These two most recent issues of artist Guy Boutin’s WAH! series feature texts and poems from the recently deceased Denis Vanier, widely considered to be one of the best Canadian poets of the past generation. His collaboration with Boutin results in a successful mix of two very original styles. Vanier’s highly expressive outbursts are complemented by Boutin’s sharp expressionist style. An accomplished and prolific oil painter, his ink drawings retain the compositional mastery of his larger works, giving the eye a lot to look at as the whole image gradually emerges. His lettering proves to fit Vanier’s style very well also, to the point where it’s hard to imagine reading a line like “Tous les animaux sont épuisés/Ouvert par en dedans comme des chalets défoncés” [“All the animals are tired/Opened up from the inside like collapsed chalets”] and feeling the same power in unillustrated typeface. #7 contains an assortment of recent short pieces and some politically charged longer prose; #8 consists of a longer romance of sorts called “Le Brule-Parfum” (“The Perfume-Burner”) written in 1991. Both are highly recommended to anyone interested in illustrated literature, of which this is some of the finest to be found in the country. (Louis Rastelli)
zines, #7, #8, 36 pgs each, French, Guy Boutin & Denis Vanier, $2, c/o Fichtre!, 436 de Bienville, Montreal, QC, H2J 1S9