruption and had to explain the origin of his possessions in detail. In his book-length examination of the strip, "Dick Tracy – The Official Biography", Jay Maeder suggested that Gould's critics were unsatisfied by his explanation. Nevertheless, the controversy eventually faded, and the cartoonist reduced exposure to Tracy's home life.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Tracy's cases generally incriminated independent operators rather than organized crime—with a few exceptions, such as Big Boy, a fictionalized version of Al Capone and the strip's first villain. Tracy contended with a series of big-time mobsters in the 1950s, such as the King, George "Mr. Crime" Alpha, Odds Zonn, and Willie "The Fifth" Millyun, after events like the Kefauver Hearings. As Tess faded into the background, Tracy took, as his assistant, the rookie policewoman Lizz Worthington.


title: Dick Tracy

text: From 1956 to 1964, the "Dick Tracy" Sunday page was accompanied by a topper humor strip called "The Gravies" and drawn by Gould and his assistants.


title: Dick Tracy

text: As technology progressed, the methods that Tracy and the police used to track and capture criminals took the form of increasingly fanciful atomic-powered gadgets developed by Diet Smith Industries. This eventually led to the 1960s advent of the Space Coupe, a spacecraft with a magnetic propulsion system. This marked the beginning of the strip's "Space Period," which saw Tracy and friends having adventures on the Moon and meeting Moon Maid, the daughter of the leader of a race of humanoid people living in "Moon Valley" in 1964. After an eventual sharing of technological information, Moon technology became standard issue on Tracy's police force, including air cars, flying cylindrical vehicles. The villains became even more exaggerated in power, resulting in an escalating series of stories that no longer resembled the urban crime drama roots of the strip. During this period, Tracy met famed cartoonist Chet Jade, creator of the comic strip "Sawdust", in which the only characters are talking dots.


title: Dick Tracy

text: One of the new characters, Mr. Intro, was only manifested as a disembodied voice. His goal was world domination in the vein of a James Bond villain. Tracy eventually used an atomic laser beam to annihilate Intro and his island base.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Junior married Moon Maid in October 1964. Their daughter Honey Moon Tracy had antennae and magnetic hands. In the spring of 1969, Tracy was offered the post of Chief of Police in Moon Valley. However, he ended up back on Earth when the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 showed that the moon was barren of all life. Many of the accoutrements of the space period stories remained for many years afterward, such as the Space Coupe and much of the high-tech gadgetry. Moon Maid receded from the storyline.


title: Dick Tracy

text: The stories of this period took an increasingly condemnatory tone pertaining to contemporary court decisions concerning the rights of the accused, which often involved Tracy being frustrated by legal technicalities. For example, having caught a gang of diamond thieves red-handed, Tracy was forced to let them walk because he could not "prove" beyond a reasonable doubt that the diamonds were stolen. As he saw the thieves get off without penalty, Tracy was heard to grumble, "Yes, under today's interpretation of the laws, it seems it's the police who are handcuffed!"


title: Dick Tracy

text: The strip was criticized for advocating violence in 1968. On June 7 — the day after Senator Robert F. Kennedy was killed by an assassin — the strip's final panel announced, "Violence is golden, when it's used to put down evil." The strip was obviously prepared weeks before the assassination, but the timing of the strip's publication attracted negative attention. Some newspapers dropped the strip as a result.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In the 1970s, Gould modernized Tracy by giving him a longer hairstyle and a mustache and added a hippie sidekick, Groovy Grove, to appeal to young audiences. Groovy's first appearance in print, as it happened, occurred during the same week as the Kent State shootings. Groovy remained with the strip on and off until his death in 1984.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Shortly before his retirement, Gould drew a strip in which Sam, Lizz, and Groovy held Tracy down to shave off his mustache.


title: Dick Tracy

text: At this time, the standard publication size and space of newspaper comics was sharply reduced; for example, the "Dick Tracy" Sunday strip, which had traditionally been a full-page episode containing 12 panels, was cut in size to a half-page format that offered, at most, eight panels—these new restrictions created challenges for all comic artists.


title: Dick Tracy

text: The Plenty family was a group of goofy redneck yokels headed by the former villain Bob Oscar ("B.O."), along with Gertrude ("Gravel Gertie") Plenty. Gravel Gertie was introduced as the unwitting dupe (accessory) of the villain the Brow, who was on the run from Dick Tracy. The family provided a humorous counterpoint to Tracy's adventures. The Plenty sub-story was decades long and saw Sparkle Plenty grow from an infant to a young married lady, eventually becoming a beautiful fashion model. Sparkle Plenty's 30 May 1947 birth became a significant mainstream media event, with spinoff merchandising and magazine coverage.


title: Dick Tracy

text: The Plenty family appeared with Tracy in a story that occurred in a bank, where "B.O." found a way to prevent thieves from snatching an envelope of money from a counter.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In the 24 April 2011 strip, B.O. and Gertie had a second child, Attitude, a boy who is as ugly as Sparkle is beautiful. His face has yet to be shown.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Beginning September 11, 1949, the Sunday strip included a frame devoted to a page from the "Crimestoppers' Textbook", a series of handy illustrated hints for the amateur crime-fighter. This was named after a short-lived youth group seen in the strip during the late 1940s, led by Junior Tracy, called "Dick Tracy's Crimestoppers." This feature ended when Gould retired from the strip in 1977, but Max Allan Collins reinstated it, and it is still part of the comic strip. After Gould's retirement, Collins initially replaced the Textbook with "Dick Tracy's Rogues Gallery," a salute to memorable "Tracy" villains of the past.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Chester Gould retired from comics in 1977; his last "Dick Tracy" strip appeared in print on Sunday, December 25 (Christmas Day) of that same year. The following Monday, "Dick Tracy" was taken over by Max Allan Collins and longtime Gould assistant Rick Fletcher. Gould's name remained in the byline for a few years after his retirement as a story consultant.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In one of Collins' first stories as the strip's writer, the gangster known as "Big Boy" learned that he was dying and had less than a year to live. Big Boy was still seeking revenge on the plainclothesman who sent him up the river and he wanted to live just long enough to see Tracy's death. He put out an open contract on Tracy's head worth $1 million, knowing that every small-time hood in the city would take a crack at the famous cop for that amount of money. One of the would-be collectors rigged Tracy's car to explode, but inadvertently killed Moon Maid instead of Tracy in the explosion. A funeral strip for Moon Maid explicitly stated that this officially severed all ties between Earth and the Moon in the strip, thus eliminating the last remnants of the Space Period. Honeymoon received a new hairstyle that covered her antennae and she was ultimately phased out of the strip. Junior later married Sparkle Plenty (the daughter of B.O. and 'Gravel' Gertie Plenty), and they had a daughter named Sparkle Plenty Jr. Sparkle had been divorced by her cartoonist husband Vera Aldid, who was thus also removed from the cast. Collins felt that their original marriages were a mistake on Gould's part. In the 1990s, Tracy's son Joseph Flintheart Tracy took on a role similar to Junior's in the earlier strips.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In addition, Collins removed other Gould creations of the 1960s and 1970s (including Groovy Grove, who was gravely wounded in the line of duty and later died in the hospital; Lizz married him before his death). On a more philosophical level, Collins took a generally less cynical view of the justice system than Gould; Tracy came to accept its limitations and requirements as a normal part of the process which he could manage. Extreme technology was phased out, such as the Space Coupe, in favor of more realistic advanced tools such as the Two-Way Wrist Computer in 1987.


title: Dick Tracy

text: New semi-regular characters introduced by Collins and Fletcher included: Dr. Will Carver, a plastic surgeon with underworld ties who often worked on known felons; Wendy Wichel, a smarmy newspaper reporter/editorialist with a strong anti-Tracy bias in her articles; and Lee Ebony, an African-American female detective. Vitamin Flintheart reappeared occasionally as a comic-relief figure, the aged ham actor created by Gould in 1944 who had not been seen in the strip for almost three decades. The Plenty family (B.O., Gravel Gertie, and Sparkle) were also brought back as semi-regulars; Junior and Sparkle were married following the death of Moon Maid and soon gave birth to their own daughter Sparkle Plenty, Jr.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Original villains seen during this period included Angeltop (the revenge-seeking, psychopathic daughter of the slain Flattop), Torcher (whose scheme was arson-for-profit), and Splitscreen (a video pirate). Collins brought back at least one "classic" Gould villain or revenge-seeking family member per year. The revived Gould villains were often provided with full names and marriages, as well as children, and other family connections were developed, bringing more humanity to many of the originally grotesque brutes. "Flattop", particularly, had a number of relatives, all with his characteristic head structure and facial attributes, who turned up one by one to avenge their ancestor on Tracy.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Rick Fletcher died in 1983 and was succeeded by editorial cartoonist Dick Locher, who had assisted Gould on the strip in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Locher was assisted by his son John, who died in 1986.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Max Allan Collins was fired from the strip in 1992, following a financial reorganization of their comic strip holdings, and "Tribune" staff writer and columnist Mike Kilian took over the writing. Kilian was paid less than half of what Collins was making per strip but continued until his death on October 27, 2005.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Dick Locher was both author and artist for over three years, beginning on January 9, 2006. On March 16, 2009, Jim Brozman began collaborating with Locher, taking over the drawing duties while Locher continued to write the strip.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In 2005, Tracy was a guest at Blondie and Dagwood's 75th anniversary party in the comic strip "Blondie". Later, Dick Tracy appeared in the comic strip "Gasoline Alley".


title: Dick Tracy

text: On January 19, 2011, Tribune Media Services announced that Locher was retiring from the strip and handing the reins to artist Joe Staton and writer Mike Curtis. The new creative team has previously worked together on "Scooby-Doo", "Richie Rich", and" Casper the Friendly Ghost". Their first Dick Tracy strip was published March 14, 2011. Until Staton's retirement in October 2021, Staton and Curtis were assisted by Shelley Pleger, who inked and lettered Staton's drawings, along with Shane Fisher, who provides the coloring on the Sunday strips. After Staton's retirement, Pleger took over his artist duties, too, having previously substituted for him in 2017. Chicago-area police sergeant Jim Doherty provided "Crimestopper" captions for the Sunday strips and acted as the feature's technical advisor. Doherty also introduced a new feature, "Tracy's Hall of Fame" (which replaces the "Crimestopper" panel approximately once each month), in which a real-life police officer is profiled and honored. Doherty was replaced in 2016 by police lieutenant Walter Reimer, who introduced the "First Responders Roll of Honor", which honors real-life police officers, firefighters and paramedics who died on duty.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Staton and Curtis reintroduced many of the characters of the 40s through the 60s, including a second Mr. Crime and a reformed Mole, while introducing more deformed and grotesque villains such as Abner Kadaver, Panda and the Jumbler. They also brought back all the gadgets and plot elements of the 1960s space era, starting in early 2013, although the reintroduced Moon Maid is not the same as the original; rather, she is a human genetically modified to resemble the original Moon Maid and, thus, is christened Mysta Chimera and placed under Diet Smith's care. They have also done crossovers, with cameos from "Popeye", "Brenda Starr, Reporter", "Funky Winkerbean", "Fearless Fosdick", "The Spirit", "The Green Hornet", "For Better or For Worse", "Friday Foster" and a long sequence involving "Little Orphan Annie".


title: Dick Tracy

text: The Mystery Writers of America honored Gould and his work with a Special Edgar Award in 1980. This was the first time MWA ever honored a comic strip.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps and postcards.


title: Dick Tracy

text: On May 2, 2011, the Tennessee Senate passed Resolution 30, congratulating Mike Curtis and Joe Staton on their professional accomplishments, including "Dick Tracy".


title: Dick Tracy

text: On September 7, 2013, at the Baltimore Comics Convention, "Dick Tracy" was awarded the Harvey in the "Best Syndicated Strip or Panel" category. "Tracy" was simultaneously the oldest continually running strip and the first adventure strip ever to win the Harvey Award in this category. On September 6, 2014, "Tracy" was awarded a second Harvey Award in the newspaper strip category, becoming one of only three strips to win in this category in consecutive years. On September 26, 2015, "Tracy" won a third Harvey in the same category, becoming one of only three strips to win in three consecutive years.


title: Dick Tracy

text: On November 6, 2016, at their panel at Akron Comicon, Mike Curtis and Joe Staton were each presented with an Akron Comicon Excellence Award. The inscription on the plaques reads: "2016 AKRON COMICON EXCELLENCE AWARD PRESENTED TO MIKE CURTIS AND JOE STATON FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO ONE OF THE LONGEST RUNNING NEWSPAPER STRIPS IN THE HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER COMICS!"


title: Dick Tracy

text: "Dick Tracy" had a long run on radio, from 1934 weekdays on NBC's New England stations to the ABC network in 1948. Bob Burlen was the first radio Tracy in 1934, and others heard in the role during the 1930s and 1940s were Barry Thomson, Ned Wever and Matt Crowley. The early shows all had 15-minute episodes.


title: Dick Tracy

text: On CBS, with Sterling Products as sponsor, the serial aired four times a week from February 4, 1935, to July 11, 1935, moving to Mutual from September 30, 1935, to March 24, 1937, with Bill McClintock doing the sound effects. NBC's weekday afternoon run from January 3, 1938, to April 28, 1939, had sound effects by Keene Crockett and was sponsored by Quaker Oats, which brought "Dick Tracy" into primetime (Saturdays at 7 pm and, briefly, Mondays at 8 pm) with 30-minute episodes from April 29, 1939, to September 30, 1939. The series returned to 15-minute episodes on the ABC Blue Network from March 15, 1943, to July 16, 1948, sponsored by Tootsie Roll, which used the music theme of "Toot Toot, Tootsie" for its 30-minute Saturday ABC series from October 6, 1945, to June 1, 1946. Sound effects on ABC were supplied by Walt McDonough and Al Finelli.


title: Dick Tracy

text: On February 15, 1945, "Command Performance" broadcast the musical comedy "Dick Tracy in B-Flat" with Bing Crosby as Tracy, Bob Hope as Flattop, Dinah Shore as Tess Trueheart, among the cast. Dick Tracy's wedding is repeatedly interrupted as Tracy chases after one villain after another. In the strip, his marriage wasn't until 1950 and his honeymoon was disrupted by his going after Wormy.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Jim Ameche portrayed Tracy in a two-record set recorded by Mercury Records in 1947. The record sleeves were illustrated with Sunday strips reprinted in black-and-white for children to color.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Tracy made his first comic book appearance in 1936 as one of the features included in the first issue of Dell's "Popular Comics". These were reprints from the newspaper strip, reconfigured to fit the pages of a comic book, as was the case with most Tracy comic book appearances. Tracy remained a regular feature in "Popular Comics" through the publication's 21st issue.


title: Dick Tracy

text: The first comic book to feature Tracy exclusively was the "Dick Tracy Feature Book", published in May 1937 by David McKay Publications. McKay's Feature Books were magazines that rotated several popular characters from comics strips through 1938. Three more of McKay's Feature Books starred Tracy in the following months.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In 1939, Dell started a comic magazine series called "Black and White Comics," essentially identical to McKay's "Feature Books." Six of the 15 issues featured Tracy. In 1941, Dell's "Black and White" series was replaced by the "Large Feature Books," the third issue of which featured Tracy. As with the McKay series, the Dell "Black and White" and "Large Feature" series were abridged reprints of the strip.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In 1938, "Tracy" became one of several regular newspaper strips featured in Dell's regular monthly "Super Comics", remaining a regular part of that publication until 1948. In 1939, "Tracy" was the sole feature in the very first issue of Dell's "Four-Color Comics", which put out more than 1,300 issues starring hundreds of characters between 1939 and 1962. Tracy was featured in seven more "Four-Color" issues throughout the 1940s.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Tracy was frequently featured in comic books used as promotional items by various companies. In 1947, for example, Sig Feuchtwanger produced a comic book that was a giveaway prize in boxes of Quaker Puffed Wheat cereal, sponsor of the popular "Dick Tracy" radio series.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In January 1948, Dell began the first regular "Dick Tracy" comic book series, "Dick Tracy Monthly". This series ultimately ran for 145 issues, the first 24 of which were published by Dell, after which it was picked up by Harvey Comics. Continuing the same numbering, Harvey published the series until 1961. As with most previous Tracy comic book incarnations, these were, with the exception of the last few Dell issues which featured original material, slightly abridged and reconfigured reprints of the newspaper strips.


title: Dick Tracy

text: "Dick Tracy" was revived in 1986 by Blackthorne Publishing which began as a monthly series (also called "Dick Tracy Monthly") but became a weekly one ("Dick Tracy Weekly") with issue 25 and lasted 99 issues. Disney produced a series of three issues as a tie-in for their 1990 film. This miniseries, "True Hearts and Tommy Guns", was drawn by Kyle Baker and edited by Len Wein. The third issue was a direct adaptation of the film.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In 2018, IDW Publishing announced a new "Dick Tracy" comic book by Mike Allred (co-writer/cover artist/inker), Lee Allred (co-writer), Rich Tommaso (penciller) and Laura Allred (colorist).


title: Dick Tracy

text: Over the years, many reprints of "Dick Tracy" newspaper strips have been published. Beginning in 2006, IDW Publishing started the series "The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy", reprinting the complete strip in hardcover volumes, eventually being done under their The Library of American Comics imprint.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Dick Tracy made his film debut in "Dick Tracy" (1937), a 15-chapter movie serial by Republic Pictures starring Ralph Byrd. The Spider Gang was on the loose, tired of Dick Tracy's cunning skills. Through the 15-chapter serial, 15 different cases were solved, all plots by the Spider Gang. Dick Tracy was also in search of his missing brother, Gordon Tracy (Carleton Young). The Dick Tracy character proved very popular, and a second serial, "Dick Tracy Returns", appeared in 1938 (reissued in 1948). "Dick Tracy's G-Men" was released in 1939 (reissued in 1955). The last was "Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc." in 1941 (reissued as "Dick Tracy vs. the Phantom Empire" in 1952).


title: Dick Tracy

text: The sequels were produced under an interpretation of the contract for the first "Dick Tracy" serial, which gave license for "a series or serial". As a result, Chester Gould received no further money for the sequel serials.


title: Dick Tracy

text: In these serials, Dick Tracy is portrayed as an FBI agent, or "G-Man", based in California rather than as a detective in the police force of a Midwestern city resembling Chicago, and, aside from himself and Junior, no characters from the strip appear in any of the four films.


title: Dick Tracy

text: However, comic relief sidekick "Mike McGurk" bears some resemblance to Tracy's partner from the strip, Pat Patton; Tracy's secretary, Gwen Andrews (played by several actresses in the course of the series, including Jennifer Jones under a variation of her real name, Phyllis Isley), provides the same kind of feminine interest as Tess Trueheart; and FBI Director Clive Anderson (Francis X. Bushman and others) is the same kind of avuncular superior as Chief Brandon.


title: Dick Tracy

text: Six years after the release of the final Republic serial, Dick Tracy headlined four feature films, produced by RKO Radio Pictures. "Dick Tracy" (a.k.a. "Dick Tracy, Detective") (1945) was followed by "Dick Tracy vs. Cueball" in 1946, both with Morgan Conway as Tracy. Ralph Byrd returned for the last two features, both released in 1947: "Dick Tracy's Dilemma" and "Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome". "Gruesome" is probably the best known of the four, with the villain portrayed by Boris Karloff. All four movies had many of the visual features associated with film noir: dramatic, shadowy photographic compositions, with many exterior scenes filmed at night (at the RKO Encino movie ranch). Lyle Latell co-starred in all four films as Pat Patton. Anne Jeffreys played Tess Trueheart in the first two, succeeded by Kay Christopher and finally Anne Gwynne; Ian Keith joined the cast as the actor Vitamin Flintheart for two films; Joseph Crehan played Chief Brandon. RKO stocked the films with familiar faces, creating a veritable rogues' gallery of characters: Mike Mazurki as Splitface, Dick Wessel as Cueball, Esther Howard as Filthy Flora, Jack Lambert as hook-handed villain the Claw; baldheaded, pop-eyed Milton Parsons, mild-mannered Byron Foulger, dangerous Trevor Bardette and pockmarked, gently sinister Skelton Knaggs.