[John Bell collection of Canadian comic books]
Published: 1904
Language: eng
Number of pages: 4000
Subjects: Comic books, strips; Collectors and collecting
Other titles: John Bell collection; John Bell Canadian comic book collection
Description: The collection includes a wide range of comic books published in Canada or published in other countries, mainly the United States, by Canadian creators. Mainstream and alternative comics are represented, along with zines and underground comix, and educational and promotional comics published by businesses and government. The majority of the collection (about 85%) is in English; most of the remaining items are in French or bilingual (English-French). A small number of titles are in Inuktitut and English.
Notes: Collection title supplied by cataloguer.

Attached to the record is a spreadsheet with the titles from the first and second accessions.

Titles in this collection are uncatalogued; requests must therefore be submitted to LAC staff either via the web (see "Consulting and Borrowing Material" on the LAC website) or in person at the reference desk. Requests should be made at least 3 days in advance of a visit. No access restrictions apply to this material; however, in cases where originals are fragile, researchers may be asked to make special arrangements.

Canadian comic book-related archival materials donated by John Bell, including original artwork and ephemera such as posters and promotional materials, are held in the John Bell collection [graphic material], Library and Archives Canada (archival reference no. R429-0-9-E).

John Bell is a Canadian writer, editor, historian, and archivist. Born in 1952 in Montreal, Quebec, Bell grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia and graduated from Dalhousie University in 1975. He worked as an archivist in the Political Archives section of the National Archives of Canada/Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa from 1985 to 2011. Bell is the author of a number of books on topics related to Canadian history; he also has extensive experience as an editor of magazines such as Arc Poetry Magazine and Borealis Magazine, and several anthologies including (with Lesley Choyce) Visions from the edge : an anthology of Atlantic Canadian science fiction and fantasy (Pottersfield Press, 1981), Halifax : a literary portrait (Pottersfield Press, 1990), The Grand-slam book of Canadian baseball writing (Pottersfield Press, 1993), and Against the raging sea : stories from the golden age (Pottersfield Press, 2002). Bell's poetry has appeared in many publications including the Literary Review of Canada. In the 1970s, Bell began collecting Canadian comic books with the goal of creating a checklist of all comic books published in Canada. This project resulted in the publication of Canuck comics (Matrix Books) in 1986. In 1992, he curated the exhibition "Guardians of the North: The National Superhero in Canadian Comic-Book Art" for the Canadian Museum of Caricature; the exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue (National Archives of Canada, 1992), and reinterpreted in 2001 as a website (http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/lac-bac/guardians_north-ef/2009/www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/superheroes/index-e.html). With Michel Viau, Bell co-curated the web exhibition "Beyond the funnies : the history of comics in English Canada and Quebec" (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/comics/index-e.html) for Library and Archives Canada in 2002. In 2006, he published a history of Canadian comic books entitled Invaders from the north : how Canada conquered the comic book universe (Dundurn). John Bell retired from Library and Archives Canada in 2011 and relocated to Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, where he continues to work as a historian and editor.

A complete list of items in the first and second accessions is available. Lists for the third and fourth accessions are in progress. Researchers should be aware that certain titles are included in more than one accession; therefore, it may not be possible to locate the complete holdings of every title by looking at a single accession list.

The collection consists of comic books collected by John Bell beginning in the 1970s and continuing into the 21st century. Bell offered his collection to the National Library of Canada in 1994; the first and second accessions were acquired by the Library in 1996 and 1997. Library and Archives Canada acquired a third accession in 2008 and a fourth in 2011. Further accruals are possible.