Nipper and Hockey are Back

Canada’s two greatest pastimes are back. Hockey and Doug Wright’s Nipper. The third edition collects the years 1967 and 1968. Doug Wright is in fine form as Drawn & Quarterly collects in book form the best comic strip of the time. In 1967, the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs met for the Stanley Cup. That was the last year the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. Tim Horton was still a player. He could not double double the Lord Stanley prize for Toronto.

Things are still fun, innocent, and wholesome in the suburbs: there’s road hockey in the streets, boys have their friends over for sleepovers, and kids play freely on their own outside, with little or no parental supervision. The pantomime strip does reference contemporary life, however, with the entire Wright family making an excursion to downtown Montreal for the 1967 World’s Fair. As always, Wright’s stellar draftsmanship, fond eye for detail, and brilliant sense of comic timing shines throughout this volume of the Nipper series.

 

Tony M.

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