From the January/February 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine

Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Acceptance

by Nicolas Debon

ne evening this past summer, the phone rang in my apartment near Paris. It was my publisher in Canada saying she had very good news to share. I was a bit surprised, and since I am not used to communicating in English, I only caught a few words of what she said at first: “  . . . has  . . . won  . . . ” and then the word “Boston.” My first reaction was to tell to myself, “Oh boy, I’ve won the Boston MARATHON!” I almost broke into tears. The problem was that I hadn’t actually competed in that race, and it’s most doubtful that I ever could. I soon realized that my publisher was referring to something quite different. Although it was not the Boston Marathon, one of my books had had the immense privilege of being chosen for a very prestigious award.

It’s probably not a coincidence that awards have been invented to recognize the achievements of both athletes and artists. Athletes and artists (whether we are talking about writers, comedians, musicians, painters, or dancers) share a similar goal. They are both trying to bring one gesture to a sort of perfection, to surpass a limit of some kind. There is not much difference between a weightlifter repeating the same lift a hundred times and a pianist rehearsing one arpeggio a hundred times.

Before I began working on The Strongest Man in the World, I saw these champion weightlifters as mammoth-size bullies with brains no larger than a peanut. (I hope there are no champion weightlifters in the audience.) What I gradually discovered was a world overflowing with laughter, inventiveness, bravery, and drama — in short, a world of humanity.

The birth of The Strongest Man in the World took place about five years ago in Toronto, where I was living at the time. I had already written and illustrated two picture books, one about a Canadian soldier on the battlefields of the First World War (A Brave Soldier) and the other about Canadian painter Emily Carr (Four Pictures by Emily Carr). For my next project, I wanted to explore a completely new world. I thought about writing the story of a scientist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a musician. Or why not an athlete?

One weekday morning, I was having my breakfast while listening to the French channel of Radio-Canada when I heard the speaker briefly mention the name of a forgotten nineteenth-
century Québecois weightlifter I had never heard of. My slice of bread dropped from my hand as I scribbled his name on a piece of paper. It was something like “Louis Cire.” My spelling was phonetical, C-I-R-E, meaning “wax” in French. For some reason, perhaps because it sounded so simple, I was hooked by the name.

This was the beginning of an exciting game of detective inquiry. I discovered a brief description of the strongman on the Internet, where I found the correct spelling of his name. Then I came across the unique copy of a 1976 biography of Louis Cyr at the Toronto Public Library. Some time later, I completed my research by viewing microfilms in a basement at l’Université du Québec in Montreal, trying my best to explain my project to a group of helpful but dubious librarians. In the space of a few months, a forgotten name had become a living person with whom I felt familiar.

Then came the next question: what do I do with all this information?

At first I had no idea how the story would begin, or how it would end. Obviously, at some point it would show the most spectacular exploits of the strongman — lifting two dozen men upon his back, resisting the pull of huge draft horses with his arms — but what else?

A couple of photographs showed Louis Cyr with his daughter, Émiliana, who was maybe six or seven years old at the time. The contrast between the two characters, the giant and the child, was striking. Soon, I began to imagine what a conversation might have been like between the two of them. This was the starting point of the story.

The comic-strip or graphic-novel format came quite naturally. It was like putting the first Lego brick of a structure into place, and the rest started building up around it. I simply began to draw one picture next to another, brick by brick, until the whole story eventually took shape.

The Strongest Man in the World can be read as a biography, because I tried my best to stick as close as possible to the reality of Louis Cyr’s life. However, there was another driving force that, day after day, pushed me through the project.

As I described earlier, the birth of a story often takes place unexpectedly, in a matter of minutes. It was not so much the story of this athlete in particular that interested me but rather the process of discovering a totally unknown universe (in this case, the world of top-ranking athletes) and trying to invent a visual and narrative language to describe it. It is the pleasure I have had exploring this universe that I hope will be transmitted to the reader of this book.

I have mentioned that, at one point, Louis Cyr, his daughter, Émiliana, and the other characters in the story became “living people” to me. This is an amusing sensation that I’m sure other creators have also experienced. Once you have gathered enough information about them, the characters seem to find the way the story will evolve by themselves — by the way they move an arm, whether they speak or, conversely, remain silent . . .

Overall, Louis Cyr and his friends have shared nearly four years of my life, the time it took to develop a basic idea into a full-fledged story. During my student years at art school, my teachers used to say that it always takes “ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration” to bring a project to completion . . . whether you are an artist or an athlete.

Now, I want to say thank you to the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award judges for bestowing this extraordinary honor on my book. Thank you to the Horn Book publisher, editors, and staff for allowing me to attend this ceremony. And, finally, a special thank-you to my Canadian publisher, Groundwood Books, in particular Patsy Aldana, Nan Froman, Michael Solomon, and Fred Horler, for their unfaltering support and confidence in my work for many years now.

Thank you.

From the January/February 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine Listen to this speech