Cumulus Press, 2006

Read by Lateef Martin

Take your everyday Canadian white dude in his twenties. Mix in a BFA in arts out of Kelowna, BC, a taste of design training at Ontario’s Sheridan College and a splash of York University’s MFA program. Throw in a little resentment at the design world. Marinate it in a Why-in-the-Hell-did-I-do-that? stint in the Canadian Forces and a need to barf it all out and you’ve got The Hero Book. Short, sweet and witty, Scott Waters drops you in the bong water of dejected Canadians training for a war they never join (Operation Desert Storm to be exact). Becoming more inventive and violent as time wears on, Waters and the various colourful characters in his platoon pull pranks, get drunk, beat each other up and handle an array of weaponry. This is all chronicled with licks of text, raw photography and stunning paintwork. What makes Waters’ work so charming is its honesty and brevity, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks, which are as wide and generous as the snow-covered prairies of Alberta. The Hero Book is also a portrait of innocence and boredom; Waters’ misadventures play on the edge of a potentially soul-shattering existence in a faraway land, held at arm’s length by chance. The artwork and photography are spread out between the text in a fashion that keeps things moving, from black and white to color, spiced with graphics of shovels, guns, outlines of people and even underwear. Quotes, lists and stats pepper the text, giving The Hero Book itself a fresh and varied appearance. At under seventy pages, Waters has created a page-turner that can be knocked off over a beer or on the can, or both.