If a high-level cabinet minister reprimanded you in the House of Commons, would you consider it a personal
victory? Terry Mosher did. The veteran editorial cartoonist at The Gazette in Montreal, who goes by the
pen name Aislin (his daughter's name), came under fire back in 1993 for a cartoon he drew of then Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney lying in the snow after being tripped by Pierre Trudeau. [Former cabinet minister]
Barbara MacDougall said she thought it looked like Mulroney was dead, which was hogwash, recalls
Mosher, gleefully.
I starred getting all these hysterical faxes from Ottawa, and that afternoon the cartoon was denounced in
the House of Commons. It was the greatest day of my life.
Mosher is one of a handful of people in this country whose job it is to get in people's craw. Political
cartoonists the visual hecklers who make their living poking fun at politicians on the op-ed pages of our
country's newspapers are a distinctive breed. Mavericks and malcontents by nature, they use pen and ink
to cut a swath through the pretension, greed and stupidity that pervades our society. We were the guys
back in sixth grade who fired spitballs at the teacher, says Mosher. We just love to provoke a reaction in
people. And they have traditionally been given an almost indecent amount of rope with which to hang their
victims.
Since editorial cartooning began in this country more than 100 years ago, no politician has escaped its
wrath. In the late 1800s John A.Macdonald was held to task by J.W. Bengough in his weekly comic journal
Grip. In 1888, Henri Julien who was the first political cartoonist to be hired full time by a Canadian
newspaper, The Montreal Star gave Wilfred Laurier the same treatment. From the 1950s through the 1980s
what some refer to as the golden age of Canadian political cartooning John Diefenbaker and Joe Clark
suffered particularly acutely at the hand of cartoonists like Duncan Macpherson and Len Norris, who had
undeniable influence over public opinion. Who can forget the infamous cartoon of Joe Clark wearing idiot
mittens mittens connected by astring that children wear which reinforced a public suspicion that he wasn't
up to the task of running the country? Clark certainly never will; he reportedly said that cartoons like that
cost him votes in the 1980 election.
It's common knowledge in cartooning circles that Canadians are among the best in the world. The diversity
of cartooning styles in this country is also envied and admired from the crosshatching and precision of
Bruce MacKinnon at Halifax's The Chronicle-Herald to the spare line drawings of Guy Badeaux at Le Droit in
Ottawa to the loose, aggressive style of the Vancouver Province's Dan Murphy, no two Canadian
cartoonists draw alike. (That sets them apart from their American counterparts, who outnumber them by
about 10 to one, but who for the most part adhere to two or three basic styles.) In the 21st century, political
cartooning in Canada is still alive and well. But do cartoonists have as much clout as they did 30 years ago?
Probably not. And there are a number of financial, social and technological reasons why.
Increasing corporate ownership of newspapers is one. In the last decade or so, many small and mid-sized
papers have been bought by large corporations whose owners, it's fair to say, are politically and fiscally
conservative. There have been rumblings that the sacred church and state separation between the
cartoonist and the paper's editors,publishers and owners has narrowed, in some cases because
proprietors (and the editorial staff they hire) expect the cartoonist to toe a company line or at least not
blatantly cross it.
Financial constraints have also been a factor. Not long ago, virtually every paper of a decent size employed
a full-time cartoonist. Not so today; some statistics show that fewer than one third of the nation's papers
have in-house cartoonists now And yet, they all still continue to run regular cartoons, thanks to syndication.
During the recession of the early '90s, belt-tightening of unprecedented magnitude occurred at Canadian
newspapers. And, for some, cartoonists were easy cost-cutting targets why spend $50,000 to $100,000 for
someone in house, when syndicated cartoons can be had for as little as $10 to $20 a piece?
While almost every cartoonist syndicates his work (some, like The Gazette's Mosher, by their own system,
and others through syndication services like Artizans, run by The Edmonton Journal's Malcolm Mayes), most
see syndication as a double-edged sword. True, it provides a little bit of secondary income, but it also
allows papers to get away with not having a cartoonist on staff, and makes it harder for young newcomers to
push into the business. (Indeed, young is not a word that's associated with this industry: almost every
cartoonist at a well-known Canadian paper is white, male and over 50.)
Some top cartoonists fear that syndication is encouraging the proliferation of the dreaded McToon :
cartoons that are bland,inoffensive and national in scope so they can run in any paper in the country. A lot
of guys just do the "joke-a-day" gag cartoon type of stuff, and a lot of editors want that, says The Vancouver
Sun's Roy Peterson.
"And some find the focus away from local issues troubling. What really affects people isn't what comes out
of Ottawa or Washington," says the Vancouver Province's Murphy "It's sewers, traffic, the price of gas. A
good newspaper should reflect its community, and use local stuff from a local cartoonist."
Today, a cartoon that runs in Moncton may well be drawn by someone who lives in Regina. A case inpoint:
the Ottawa Citizen's full-time cartoonist, Cam Cardow, lives in Calgary.
"I think that's irresponsible," says Michael de Adder, of The Daily News in Halifax. "There's a whole level of
government that isn't being served well by the Citizen, because their cartoonist hardly ever covers it. How
can he?"
Issues like these are addressed at the annual meeting of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists, which
takes place in June in a different Canadian city each year. For years now, the 68 members of the association
have been bandying about the idea of unionization, in part to try to increase syndication fees, which have
remained at the same embarrassingly low level for 20 or 30 years now. So far it hasn't happened, and most
are doubtful that it ever will. For one thing, the cartoonist's maverick nature flies in the face of the idea of
joining a collective. As Peterson says, "We couldn't organize a party in a phone booth. Get a whole string of
loose cannons together and you get a lot of noise, but very little unity."
But the challenges facing today's editorial cartoonists aren't just economic. The change in public sentiment
may also be making it harder for them to do their jobs.
"Society as a whole is shying away from the whole idea of satire, which hurts people's feelings," says Brian
Gable of The Globe and Mail. "The political correctness thing has passed a bit, but the sentiment is still
there: insulting people is evil. Combine that with the increasing fear of libel lawsuits there have been two
filed against freelance cartoonists in the past few years, both in New Brunswick; one was held liable and is
appealing, the other has not yet gone to trial and you"ve got skittish editors and publishers who might turn
away edgier stuff in favour of light, humorous fare."
And yet, against all these odds, there is still some incredibly pointed and thought-provoking work on the
pages of newspapers across Canada. Virtually everyone featured in this article says he enjoys almost
complete freedom in the newsroom. Sure, the occasional cartoon doesn't make it to print most say two or
three a year are killed by the editor. But that's not necessarily a bad thing: a rejected cartoon, like an angry
letter, is considered somewhat of a badge of honour. "You have to have a couple a year that don't make it,"
says Serge Chapleau of La Presse in Montreal. "Then you know you"ve still got it."
And while they don't consciously try to avoid lawsuits, good cartoonists inherently know what's fair game:
international politicians and celebrities are pretty much open season; lay people are generally off limits;
racial and sexual stereotypes and low blows are frowned upon.
"When Lucien Bouchard had the operation on his leg, [The Ottawa Sun's] Susan Dewar did a drawing of a
beaver gnawing at his leg, and it was a big scandal," remembers Chapleau. "It was just bad timing the guy
wasn't even our of the hospital yet. A month later everyone did something with the leg and it was okay, it
was fair game. But her timing just wasn't right."
"There's an obvious legal line. You learn what that is pretty early on, and you don't even go near it," says
The Chronicle-Herald's MacKinnon, "but even the most acerbic of cartoonists take the moral line just
asseriously."
"I have no right whatsoever to slander anyone, ever," says The Calgary Sun's John Larter. "Just because I
have a pencil in my hand doesn't mean I don't have to do what's decent."
Still, the raison d'etre of the editorial cartoonist is to provoke a reaction in people, to be a little scurrilous.
And the best cartoonists have no sacred cows.
"Everybody screws up that doesn't belong to only one political party," says Chapleau. "People aren't
supposed to know my own political beliefs when I draw. I always get asked, Are you aseparatist or a
federalist?" And I say, "I'm a fucking cartoonist."
victory? Terry Mosher did. The veteran editorial cartoonist at The Gazette in Montreal, who goes by the
pen name Aislin (his daughter's name), came under fire back in 1993 for a cartoon he drew of then Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney lying in the snow after being tripped by Pierre Trudeau. [Former cabinet minister]
Barbara MacDougall said she thought it looked like Mulroney was dead, which was hogwash, recalls
Mosher, gleefully.
I starred getting all these hysterical faxes from Ottawa, and that afternoon the cartoon was denounced in
the House of Commons. It was the greatest day of my life.
Mosher is one of a handful of people in this country whose job it is to get in people's craw. Political
cartoonists the visual hecklers who make their living poking fun at politicians on the op-ed pages of our
country's newspapers are a distinctive breed. Mavericks and malcontents by nature, they use pen and ink
to cut a swath through the pretension, greed and stupidity that pervades our society. We were the guys
back in sixth grade who fired spitballs at the teacher, says Mosher. We just love to provoke a reaction in
people. And they have traditionally been given an almost indecent amount of rope with which to hang their
victims.
Since editorial cartooning began in this country more than 100 years ago, no politician has escaped its
wrath. In the late 1800s John A.Macdonald was held to task by J.W. Bengough in his weekly comic journal
Grip. In 1888, Henri Julien who was the first political cartoonist to be hired full time by a Canadian
newspaper, The Montreal Star gave Wilfred Laurier the same treatment. From the 1950s through the 1980s
what some refer to as the golden age of Canadian political cartooning John Diefenbaker and Joe Clark
suffered particularly acutely at the hand of cartoonists like Duncan Macpherson and Len Norris, who had
undeniable influence over public opinion. Who can forget the infamous cartoon of Joe Clark wearing idiot
mittens mittens connected by astring that children wear which reinforced a public suspicion that he wasn't
up to the task of running the country? Clark certainly never will; he reportedly said that cartoons like that
cost him votes in the 1980 election.
It's common knowledge in cartooning circles that Canadians are among the best in the world. The diversity
of cartooning styles in this country is also envied and admired from the crosshatching and precision of
Bruce MacKinnon at Halifax's The Chronicle-Herald to the spare line drawings of Guy Badeaux at Le Droit in
Ottawa to the loose, aggressive style of the Vancouver Province's Dan Murphy, no two Canadian
cartoonists draw alike. (That sets them apart from their American counterparts, who outnumber them by
about 10 to one, but who for the most part adhere to two or three basic styles.) In the 21st century, political
cartooning in Canada is still alive and well. But do cartoonists have as much clout as they did 30 years ago?
Probably not. And there are a number of financial, social and technological reasons why.
Increasing corporate ownership of newspapers is one. In the last decade or so, many small and mid-sized
papers have been bought by large corporations whose owners, it's fair to say, are politically and fiscally
conservative. There have been rumblings that the sacred church and state separation between the
cartoonist and the paper's editors,publishers and owners has narrowed, in some cases because
proprietors (and the editorial staff they hire) expect the cartoonist to toe a company line or at least not
blatantly cross it.
Financial constraints have also been a factor. Not long ago, virtually every paper of a decent size employed
a full-time cartoonist. Not so today; some statistics show that fewer than one third of the nation's papers
have in-house cartoonists now And yet, they all still continue to run regular cartoons, thanks to syndication.
During the recession of the early '90s, belt-tightening of unprecedented magnitude occurred at Canadian
newspapers. And, for some, cartoonists were easy cost-cutting targets why spend $50,000 to $100,000 for
someone in house, when syndicated cartoons can be had for as little as $10 to $20 a piece?
While almost every cartoonist syndicates his work (some, like The Gazette's Mosher, by their own system,
and others through syndication services like Artizans, run by The Edmonton Journal's Malcolm Mayes), most
see syndication as a double-edged sword. True, it provides a little bit of secondary income, but it also
allows papers to get away with not having a cartoonist on staff, and makes it harder for young newcomers to
push into the business. (Indeed, young is not a word that's associated with this industry: almost every
cartoonist at a well-known Canadian paper is white, male and over 50.)
Some top cartoonists fear that syndication is encouraging the proliferation of the dreaded McToon :
cartoons that are bland,inoffensive and national in scope so they can run in any paper in the country. A lot
of guys just do the "joke-a-day" gag cartoon type of stuff, and a lot of editors want that, says The Vancouver
Sun's Roy Peterson.
"And some find the focus away from local issues troubling. What really affects people isn't what comes out
of Ottawa or Washington," says the Vancouver Province's Murphy "It's sewers, traffic, the price of gas. A
good newspaper should reflect its community, and use local stuff from a local cartoonist."
Today, a cartoon that runs in Moncton may well be drawn by someone who lives in Regina. A case inpoint:
the Ottawa Citizen's full-time cartoonist, Cam Cardow, lives in Calgary.
"I think that's irresponsible," says Michael de Adder, of The Daily News in Halifax. "There's a whole level of
government that isn't being served well by the Citizen, because their cartoonist hardly ever covers it. How
can he?"
Issues like these are addressed at the annual meeting of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists, which
takes place in June in a different Canadian city each year. For years now, the 68 members of the association
have been bandying about the idea of unionization, in part to try to increase syndication fees, which have
remained at the same embarrassingly low level for 20 or 30 years now. So far it hasn't happened, and most
are doubtful that it ever will. For one thing, the cartoonist's maverick nature flies in the face of the idea of
joining a collective. As Peterson says, "We couldn't organize a party in a phone booth. Get a whole string of
loose cannons together and you get a lot of noise, but very little unity."
But the challenges facing today's editorial cartoonists aren't just economic. The change in public sentiment
may also be making it harder for them to do their jobs.
"Society as a whole is shying away from the whole idea of satire, which hurts people's feelings," says Brian
Gable of The Globe and Mail. "The political correctness thing has passed a bit, but the sentiment is still
there: insulting people is evil. Combine that with the increasing fear of libel lawsuits there have been two
filed against freelance cartoonists in the past few years, both in New Brunswick; one was held liable and is
appealing, the other has not yet gone to trial and you"ve got skittish editors and publishers who might turn
away edgier stuff in favour of light, humorous fare."
And yet, against all these odds, there is still some incredibly pointed and thought-provoking work on the
pages of newspapers across Canada. Virtually everyone featured in this article says he enjoys almost
complete freedom in the newsroom. Sure, the occasional cartoon doesn't make it to print most say two or
three a year are killed by the editor. But that's not necessarily a bad thing: a rejected cartoon, like an angry
letter, is considered somewhat of a badge of honour. "You have to have a couple a year that don't make it,"
says Serge Chapleau of La Presse in Montreal. "Then you know you"ve still got it."
And while they don't consciously try to avoid lawsuits, good cartoonists inherently know what's fair game:
international politicians and celebrities are pretty much open season; lay people are generally off limits;
racial and sexual stereotypes and low blows are frowned upon.
"When Lucien Bouchard had the operation on his leg, [The Ottawa Sun's] Susan Dewar did a drawing of a
beaver gnawing at his leg, and it was a big scandal," remembers Chapleau. "It was just bad timing the guy
wasn't even our of the hospital yet. A month later everyone did something with the leg and it was okay, it
was fair game. But her timing just wasn't right."
"There's an obvious legal line. You learn what that is pretty early on, and you don't even go near it," says
The Chronicle-Herald's MacKinnon, "but even the most acerbic of cartoonists take the moral line just
asseriously."
"I have no right whatsoever to slander anyone, ever," says The Calgary Sun's John Larter. "Just because I
have a pencil in my hand doesn't mean I don't have to do what's decent."
Still, the raison d'etre of the editorial cartoonist is to provoke a reaction in people, to be a little scurrilous.
And the best cartoonists have no sacred cows.
"Everybody screws up that doesn't belong to only one political party," says Chapleau. "People aren't
supposed to know my own political beliefs when I draw. I always get asked, Are you aseparatist or a
federalist?" And I say, "I'm a fucking cartoonist."
| NORTHERN EXPOSERS Editorial Cartoonists in Canada Face Fewer Jobs, Talented Competition and Controvery-Shy Editors. Sound Familiar? SARA CURTIS -- Applied Arts Magazine -- July/August 2001 |