Southern cross

The story tells how the US military evacuated villagers before starting nuclear weapons tests. The drunk soldier attempted to rape the fisherman's wife, but he killed the soldier. To avoid punishment, the fisherman's family runs into the forest and takes refuge there. A small child witnesses the death of their parents and the destruction of the environment as a result of subsequent nuclear strikes ^[2] .

Lawrence Hyde was born in 1914 in ^[3] In 1926, he and his parents moved to Canada , and in 1928 they settled in Toronto , where Lawrence studied at the ^[3] . The boy was very fond of drawing and studying art, corresponded with Rockwell Kent and Lind Ward ^[1] .

Since the 1930s, Lawrence was engaged in entrepreneurial activity: he painted and sold woodcuts and advertising illustrations, as well as linocuts for books. He tried to make two series of engravings under the names "Discovery" and "Macbeth." Hyde worked in Ottawa in the Canadian State Film Service from 1942 until his retirement in 1972 ^[1] .

Wordless novels were very popular in the 1920s and 1930s, but by the 1940s a similar genre had become rare ^[4] . Books like this were usually created to demonstrate injustice; Flemish artist Frans Mazerel , whom Lawrence knew, also painted on this subject. ^[3]

Words are able to express very complex and delicate ideas ... But, in the directness and universality of interpretation, images, under certain conditions, have no equal. The main thing is what exactly you want to say.

- Lawrence Hyde, ^[5]

With this work, Hyde wanted to express his anger at the American nuclear tests on the Bikini Atoll in 1946. He worked on the novel Southern Cross from 1948 to 1951. The size of each image is 4 × 3 inches (10.2 cm × 7.6 cm) and on the page they are located in the middle at the top of the page with wide indents from the edges ^[6] . The only exception is the “bomb explosion”, presented as an image on the whole page of 7 × 6 inches (18 cm × 15 cm) ^[7] . The whole work was created by the method of wood engraving ^[8] ; on it, Lawrence depicted realistic details of flora and fauna ^[9] .

Southern Cross was first published in Ward Ritchie Press in 1951 ^[6] on washi , traditional Japanese paper; the images were located on the front side of the sheet, and the back side was left blank ^[10] . The introduction was written by Rockwell Kent , which states that the novel is dedicated to the international Red Cross movement and the religious community of Friends ^[3] .

In 2007, the book was reprinted twice: the publishing house published a luxurious publication with a joint introduction by historian David Buron and George Walker, as well as Hyde's personal essays ^{[8] [10]} .

Trying to explain something, a person can agree to such an extent that he will convince himself that it is as if to drop bombs on people whom he himself has never seen - this is a kind of cunning move in an exciting chess game. Simpler things, like pictures, will show him what it really is to drop bombs on innocent people.

- Northrop Fry , ^[11]

In a CBC interview in 1952, literary critic Northrop Fry praised the artistic skills of Lawrence Hyde, but noted that “there is no point in buying a novel if you are not carried away by woodcuts as an independent genre” ^[11] . He also said that the book reads very quickly, compared with the time spent on its creation, and called its “continuity” a weak point. Fry considered the visualization of the bombing of the island the most powerful part of the work ^[11] .

Comic book critic Sean Rogers praised Lawrence's work, but claimed that the work had less influence on him than, for example, Matheril ’s Passionate Journey (1919) or Ward 's Vertigo (1937). Rogers found the book unconvincing and ineffective compared to later works such as , Barefoot Geng and ^{[9] [12]} . Reviewer Eric Hinton generally praised the work of art, saying that "there is a small, but still a piece of propaganda in it " ^[8] .

Copies of the novel Southern Cross are in the National Gallery of Canada ^[13] (since 1952) and ^[13] (since 1987) ^[14] . In 2008, the book received in the Canadian Art nomination; Hyde Anthony's son was present at the award ^[9] .

• AV Club staff. Comics Panel: December 14, 2007 (neopr.) . The AV Club (2007). Date of treatment April 4, 2013. Archived April 14, 2013.
• Beauman, Ned Plenty to say for wordless stories (neopr.) . The Guardian (December 5, 2007). Date of treatment March 21, 2015. Archived on October 6, 2014.
• Bell, John. Invaders from the North: How Canada Conquered the Comic Book Universe. - Dundurn Press , 2006. - ISBN 978-1-55002-659-7 .
• Beronä, David A. Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels. - Abrams Books , 2008 .-- ISBN 978-0-8109-9469-0 .
• Cohen, Martin S. The Novel in Woodcuts: A Handbook (Russian) // Journal of Modern Literature : journal. - Indiana University Press 1977 .-- April ( vol. 6 , no. 2 ). - P. 171-195 .
• Frye, Northrop. Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers . - University of Toronto Press , 2002. - ISBN 978-0-8020-3602-5 .
• Hinton, Erik Southern Cross (Neopr.) . PopMatters (February 7, 2008). Date of treatment March 17, 2014. Archived April 12, 2015.
• Hyde, Laurence. Introduction // Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas / Laurence Hyde, David Beronä. - Drawn and Quarterly , 2007. - ISBN 978-1-897299-10-4 .
• National Gallery of Canada staff. Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas , c. 1948–1951 (neopr.) . National Gallery of Canada website . Date of treatment March 21, 2014. Archived March 21, 2014.
• Pantaleo, Sylvia Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas (neopr.) . CM Magazine (February 8, 2008). Date of treatment April 4, 2013. Archived April 12, 2015.
• Rogers, Sean The Doug Wright Awards 2008 (Neopr.) . The Walrus (August 14, 2008). Date of treatment March 18, 2014. Archived March 18, 2014.
• Rogers, Sean Southern Cross, and The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam (Neopr.) . The Walrus (August 28, 2008). Date of treatment April 4, 2013. Archived March 18, 2014.
• Sabin, Roger The mating call of a Wessex girl ... (unopened) . The Observer (November 25, 2007). Date of treatment March 18, 2014. Archived on October 6, 2014.
• Spurgeon, Tom Some PR Person On Colin Upton Speaking On Laurence Hyde April 18 (PR) (neopr.) . The Comics Reporter (April 18, 2010). Date of treatment March 21, 2014. Archived March 17, 2015.
• Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels. - Firefly Books, 2007. - ISBN 978-1-55407-270-5 .