User:Wehwalt/Sandbox

Part 2:

• "every dog shall bark" You say he famously said this. At least according to Gwyn, his most recent biographer, there's doubt about whether he did. Can you phrase this in a way that doesn't say to the reader with definiteness that he did? Yes, I know it's the plot section but you are saying with definiteness that Macdonald said this.
• " the rebels receive a pardon," I would say "remaining rebels"

Characters

• You should make it clearer that you are telling their real life stories here. With the faction of the previous section, the reader may be confused.
• Given that the killing of Scott is what made it politically impossible for Macdonald to pardon Riel, I would throw some mention of that into the bios.
• The drunkenness of Macdonald is certainly established historical fact, although I don't think there's any indication he had a drinking problem in 1885. He appears to have cleaned up his act (or his wife did) while he was in opposition.

Appendix

• " Louis Riel, Brown was increasingly making use of notes and appendices in his work." Increasingly compared to what? It's not so much the notes, it's the "increasing ... use of ... appendices" which is giving me pause here.
• Given that you mentioned, in some detail, Mom, above, should some mention of From Hell be done up there as noting the genesis of Riel?
• " he would not actually have been present." "He was not actually present"

Publication history

• The sentence about the grant of $6000 seems out of place.
• I note the sentence on the footnotes in this section, and that it is the third time you have mentioned them in more than passing. Can some consolidation be done?
• "as the series progressed and the influence of Harold Gray became stronger" You've mentioned Gray before, though only in passing. I'm not able to see why a minimalist drawing style would lead to big hands. You may want to say that he altered his drawing style as the series progressed, and why, and say he adjusted them. I don't think "corrected" is the proper term.
• You should say who created Paying for It inline.

Style

• "Composition takes place from panel to panel—scenes change anywhere on the page with little regard to page layout." Huh?
• "in great contrast". Is the word "great" really needed?
• You should make clear, if true, that the dialogue is actually in English, he's just using the brackets to tell you that it's "really" in French.
• "He frequently cited Harold Gray " You've mentioned Gray twice before, but this seems to be the main explanation. I'm dubious that this is the best way to inform the reader about Gray's influence over Brown. You may want to have this explanation prior to the earlier two mentions of Gray.
• "Gray often used his strip as a public platform for politics, and Louis Riel was also very public and outward-looking, in great contrast to the inward-looking comics he had previously been known for—notably his autobiographical work. " This sentence takes on too much, and it is unclear what the attributes you mention mean. Divide and rephrase.
• "late-19th century" I would delete. The reader knows by now when Riel lived.
• "extremely cartoony style of Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe" Don't most cartoons have a cartoony style? Can this be better explained for the lay reader?

Legacy. I think it is premature to speak of a ten year old book as having a legacy.

"despite Riel's own political conservatism" I'm not sure I would characterize Riel as a conservative.

Can't anything more be said about the footnotes/appendix? Such things can be clever (say those of George Macdonald Fraser. You never really tell us anything about it except that it's long and that Brown details his political change.

That's what I have.