News From The Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists

Canadian Cartoonists draw "Polar Lines"

2011-11-17T15:47:00.001-05:00

Anita Kunz

An interview with cartoonist and "Polar Lines"curator Terry Mosher can be found in NunatsiakOnline.
More cartoons:

Aislin (Terry Mosher), The Gazette, Montreal

Dusan Petricic, The Toronto Star.

Graeme Mackay, The Hamilton Spectator.

Sue Dewar, The Toronto Sun.

Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen.

Stephen Harper defends Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic.
Serge Chapleau, La Presse, Montreal.

John Larter, The Calgary Herald.

Brian Gable, The Globe and Mail, Toronto.

Dale Cummings, The Winnipeg Free Press.

Bruce Mackinnon, The Chronicle Herald, Halifax.

Grahame Harrop, The Vancouver Sun.

Finally the panels of the complete exhibition:

«Expressions polaires» par les dessinateurs de presse canadiens

2011-11-17T15:43:00.001-05:00

Anita Kunz

Un aperçu des dessins faisant parti de «Expressions polaires», une exposition de dessins de presse canadiens présentée par l'Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami:

«... et votre futur roi...»

Aislin (Terry Mosher), The Gazette, Montréal

Robert Peary atteint le Pôle nord (version futuriste)

Dusan Petricic, The Toronto Star.

Location future de «Sandals Tuktoyactuk» Bientôt!

Graeme Mackay, The Hamilton Spectator.

Sue Dewar, The Toronto Sun.

Ça ne devrait plus tarder! On y est...Voici venu le moment o ù il affirme la souveraineté canadienne sur l'Arctique...

Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen.

Serge Chapleau, La Presse, Montréal.

La mauvaise nouvelle c'est que nous nous sommes déplacés vers le sud jusqu'à Vancouver...la bonne, c'est que ma maison vaut maintenant 1.5 millions!

John Larter, The Calgary Herald.

Département de la conservation de la faune.

Brian Gable, The Globe and Mail, Toronto.

Dale Cummings, The Winnipeg Free Press.

Base canadienne de la souveraineté et de la défense de l'Arctique.

Bruce Mackinnon, The Chronicle Herald, Halifax.

L'Iqualuk se souviendra toujours du jour où les Territoires du nord-ouest furent divisés en deux...

Grahame Harrop, The Vancouver Sun.

Voici enfin les panneaux de l'exposition au grand complet:

Exposition de peintures de Ray Lengélé à Boucherville

2011-10-26T10:58:00.001-04:00

Cheeese ! - Acryliques
du 2 novembre au 27 novembre 2011
Galerie Vincent d’ Indy - Gallery
Centre multifonctionnel Francine-Gadbois
1075 rue Lionel-Daunais - Boucherville (Québec) - J4B 8N5

Participation canadienne au World Press Cartoon 2011

2011-09-26T15:42:00.001-04:00

Un canadien a vu son dessin publié à la couverture du concours World Press Cartoon 2011:

Michael De Adder

Voici quelques unes des oeuvres d'auteurs canadiens qu'on retrouve dans le catalogue:

Bob Krieger

Nemo

André Pijet

Bado

Canadian Participation in World Press Cartoon 2011

2011-09-26T15:37:00.002-04:00

A Canadian made it this year on the cover of the 2011 World Press Cartoon catalogue:

Michael De Adder

Here are some of the other Canadian cartoons found in the catalogue:

Bob Krieger

Nemo

André Pijet

Bado

_Fish have it great!
_Birds have it great!

ACEC's Dave Rosen

2011-09-04T15:48:00.002-04:00

A nice article at CBC about Dave Rosen here.

Norm "Bush" Muffitt passes away at age 69

2011-09-03T15:25:00.000-04:00

Editorial cartoonist Norm Muffitt (AKA Bush) has passed away at the age of 69 due to cancer.
Terri Kemball, who served as editor of the Sherwood Park-Strathcona County News for 12 years, met Muffitt in 1992 and described him as having a delightful and gentle sense of humour.
“I think that was one of his strongest strengths as a cartoonist, he didn’t have a hard edge to him,” Kemball said. “Not that he wasn’t afraid to go out on a limb sometimes and certainly did that, but he never did anything with any kind of malice, everything was a gentle poke.”

The Cartoonists has a good profile of his career. It was posted in July.

NDP Leadership uproar a gift to Quebec’s satirists

2011-08-08T07:42:00.001-04:00

An article by Daniel Leblanc published in Saturday's Globe and Mail.

...and I also have my senior's card! (cartoon by Serge Chapleau in Montreal's La Presse)

For Quebec comedy writers, the brouhaha in the NDP this week offered a clear indication that humour is finally on the comeback in Ottawa.

The province’s comedy industry has a large number of stand-up artists, impressionists and writers who regularly tackle the lighter side of politics on radio, television and stage. But these humorists saw their world fall apart in the May 2 general election when the Bloc Québécois essentially disappeared from the federal arena and the Liberals were replaced by a cast of unknowns from the NDP as the Official Opposition in Ottawa.

Suddenly, favourite targets such as Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe left the scene, with no one jumping in to replace them in the public eye. The long-standing Conservative/Bloc/Liberal confrontations – a steady producer of comic fare in recent decades – were a thing of the past, replaced by a blank slate.

“In politics, jokes can grow stale very quickly. Suddenly, all our long-standing references disappeared,” said Martin Petit, an acclaimed stand-up comic who tries to infuse a steady dose of politics into his routines.

Serge Chapleau at the Montreal daily La Presse, the province’s top cartoonist, is also the brains behind a Sunday night show on Radio-Canada that features a full cast of computer-animated politicians and a fictional anchorman called Gérard D. Laflaque.

Mr. Chapleau said he is looking to add new characters, such as NDP House Leader Thomas Mulcair and interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, to adapt to the new reality. He might dispatch newly retired politicians like Mr. Duceppe to what he has dubbed the “USS Entercrisis,” a spaceship on which the likes of ex-prime minister Paul Martin and ex-Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau roam the universe looking for somewhere else to run for office.

Mr. Chapleau said it will take time for his viewers to adapt to today’s reality and for the show to develop the comic traits of its new characters, such as anger-management issues beneath Mr. Mulcair’s silky public persona.

The award-winning cartoonist said that until recently, most NDP jokes revolved around the fact that its Quebec caucus was populated by unknowns “asking for a recount, to make sure that they had really won.”

With NDP Leader Jack Layton once again fighting cancer and therefore off-limits, the fall was expected to bring little new material for comics.

“In cartooning, we have to wait for something to happen. People have to start screwing up,” Mr. Chapleau said.

Humorists said this week’s revelations about interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel’s recent affiliation with the separatist Bloc and Québec Solidaire, as well as her own federalist party, offered much-needed comic relief.

“The fact that Nycole Turmel seemed to have been collecting membership cards, that was pretty hilarious,” said Stéphane Laporte, a prolific writer involved in a variety of projects, including working with renowned impressionist André-Philippe Gagnon.

In his Friday cartoon, Mr. Chapleau portrayed Ms. Turmel behind the podium of the Leader of the Official Opposition with, at the bottom, logos for the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, Québec Solidaire, Costco, the Canadian Automobile Association and Air Miles.

“I also have my senior’s card,” the 68-year-old interim NDP Leader says in the cartoon.

Mr. Laporte,who writes a daily one-liner for the front page of La Presse,

said he has had fun joking about the Bloc’s demise, but added that he

has confidence in the NDP’s comic potential.

“This new partnership between the NDP and the people of Quebec, this new cohabitation, should provide material for a long time to come,” he said.

Mr. Petit said it’s still easier to joke about a tunnel collapse in Montreal than the “orange wave” that swept Quebec last spring. Still, he said, Quebeckers will eventually come up with a clear sense of what happened in the province in the last election, and humour will creep back into the world of federal politics.

“To do political humour, there needs to be a common understanding of events out there,” Mr. Petit said.

The most popular radio show on the French-language equivalent of CBC Radio One, airing on Saturday mornings, is an hour-long series of skits and impressions called À la semaine prochaine. Philippe Laguë, the show’s creator and host, said he is saddened by the loss of a character like Mr. Duceppe, but upbeat at the challenge.

“For new characters to come to life, others have to die,” he said.

Mr. Laguë said he started analyzing Ms. Turmel as soon as she was appointed as Mr. Layton’s interim replacement, and that after this week’s events, he can’t wait for his season to start next month.

“We’re looking at Ms. Turmel to see how we’ll approach her. The trick now is to find a running gag,” Mr. Laguë said. “We’re especially looking forward to when the House of Commons will come back [on Sept. 19]. It’s going to be crunchy.”

Political punchlines

Recent one liners from Stéphane Laporte, published in a vignette on the front page of Montreal daily La Presse

“Who would have thought that one day, there would be more members of the New Kids on the Block than Bloc Québécois MPs?”

“What’s the similarity between the heat wave and the orange wave? They both make Gilles sweat.”

“Temporary leader of the Liberal Party – now that’s a redundancy.”

Standup comic Daniel Lemire at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal

“The new NDP MPs really didn’t expect to be elected. In fact, it’s the first time that the winners of an election asked for a recount.”

Ranan Lurie UN cartoon award

2011-07-11T12:28:00.000-04:00

Please take a moment to consider entering two of your cartoons in the 2011
Ranan Lurie United Nations Correspondent's Association Political Cartoon
Award. The deadline to submit entries for this year's competition is October
1st. Entry details can be found at www.lurieunaward.com.

All cartoon submissions are judged solely on the power of the cartoon and
the judges have no knowledge of the name of the cartoonist, the name of
his/her newspaper, from what country the submission is from, or the
political situation there. There are cash prizes awarded: 1st prize -
$10,000; 2nd prize - $5,000; and 3rd prize - $3,000. Citations for
Excellence are awarded to 10 additional cartoonists. The winners will be
announced at the United Nations on December 14, 2011.

BRUGGE COMPETITION

2011-06-13T08:41:00.001-04:00

The Bruges Cultural Department presents
Cartoonale Brugge 2011: Revolution!
This year marks the fifth edition of Cartoonale Brugge!

Theme for this year is 'Revolution!', a subject that has been headlining the news for months and that may be interpreted in the widest possible sense.
Can you find inspiration in the news of the Arab revolts that have taken the whole world by surprise, or in the green revolution?
In the digital revolution and the instant success of the I-phone, Twitter and Facebook? Or do you have other original ideas on the subject?

Cartoonale Brugge is open to all creative minds.
Every artist may submit up to three cartoons and the deadline for submission 27 July 2011.

Do not hesitate to participate; there are nice prizes to be won! From among all entries, the jury will select three winners who will be awarded with a cash prize! The winner will walk away with 1,500 euros, the second- and third-prize winners will receive 1,000 euros and 500 euros respectively.
Click here for the contest rules:

http://cultuur.brugge.be/InputOutput2011/WedstrCBEngels.pdf

You can also obtain these from Cultural Department or via the City of Bruges website:

http://www.brugge.be/internet/en/index.htm

The best works will be exhibited in the 'Hal voor Cultuur", AC 't Brugse Vrije, Burg 11, 8000 Brugge, from 23 September until 12 October 2011, daily from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

For more information:
e: dienst.cultuur@brugge.be
t: 050 44 82 72

38th International Humor Exhibition of Piracicaba/2011

2011-06-08T15:51:00.001-04:00

38th International Humor Exhibition of Piracicaba/2011

REGULATION

1 – DATES
The 38th International Humor Exhibition of Piracicaba 2011 will be held in accordance with the following schedule: Applications: until July 20st, Art Selection: August 06th and 07th. Awards: August 20st and 21nd. Opening: August 27th. Closing: October 16th.

2 – PARTICIPATION
Professional and amateur artists, Brazilians and foreigners can apply unpublished artworks that were not awarded until the closing date for entries. The theme is free.
The works - all categories - can be sent by MAIL or ELECTRONIC MAIL (applications over the Internet, in the format and 300 DPI JPGE, attached images at once).
The graphical technique is free. Digital copies, signed by author and indicated that it is print number 01 and sculptures, with humorous content will also be accepted Maximum measures allowed: paper - 42 x 30 centimeters (A3) (16,54 x 11,81 inches), sculptures - 42 centimeters or 16,54 inches (height) x 30 centimeters or 11,81 inches (depth) x 30 centimeters or 11,81 inches (width).
Each artist may enter a maximum of 03 works per category. Cartoon (graphic humor with universal themes and timeless), Charge (graphic humor journalistic themes nowadays), Caricature (graphic humor that expresses the physical and / or personality character known), Comic Strips (graphic art in sequence, with plot closed in a standard format, usually published in newspaper columns) and Vanguard (only works focussing on the theme Food, proposed by the organization). “As a feast to be eaten, the food issue is a subject of multiple approaches and flavors. While some are filled with all kinds of food, others are still without the basics. The exoticism of some dietary habits linked to cultural factors. The growth of obese population around the world, and the concern to keep in shape. Fast food and the slow food. GM food ...
Anyway, is it true that we are what we eat?” Along with the work entered the artist must attach a completed registration form with letters legibly. It is also requested reduced curriculum and photo, for registration in the database and search CEDHU.

Adress

38º Salão Internacional de Humor de Piracicaba/Secretaria Municipal da Ação Cultural
Av. Maurice Allain, 454 - Caixa Postal 12 - CEP 13.405-123 - Piracicaba - SP Brasil
E-mail Adresses
Cartoon Category: premiocartum@salaodehumor.piracicaba.sp.gov.br
Charge Category: premiocharge@salaodehumor.piracicaba.sp.gov.br
Caricature Category: premiocaricatura@salaodehumor.piracicaba.sp.gov.br
Comic Strips Category: premiotira@salaodehumor.piracicaba.sp.gov.br
Vanguard Category: premioalimentacao@salodehumor.piracicaba.sp.gov.br

3 – AWARDS
The Awards are a total of R$ 35,000.00 (thirty-five thousand reais), acquisitive Municipality of Piracicaba, divided as follows:
a) Five (05) prizes of 1st place in the amount of R$ 5,000.00 (five thousand reais) each, divided among the categories.
b) One (01) award of R$ 10,000.00 (ten thousand reais) called GRAND PRIZE INTERNATIONAL HUMOR OF PIRACICABA chosen among the five winners of each category.
c) For the winner of Grand Prize of International Humor of Piracicaba and for the first place winners of each category will be awarded trophies by cartoonist Zélio Alves Pinto.
It will be awarded a prize of R$ 3.131,11 (three thousand one hundred thirty-one reais and eleven cents), exclusively for the caricature category, purchasing value from the City Council of Piracicaba. Other awards and honors may be imposed at the discretion of the Organizing Committee. There will be a Selection Jury and an Award Jury composed by people with acknowledgeable talent in the area. If the Award Jury finds any type of fraud or plagiarism in one or more registered works, the Jury may cancel the award. The result of the award may be contested until a week after the opening of the Exhibition, with reasonable evidence of any wrongdoing without the knowledge.

4 - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
A simple application requires the artist to acceptance of these regulations. The artists selected transfer automatically authorial rights of his artworks for reproductions and publications in any media, without restriction, aiming to promote the event. The return of the artworks after the closing of the exhibition is to be formally requested in the registration form. Otherwise the artworks will ultimately belong to the collection of the Centro Nacional de Documentação, Pesquisa e Divulgação do Humor Gráfico de Piracicaba, which will exercise the right of property, as its interest.
The organization of the 38th International Exhibition Humor of Piracicaba is not responsible for possible damages that may happen when the arts are sent or returned. Besides the completed registration form legibly, the reverse of each artwork should bring the following information: registration category, author's name, artistic name, full address, telephone number, e-mail, CPF and Identify Registration (ID) and bank data. Send also a résumé and a photo to cataloging on the database and search of CEDHU. The authors transfer automatically Authorial Rights of his artworks when awarded acquisitivetely (include mention), in accordance with the Law n° 9610, February 19st, 1988 (Authorial Rights Law), therefore, universal and definitely in all use modalities and gratuitous, the rights of the author, guaranteed by the mentioned law; referring to the awarded artworks in the International Humor Exhibition of Piracicaba and now integrant part of Municipal Public Property for the purposes of entitlements, in accordance with the Municipal Law n° 2249, 1976, partially amended by the Municipal Law n° 2486, 1982 and consolidated by the Municipal Law n° 5194, 2002.
contato@salaodehumor.piracicaba.sp.gov.br

Rosemère Biennial of Caricature

2011-06-01T06:48:00.001-04:00

You can view the complete article at the following address:

http://bado-badosblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/rosemere-biennial-of-caricature.html

La Biennale internationale de caricature de Rosemère

2011-06-01T06:45:00.007-04:00

Vous pouvez voir l'article complet à l'adresse suivante: http://badoleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/la-biennale-internationale-de_30.html

CAM CARDOW IS AHEAD OF THE CURVE

2011-05-19T16:16:00.003-04:00

Cam Cardow was way out in front of the pack with his Arnold "love child" scoop by about 7 years or so.

READ THIS ARTICLE

GRAHAME ARNOULD AMONG CARTOON WINNERS

2011-05-18T09:41:00.005-04:00

Three cheers to ACEC Member Grahame Arnould who was awarded third prize
at The 16th International Cartoon Exhibition in Zagreb 2011.
There were 733 works submitted from 326 artists
representing 60 countries. The theme of the competition was 'Vice'.
Good job Grahame!

Cartooning For Japan

2011-05-16T16:30:00.006-04:00

Marlene Pohle and Zoran Petrovic of FECO (Federation of Cartoonists Organisations) and Meisi Grill of the Förderverein Komische Pinakothek will be holding a sale of cartoons for the benefit of the victims of the latest tsunami in Japan.

In the beautiful rooms of the Förderverein Komische Pinakothek, Herzog-Rudolf-Straße 9, Munich, they will, on May 26 / 27, offer for sale originals and signed prints of renowned cartoonists and entrust the receipts to the Japanese consul and the president of FECO Japan

www.fecocartoon.com
www.komische-pinakothek.de

The work of four Canadian cartoonists will be featured:

Bado, Le Droit, Ottawa

André-Philippe Côté, Le Soleil, Québec

Ray Lengelé

Graham Harrop, The Vancouver Sun

Gable wins National Newspaper Award in Editorial Cartooning

2011-05-14T20:26:00.002-04:00

Last night in Ottawa, Brian Gable of The Globe & Mail took home his sixth NNA for drawings on subjects as diverse as American politics and the rise of a tech-savvy generation with little knowledge of books. In one memorable take on the role-reversal of Toronto and Calgary’s mayoral races, he depicted a boat-load of elite Easterners fleeing Rob Ford country for the sanctuary of the Naheed Nenshi-run Alberta city.
The finalists were Montrealers Terry Mosher (Aislin) of The Gazette and Serge Chapleau of La Presse.
Here are Gable's winning entries:

Oct. 27, 2010

Feb. 1, 2010

March 18, 2010

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/cartoon/brian-gables-best-cartoons-of-the-year/article1838949/

Rosemère Biennale of Caricature

2011-05-05T15:28:00.003-04:00

The City of Rosemère, north of Montreal, will be holding, on the weekend of May 27-29 2011, the first edition of it’s Biennale of Caricature.
The event will feature exhibitions featuring the work of:
-2000 Pulitzer prize winner Ann Telnaes
-2001 Pulitzer prize winner Clay Bennett
-Le Soleil editorial cartoonist André-Philippe Côté
-Former Journal de Montréal editorial cartoonist Roland Pier
-Nice Matin editorial cartoonist Frédéric Deligne
-Drawings by 19th Century cartoonist Henri Julien from the archives of the McCord Museum
-Le Droit editorial cartoonist Bado, who will also serve as honorary president of the event.
There will also be presentations by cartoon historian Mira Falardeau as well as cartoonists Yves Demers and Ferg Gadzala.

World Press Freedom 11th International Editorial Cartoon Competition (Results)

2011-05-04T21:20:00.009-04:00

The winners of the World Press Freedom 11th International Editorial Cartoon Competition were announced at the World Press Freedom Day Luncheon held at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011.

Grand Prize: Marilena Nardi (Italy)

Second Prize: Jugoslav Vlahovic (Serbia)

Third Prize: Sergey Elkin (Russian Federation)

More info: http://bado-badosblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/11th-world-press-freedom-international.html

"Freedom in Broad Strokes" Exhibition

2011-04-18T05:49:00.013-04:00

May 3rd. 2011 will see the opening of the exhibition "Freedom in Broad Strokes" at the Panorama Room of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. The traveling exhibition, sponsored by the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and produced by "Bleu, blanc rouge / Kolegram" celebrates the first ten years of the CCWPF editorial cartoon contest and displays, on 12 giant panels, a selection of the winning entries.

Exposition «La liberté d'expression à grands traits»

2011-04-14T06:44:00.002-04:00

À l'occasion de la Journée internationale de la liberté de presse, le 3 mai prochain, aura lieu au «Café» du Centre national des arts à Ottawa, le vernissage de l'exposition «La liberté d'expression à grands traits». L'exposition itinérante, commanditée par le Comité canadien de la liberté de la presse mondiale et la Commission canadienne pour l'UNESCO et produite par «Bleu, blanc rouge / Kolegram» célèbre les premiers dix ans d'existence du Concours de dessin éditorial du CCLPM et réunit, sur 12 panneaux, une sélection des lauréats du concours.

http://badoleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/exposition-la-liberte-dexpression_03.html#more

World Press Freedom 11th International Editorial Cartoon Competition

2011-02-13T10:46:00.003-05:00

The Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom 11th International Editorial Cartoon Competition

1. The theme for the 11th International Editorial Cartoon Competition is:
“Wikileaks” and its creators: villains or heroes?
The Internet and the growth of social networking have greatly enhanced freedom of expression and people’s access to information. The “Wikileaks” revelations has shown us the degree to which the US, like many governments, operates behind a veil of secrecy and severely limits the information citizens need to participate in a free society. While the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, some legislators are calling for the prosecution of Julian Assange and insist that the disclosures threaten international relations. You be the judge.
2. Prizes: three prizes will be given: a first prize of $1500, a crystal trophy, plus a Certificate from Canadian UNESCO, a second prize of $750 plus a certificate, and a third of $500 and certificate. All sums are in Canadian dollars. Ten additional cartoons will receive an ‘Award of Excellence.’ Regrettably no financial remuneration accompanies the Awards of Excellence.
3. Only one cartoon will be accepted from each cartoonist. It may be either in color or black and white and must not have won an award.
4. The size of the cartoon should not exceed A4; 21 by 29.2 cm; or 8.50 by 11 inches.
5. The name, address, telephone number and a short biography of the Cartoonist must be included in the submission.
6. The Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom shall have the rights to use any of the cartoons entered in the Competition for promotion of our Editorial Cartoon Competition. Entrance by the cartoonist is deemed acceptance of this condition.
7. The winners of the Cartoon Competition will be announced at the World Press Freedom Day Luncheon held at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 as well as being advised by e-mail. The winner’s names and their cartoons will be posted on the CCWFP web site: http://www.ccwpf-cclpm.ca/
8. The best 30 cartoons will be exhibited at the Luncheon.

The deadline for receipt of Cartoons is 5 p.m. Friday, April 8th, 2011.
Send submissions by E-mail to: info@ccwpf-cclpm.ca
Cartoons should be in jpeg format at 300 dpi

Le 11e Concours international de dessin éditorial du Comité canadien de la liberté de la presse mondiale

2011-02-13T10:31:00.002-05:00

Le 11e Concours international de dessin éditorial du Comité canadien de la liberté de la presse mondiale

1. Le thème du 11e Concours international de dessin éditorial est :
«Wikileaks» et ses créateurs: vauriens ou héros?
L’internet et la croissance des réseaux sociaux ont grandement accru la liberté d’expression et l’accès du public à l’information.
Les révélations de « Wikileaks » nous ont montré jusqu’où les États-unis, comme de nombreux autres gouvernements, opèrent dans le secret et limitent l’information dont les citoyens ont besoin pour vivre en société.
Alors que le premier amendement de la constitution américaine protège la liberté d’expression, quelques législateurs réclament la traduction en justice de Julian Assange et soutiennent que les révélations menacent les relations internationales. À vous de juger.
2. Prix : trois prix seront attribués : un premier prix de 1 500 $ accompagné d’un trophée en cristal et d’un certificat de la Commission canadienne pour l’UNESCO, un deuxième prix de 750 $ et un certificat, un troisième prix de 500 $ et un certificat. Toutes ces sommes sont en devises canadiennes. Dix dessins additionnels recevront un Prix d’excellence. Malheureusement, aucun prix en argent n’accompagne ces derniers.
3. Chaque dessinateur ne peut soumettre qu’un seul dessin. Il peut être en couleur ou en noir et blanc, mais il ne doit pas avoir déjà gagné de prix et ne sera pas retourné à son auteur.
4. La dimension du dessin ne devrait pas dépasser le format A4; 21 par 29.2 cm; ou 8.5 par 11 pouces.
5. Le nom, l’adresse, le numéro de téléphone et une courte biographie du participant doivent accompagner la soumission.
6. Le Comité canadien de la liberté de la presse mondiale se réserve le droit d’utiliser les dessins soumis pour faire la promotion du Concours international de dessin éditorial du Comité canadien de la liberté de la presse mondiale.
7. Les noms des lauréats du concours seront annoncés lors du déjeuner de la Journée mondiale de la liberté de la presse qui aura lieu au Centre national des arts à Ottawa le mardi 3 mai 2011. Les récipiendaires seront avisés par courriel. Les noms des lauréats de même que leurs dessins seront affichés sur le site web du CCLPM : http://www.ccwpf-cclpm.ca/
8. Une exposition des 30 meilleurs dessins aura lieu lors du déjeuner.

Les dessins doivent nous parvenir avant 17:00 le vendredi 8 avril 2011.
Soumettre par courriel à : info@ccwpf-cclpm.ca
Les dessins devraient être en format jpeg à 300 dpi

2010 Convention Review

2010-10-02T08:58:00.023-04:00

On Thursday, September 23 2010, cartoonists from across Canada, (plus a couple from the United States) began making their ways to Hamilton, Ontario for the latest convention of the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists. A glaring omission from the weekend festivities was the usual selection of music provided in the hospitality room by Bruce MacKinnon, and Bob Krieger, both of whom were just getting over the effects of jetlag and getting some much needed rest in their respective bookends of Canada. They had spent the previous week at a Sebastian Kruger workshop in Germany, and Bruce was plugging his latest book "PENetration".

Despite the lack of music there was plenty of discussion and many a beer and bottle of wine consumed. Attendees were treated to a great reception at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, a fun tour of 3 Niagara regional wineries and a Saturday banquet capping off the convention with an address by Liberal leader, and the Leader of the Official Opposition, Michael Ignatieff.

After attendees checked into their rooms at the Sheraton Hamilton, about 12 or so headed for dinner just down the street at Papagayo for a taste of Canadian style Mexican food. From there a few continued on and whiled the rest of the evening at Hess Street Village, taking advantage of the warm early Fall air and enjoying a few beers on the patio of SizzleKoi.

The Friday schedule was filled with a several panel discussions, talks, and speeches. Starting off the day was a presentation by Timothy Hellum of the Globe & Mail who gave our group several tips and techniques when using Photoshop. That was followed by a talk given by Mike Cope who showed some of the latest bells and whistles we can all add to make our Powerpoint slide shows more interesting for our audiences.

Shahid Mahmood and Nik Kowsar shared the next panel with a couple of slide presentations. Shahid showed some of his provocative cartoons and referred to the recent global controversy which erupted after a Pastor in the United States announced he was going to burn a copy of the Koran. Shahid chronicled his ongoing battles with the U.S and Canadian governments with regard to being declared a threat to U.S. security and stuck on the Terrorist Screening Center's No-Fly list. He won a minor victory when Air Canada settled with Shahid after the Canadian Human Rights Commission intervened. His fight to have his name taken off the no-fly list continues with the U.S. government.

Nik Kowsar updated attendees with his progress since speaking before the ACEC in 2003, a few years after he fled for Canada, and following his arrest and detention for a cartoon he drew of a cleric while living in his homeland, Iran. Nik was happy to report that his wife and young daughter are now living in Canada. Meanwhile he works for a Dutch foundation, and advocates for freedom of expression as a representative of the Cartoonists Rights Network International. Nik has been appealing for Canada to urge release of Iranian-Canadian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan from prison in Iran. (A couple days after Nik addressed the ACEC, Iran's Revolutionary Court sentenced Derakhshan to a 19 and a half year prison term.)

Andy Donato followed Shahid and Nik by explaining his own personal battle being an editorial cartoonist against Revenue Canada. He won an appeal with the Tax Court of Canada after Revenue Canada sought capital gains taxes on cartoons he donated to university archives. He advice to cartoonists - stick to donating your cartoons to national or even provincial archives.

Barbara Hall, the one time mayor of the city of Toronto, and now Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Board joined us for lunch and addressed the gathering by acknowledging the value of editorial cartoonists in a free society, while reminding us of our boundaries, and the virtues of maintaining a court for complaints for those who feel victimized. Anthony Jenkins presented a short slide show of provocative editorial cartoons to which Ms. Hall made comments on. The most recent cartoon which stirred up some controversy was one drawn by Guy Badeaux who was accused of anti-Semitism. Andy Donato suggested the next time Guy draws the clock face of Parliament's peace tower he should probably add the arms. To thank Ms. Hall for attending, Tony presented her with one of his classic caricatures signed by cartoonists.

Anita Kunz dazzled attendees with a very fast paced show of her recent illustrations which have graced the pages of the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, GQ, and Time, just to name a few. She's been awarded an Order of Canada and she was the first woman to ever have a solo show at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. (The only other woman is Ann Telnaes who also just so happened to be in attendence at the 2010 ACEC convention.)

Finally, in a session called "Cartoon Hodge Podge", Graeme MacKay lead a town hall kind of discussion with the gathering hitting on a few familliar subjects: Portfoolio, Editorial Animation, and the ACEC and Social Media.

Attendees were formally introduced to Warren Clements, the renowned Globe & Mail wordsmith and an experienced comic strip cartoonist who took over responsibilities as the editor of the Portfoolio series. After 23 years, Guy Badeaux handed the responsibilities over to Warren who already has Portfoolio 23 published under his belt. The 24th edition is due to hit bookstores sometime in October 2010.

As mentioned above, Ann Telnaes graced us with her presence in Hamilton. The Pulitzer prize winning cartoonist from 2001 gave an account of the situation in the United States with regards to the progress of Flash animation of editorial cartoons on newspaper websites. Alongside her own success animating for the Washington Post, it was pointed out that Mark Fiore (last years' Pulitzer prize winner), and Walt Handelsman, continue to be the most successful animators in the U.S. in terms of longevity. Contrast the situation with Canada and the prospects of editorial animation proves to be on a bleaker side. Vancouver's Dan Murphy is the current torch bearer keeping editorial animation alive in Canada. He follows in the recent footsteps of Flash animators Michael deAdder, Patrick LaMontagne, and Jim Phillips, who have all had great stints in animating, but were unable to sustain the energy to continue cranking them out.

Finally, Graeme MacKay gave a report on the site statistics for canadiancartoonists.com. It has been 5 years since Graeme took over the responsibilities for the website following Bruce MacKinnon's creation and maintainence of the site. In recent years, the news part of the site has been updated in a blog form away from canadiancartoonists.com, the very blog you are reading this article. Our experimentation with a message board was briefly mentioned as a failure since it became a platform for testy arguments and nasty accusations eventually leading to its meltdown. The suggested new means to communicate among members and anyone else who may be interested is through Facebook. While some are loathe to ever join Facebook, let alone any technology beyond the fax machine, attendees were reminded that Facebook has become the biggest form of Internet communication at the present time. It's the main source of communication with aspiring cartoonists and it's the best way to connect with the thousands of creative editorial cartoonists, illustrators, and newspapers around the world. The ACEC Facebook page is found here, but to become fully engaged ACEC members are urged to register their profiles in case they have not already done so. Here's where you can start.

With the sessions behind us the celebration of our craft began. On display in the Fischer Gallery of the Art Gallery of Hamilton is a show of our editorial cartoons called "Doodles to Digital". The exhibit from September 4 to December 12 are 60 cartoons donated by editorial cartoonists from across Canada. The proceeds of a silent auction will benefit the Hamilton Spectator's registered charity, SpecKids Unlimited, which helps underprivileged children and their families in the Hamilton area. The costs of framing has been covered by the Hamilton Spectator and it was through the Spectator's partnership with the Art Gallery of Hamilton which made the show, as well as the reception on Friday September 24th possible. The Silent auction ends on November 30th, after which cartoonists will receive payment for their cartoons, and then cartoonists will be asked to kindly donate their winnings to SpecKids Unlimited.

Cartoonists and Senior Editors of the Hamilton Spectator took a moment during the art gallery reception to recognize the outstanding career of Blaine, the 32 year veteran editorial cartoonist of the newspaper from 1961 to 1993. A statue entitled mentor by Steel Sculptor Richard Kramer, was awarded to Blaine on behalf of the ACEC.

The morning business meeting on Saturday September 24 began a hectic day of wine touring and the evening banquet. After it was revealed the treasury would need to be drained in order to pay for the Hamilton convention optimism filled the air as a new executive was acclaimed with Terry Mosher becoming the new President of the ACEC. Christian Diagle will continue as Vice-President, and will Guy Badeaux will continue on as Treasurer. Pascal Elie returns to the executive board as Secretary. In 2012, Montreal will be the location of the next convention with hopes of attracting a certain former Prime Minister and a tour of the studios of Serge Chapleau's hit Radio Canada show Et dieu créa... LaFlaque.
From the business meeting attendees quickly headed for the lobby and hopped aboard a bus which took us the the Niagara escarpment bench to take in 3 spectacular wineries overlooking vineyards and Lake Ontario. Flat Rock, Malivoire, and Tawse. The sun kept shining and the wine kept coming. Attendees returned to Hamilton, perhaps a bit tipsy, a little woozy, but curious over meeting our final guest.
Michael Ignatieff and his wife, Zsusanna were treated to a short slide show of editorial cartoons from the Summer Tour. He took it all with a good sense of humour. His speech hit the right chords with cartoonists, with great humor and self deprecation ie: his eyebrows . Staying away from partisan politics he paid tribute to cartoonists without any script, recounting his memories of the cartoons of Herb Block and Duncan MacPherson all off the top of his head. After his address he was presented with an editorial cartoon drawn by Patrick Corrigan and he made a point of making his rounds throughout the hall greeting each and every person.
The hospitality room became the final venue for the convention. Terry Mosher used the room to inspire us to start thinking about making more of an effort to get involved in international contests. There are promises of our own competition and a national tour of international cartoons. The next few years are destined to be positive ones which is something our profession could definitely use in these unpredictable years of the newspaper industry.
Special recognition goes to Andy Donato for persistently lobbying Michael Ignatieff's office which eventually brought him to Hamilton. Steve Artley was kind enough to leave his home in the rolling countryside of Virginia to be in Hamilton where he blended in quite nicely with many new found Canadian friends. Joseph Laquerre gets the prize for having travelled the longest distance to Hamilton from his home in Vancouver. Special thanks goes to Norm Muffitt and his daughter Jen Jones for running the registration desk. Special mention goes to Andrew Skinner, Wes Tyrell, Oleg Dergachov, Theo Moudakis, Brian Gable, Sue Dewar, Dale Cummings, Mike Vukovich, David Collier, Malcolm Mayes, Fran Seary, Gareth Lind, and any other member or spouse/partner who may have missed being mentioned above but who showed up in person during our gathering. Thanks all for making the 2010 ACEC convention a tremendous success!
Photos by Nik Kowsar, Jen Jones, Fran Seary, Graeme MacKay, Wes Tyrell and Christian Daigle

The first CANADIAN BANANA Contest

2010-06-21T09:16:00.005-04:00

Dear Artist,

The First International Cartoon Contest Canadian Banana is inviting works of artists from all over the world.

We sincerely invite you to participate in the competition; it is great honor for us to have your submissions in our contest.

We are going to highlight one of the most serious problems - alcohol addiction and alcoholism.

The modern world is facing a huge problem – alcohol consumption which has dramatically increased during the last years.

It causes fetal alcoholism, numerous deaths in traffic accidents, family drama, health problems and other social disasters.

Dear colleagues, let’s mock people with a bottle in hand with our smart and intelligent abilities.

Thanks for your support and courage,

Sincerely yours,

Oleg Dergachov

cartoonist

Regulations

1. The contest is open to all artists worldwide, cartoonists, caricaturists, painters, illustrators, etc.

2. Theme: Alcoholism

3. Entries: unlimited

4. The size of the works should be unlimited.

5. The works whether they have been awarded in other contests previously will be accepted.

Participants should send their works (black and white or in color up to 2mb, 300 dpi),

filled and signed entry form, given in the bottom of this page and picture of the cartoonist

by e-mail in jpeg format to olegderg@hotmail.com

6. Deadline for entries is November 27, 2010

7. The works must be original.The authors should have full copyright and be responsible for all the legal responsibilities related to the productions' copyright.

Cartoons which are accepted for exhibition and prize-awarded cartoons might be published or used in any kind of publications in press or advertising concerning the contest.

8. Some of accepted works will be printed in a brochure or other printed matter for the purpose of publicizing the exhibition.In these cases,

any fee for the use of works will not be paid.

9. The works will not be returned

10. Do Studio will print a catalog with awarded and selected by jury cartoons. Catalog will be sent to all the selected artists.

Results of the contest will be published online on www.dostudio.ca after December 4th 2010.

60 selected cartoons + 8 awarded cartoons will be exhibited in Montreal City Hall from January till February 2011.

11. Participation in the contest means the complete acceptance of all the above conditions and agreements with jury.

2010 Dalton Camp Award: The power of political cartoons

2010-06-03T11:43:00.001-04:00

By Ethan Georges Rabidoux Published in the Toronto Star, June 3, 2010

The Dalton Camp Award is given to the winners of an essay competition on the link between democratic values and the media in Canada. This year's winners are Rosalyn Yake and Ethan Georges Rabidoux. Read Rabidoux's essay.

“Stop them damn pictures! I don’t care so much what the papers write about me. My constituents can’t read. But, damn it, they can see pictures.”

William Magear Tweed understood the power of a cartoonist’s pen. Tweed was a wealthy New York politician during the 1870s and a character in the 2002 movie Gangs of New York. He was also the target of vociferous attacks by Bavarian-born cartoonist Thomas Nast when he made this statement.

Tweed and his acolytes at Tammany Hall stole between 40 million and 200 million tax dollars in their day (between $1.5 billion and $8 billion today when adjusted for inflation). The New York Times ran a story detailing their graft. The public never caught on until Nast’s political cartoons brought the information to the commoners in a language they understood. Tweed was convicted of larceny and spent the rest of his days in prison. It could not have been done without Nast’s work. The powerful were brought to their knees when their corruption was exposed through cartoons.

Canada’s first original political cartoonist, John Wilson Bengough, was heavily influenced by Nast. In his day, Bengough savaged Canadian leaders with political drawings and started a tradition of satiric artistic commentary that continues to this day.

Political cartoons in Canada have served as the outlet for the working folk of our country to strike back at the elite and to extract a pound of flesh from the judges, politicians and industrialists who held the power. The 19th century French art critic Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson, under the pen name Champfleury, described caricature as “le cri des citoyens.” He was right. Canadian political cartoons gave and continue to give a voice to regular citizens against the powerful.

William Tweed’s observation about the power of political cartoons is supported by Professor David Spencer at the University of Western Ontario. According to Spencer, good artists in Tweed’s era were invaluable because they could “communicate messages to even the partially literate . . . that would be missed in the columns of wordy dialogue that shared the pages.”

This was especially important in early Victorian Canada when literacy rates were low. It was in this environment that Canadian cartooning developed its form. Four recurring themes emerged: Canada/U.S. relations, French/English relations, federal/provincial relations and corruption among the powerful. Through it all, cartoonists provided scathing and relentless criticism of those involved at the highest levels of these disputes. While historians and academics wrote volumes of in-depth, erudite and often boring analysis of the issues, cartoonists portrayed “the situation as it appeared to a gifted and irreverent man in the street.”

Spencer notes that “Victorians used their cartoons to synthesize otherwise complex issues into a visual interpretation.” This tradition continues in Canada today. Unique to Canada is the transcendent nature of the issues lampooned by our cartoonists. Usually, a political cartoon must either be viewed in the era to be understood or viewed by someone knowledgeable about that era. In Canada, the work of early cartoonists remains timely and important to understanding ongoing issues like Quebec nationalism and Canadian autonomy. For this reason, Canadian political cartoons have achieved a level of timelessness unequalled in the United States, Great Britain and elsewhere. They have also enriched our democratic heritage through the creation of an independent, non-partisan media.

John Henry Walker pioneered political cartooning in Canada in 1849 with his magazine Punch in Canada. The magazine emerged at a time when newspapers were mere organs of the various political parties. Punch in Canada refused to adopt any partisan allegiance and it provided savage commentary on Canada/U.S. relations. The magazine did not last long but, as Spencer notes, its legacy was huge:

“The 18-year-old Walker took the first of many steps by himself and others throughout the Victorian Age to separate journalism from the rabid political party partisanship that afflicted much of the press in 19th-century Canada. In effect, Canada’s Victorian political cartoonists were the nation’s first independent editorialists.”

Walker was not a fan of the United States. His drawings reflect the early fears among Victorian Canada of American annexation. Before Punch in Canada, journalists were obligated to choose a political allegiance. Cartoonists focused on Canada/U.S. relations because it transcended partisan lines.

Walker was the first to depict the United States as Uncle Sam (otherwise known as Brother/Cousin Jonathan) in Canadian political cartoons. The portrayal was never flattering. Uncle Sam was drawn as a slippery, greedy, conniving egomaniac hell bent on deflowering (annexing) a young, virginal Miss Canada. Walker, as editor of Diogenes, published one such cartoon in 1869 showing Mrs. Britannia chastising Miss Canada for giving her cousin encouragement that they could ever be united. Miss Canada vehemently denies the charge while a shady Cousin Jonathan, leaning against a post behind her, picks his teeth with a knife.

This portrayal of the United States lingers on. The history of Canadian political cartoons is littered with examples of the symbiotic relationship between the pure Miss Canada and the dirty Uncle Sam.

During the free trade debate in 1987, one of the cartoons by Aislin (Terry Mosher) published in the Montreal Gazette had three panels. The first two showed Sir John A. Macdonald and John Diefenbaker standing protectively in front of two prim, proper young ladies each dressed immaculately for the different periods both men held office. Both prime ministers declared defiantly, “Canada is not for sale!” The third panel showed Brian Mulroney dressed like a pimp behind a young female prostitute ordering her to “get busy.” The caption reads, “Two Great Canadians . . . Macdonald, Diefenbaker . . . and Mulroney.”

Two cartoons, separated by 118 years, tackling the same issue with the same attitude. Canada was sweet and innocent while the U.S. was some kind of dirty fornicator; the implication being that political or economic cooperation with America would defile Canada.

Neither cartoon provides a thorough examination of Canada/U.S. relations or the merits and drawbacks of free trade. However, both provide a humorous, simple critique of the establishment that could be immediately understood by every citizen.

John Wilson Bengough is considered Canada’s first distinctly Canadian political cartoonist. Bengough built his entire career by attacking Sir John A. Macdonald with his satirical magazine Grip. This established the master pattern of Canadian politics. Every prime minister since Macdonald has had a chief antagonist amongst the country’s cartoonists.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier endured Henri Julien, Mackenzie King faced Arch Dale, John Diefenbaker contended with Duncan Macpherson, Pierre Trudeau with Jean-Pierre Girerd, Terry Mosher savaged Brian Mulroney, and Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin were the targets of Serge Chapleau’s wrath.

One of Bengough’s most famous political cartoons shows Macdonald standing on two horses moving in opposite directions. One has “French” written on it, the other, “English.” Sitting on Macdonald’s shoulders is a brooding Louis Riel. The caption reads, “A Riel Ugly Position.” It is dated August 29, 1885.

This cartoon has proven immortal in the annals of Canadian history. Every prime minister since Macdonald has had to keep the French and the English happy while simultaneously dealing with aboriginal issues. This cartoon captures the ongoing balancing act required of Canadian leaders. If any citizens today were to be shown this cartoon, they might not know all the details or even all the characters, but they would understand the message it conveys.

Attacking corruption in high places has endured as another recurring theme in Canadian political cartoons. Bengough was a relentless thorn in Macdonald’s side over corruption. Macdonald’s most extravagant scandal was the Pacific Railway scandal of 1873. He was caught lining the pockets of Tory supporters with lucrative contracts to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Bengough published another famous cartoon of then Liberal leader Sir Alexander Mackenzie in an aggressive, accusatory pose while the prime minister shrugged with indifference.

Some things never change. In 2004, the Martin government called an inquiry into the sponsorship scandal after it was revealed the Chrétien government lined the pockets of Liberal supporters with tax dollars who then donated money back to the Liberal Party of Canada. Same basic scandal, different political party, separated by 130 years. The investigation cost taxpayers another $80 million in addition to what was lost by the actual scandal. Graham Harrop’s cartoon in the Vancouver Sun on Feb. 24, 2005 depicted an inquiry into the Gomery Commission due to its hefty costs. When politicians showed apathy to revelations of corruption, cartoonists attacked them. When they investigated revelations of corruption, cartoonists attacked them. It was the corruption that mattered because regular citizens had to pay for it all through their taxes.

After Macdonald’s death and the rise of Laurier to power, Bengough lost his relevance. He printed flattering images of Laurier charming Brother Jonathan and creating harmony between Catholics and Protestants. Bengough’s career suggests that cartoonists cannot do propaganda. They are antagonistic by nature. Cartoonists are attackers, not defenders. They thrive during chaos and crisis but they do not advance solutions. The cartoonist’s role is to expose political differences and social conflicts, not to fix them.

Federal/provincial relations represent the final perennial issue for Canadian cartoonists. This predates Confederation. Jean-Baptiste Coté depicted Confederation as a seven-headed snake in 1864 in Quebec’s first comic journal La Scie-The Saw. Duncan Macpherson mocked Pierre Elliott Trudeau 104 years later in the Toronto Star. He drew Trudeau playing the cello while 10 orchestra conductors (the provincial premiers) each tried to lead from their own music book.

Macpherson, widely regarded as Canada’s all-time finest political cartoonist, lampooned everything from Dalton Camp’s insurrection against John Diefenbaker to René Lévesque and the Parti Quebecois’ economic policy. He described his own role as that of a heckler.

Macpherson’s initial approach to a political event is instinctive rather than intellectual, and aggressively critical. “You’re a heckler, basically,” he has said. “It’s the same as the old political meetings when you’d hire a couple of fellows to go into the hall and raise hell.”

Raising hell is a good summary of the role Canadian cartoonists have played in our democracy. As Mark Twain has written, “a discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty.” In that sense, political cartoonists have expanded the boundaries of freedom by attacking orthodoxy, elitism and corruption in a way easily understood by the commoners of society. They satirized issues specific to Canadians.

Cartoonists were also average citizens. William Murrell wrote that of all the artists, the cartoonist is closest to the people. They were drawn from ordinary levels of society, rarely highly educated and earning salaries that would possibly grant them entrance to the middle class. They could draw their pictures on behalf of regular citizens because Canadian cartoonists were drawn from these ranks.

Perhaps there is another reason why political cartoons have prospered in Canada, and will continue to do so in the digital age. George Munro Grant was the principal of Queen’s University from 1877 until 1902. In 1886, Grant wrote the preface for J.W. Bengough’s Caricature History of Canadian Politics. He wrote: “Grip (Bengough’s magazine) not only hits the nail on the head but sometimes hits like a blacksmith — and we belong to a race that loves to see a blow well struck.”

We do love a blow well struck, especially when it is delivered by the little guy to his rulers. There have never been more than two dozen cartoonists employed in Canada at any given time. This is already changing. The rise of the Internet and citizen journalism has empowered the rabble to circulate information beyond mainstream media conglomerates. Canadian political cartoons will continue to flourish as the doors open for greater involvement from the gifted and irreverent man in the street. Tomorrow’s cartoonists will follow the example of their predecessors; they will critique the establishment with simple yet brilliant pictures — but there will be more of them.

Brian Gable Wins 2009 NNA

2010-05-17T11:57:00.002-04:00

Brian Gable of the Globe & Mail won his 5th National Newspaper Award over the weekend at the annual conference of the Canadian Newspaper Association in Toronto. The two other finalists in the category of Editorial Cartooning were Malcolm Mayes of the Edmonton Journal, and Terry Mosher from The Montreal Gazette.

A gallery of Brian's other winning entries are found on the Globe & Mail site.

Sheraton Hamilton -- ACEC Convention Hotel

2010-05-14T12:57:00.000-04:00

The Sheraton Hamilton, the official hotel hosting the 2010 Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists convention from September 23-26 is now accepting reservations. There are two options available for booking. The easiest is online:

http://www.starwoodmeeting.com/Book/ACECconvention2010

As a secondary option, member can also call the Sheraton at 1-800-514-7101 to book via telephone. Just make sure you quote the group name “ACEC 2010 Convention” to get the group rate. Both of these options will be available until the cutoff date on August 24th, 2010.

Histoire de la caricature au Québec (VLB)

2010-03-23T11:10:00.005-04:00

Laurence, Jean-Christophe

Comment va la caricature au Québec? Assez bien... pour l'instant. En 2009, les bons sujets n'ont pas manqué. Mais, comme celui des journaux, l'avenir du métier demeure incertain. Alors qu'on publie une Histoire de la caricature au Québec, et la rétrospective annuelle de quatre caricaturistes québécois, La Presse remonte dans le temps et fait le point sur l'avenir.
Grosse année pour nos caricaturistes. Entre la crise économique et l'entrée en scène d'Obama, le départ de Dion et l'arrivée d'Ignatieff, les enveloppes brunes, le bateau d'Accurso et les élections municipales, Vincent Lacroix, Guy Laliberté et la course à la direction de l'ADQ, nos éditorialistes du croquis ont eu de quoi se mettre sous la dent.
Autant dire qu'on se régalera, nous aussi, en feuilletant leurs rétrospectives 2009, qui sont lancées cette semaine à l'occasion du Salon du livre. Outre L'année Chapleau, publié pour la 10e année chez Boréal, Les Éditions La Presse sortent le best of d'André-Philippe Côté (Le Soleil) tandis que les Intouchables et Michel Brûlé se chargent de Garnotte (Le Devoir) et Beaudet (ruefrontenac.com) avec son Blues d'un caricaturiste en lock-out.
Jusqu'ici, rien de très nouveau. Ces bouquins illustrés sont devenus une véritable tradition de fin d'année et un choix quasi imposé pour nos échanges de cadeaux du temps des Fêtes. Ce qui est nouveau, en revanche, c'est cette Histoire de la caricature au Québec, qui paraît également ces jours-ci chez VLB, et qui nous offre un tout autre point de vue sur la patente.
Loin de l'actualité quotidienne, ce bouquin écrit à quatre mains par les historiens Mira Falardeau et Robert Aird raconte plutôt l'évolution d'un art populaire, de ses débuts jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Un survol abondamment illustré (plus de 200 vignettes) qui retrace non seulement l'histoire de la caricature, mais aussi celle de la vie sociale et de la politique au Québec depuis 350 ans.

Deux âges d'or

C'est qu'ils remontent à loin, nos premiers dessins d'humour. Dès la conquête britannique, pour être plus précis, puisqu'on y mentionne un certain George Townshend, qui ne se privait pas pour se gausser du général Wolfe avec ses croquis sans pitié.
Mais c'est au milieu du XIXe siècle que la caricature québécoise atteint son premier âge d'or. Cette période faste correspond à la naissance des journaux satiriques (Grip, Le Farceur, Charivari, Le Canard) qui s'imposent d'emblée auprès du lectorat. "C'est devenu rapidement très populaire, résume Mira Falardeau. Et ça durera au moins jusqu'à la Confédération."
Avec l'arrivée de la grande presse quotidienne (fin XIXe siècle), la presse satirique disparaît et la caricature s'institutionnalise. On ne parle plus de dessinateurs satiriques, mais de "caricaturistes-éditorialistes". De nouveaux noms apparaissent, dont ceux d'Henri Julien au Montreal Star (oui, comme la rue) et Albéric Bourgeois à La Presse. Puis, c'est le deuxième âge d'or, et l'émergence d'une autre génération d'artistes, incluant Normand Hudon et Robert Lapalme, qui se font connaître pendant l'entre-deux-guerres, avec une griffe moderne et singulière. "Ils ont fait école, fait valoir Mme Falardeau. Ils avaient en plus la proie idéale avec Maurice Duplessis!"
C'est, depuis, le règne du perfectionnement. De Girerd et Berthio, à Côté, Chapleau ou Aislin (The Gazette), les caricaturistes d'ici ne feront que confirmer leur statut d'innovateurs, en restant à l'affût des techniques d'avant-garde. Artistiquement, c'est d'ailleurs peut-être ce qui les distingue, estime Mme Falardeau, en évoquant autant l'invention de la leggotypie (1870) que le récent passage de Gérard D. Laflaque au numérique. "Nos caricaturistes ont toujours fait partie des mouvements de tête. Dès qu'il y a une innovation, on l'adopte."

Blogue-moi un dessin

Et l'avenir? Tout dépendra. Avec l'évolution des médias vient celle du métier lui-même. Alors que la presse écrite traverse une crise sans précédent, le nombre de caricaturistes ne cesse de diminuer. C'est particulièrement le cas aux États-Unis, où la politique du "feature syndicate" fait des ravages, certains groupes de journaux ne publiant désormais qu'une seule et même caricature dans tous les quotidiens de la chaîne, ce qui entraîne par la bande une déplorable généralisation du contenu.
Au Québec, on n'en est pas encore là. Mais "c'est un scénario possible", admet Mira Falardeau.
Les prochaines générations de caricaturistes devront-elles trouver leur salut sur le web? Dans des blogues?
"J'ose l'espérer, conclut Serge Chapleau. Mais je ne vois pas encore la lumière au bout du tunnel. Pour l'instant, je ne vois pas l'intérêt de publier sur son blogue. Ça reste plus intéressant de caricaturer dans un environnement réfléchi, comme un gros journal. Nos dessins ont toujours plus de poids quand on est entourés de gens sérieux..."

Marc Beaudet - Le blues d'un caricaturiste en lock-out (Michel Brûlé)
André-Philippe Côté - De tous les... Côté 2009 (Éditions La Presse)
Serge Chapleau - L'année Chapleau 2009 (Boréal)
Garnotte - Garnotte 2009 (Les Intouchables)
Mira Falardeau et Robert Aird - Histoire de la caricature au Québec (VLB)

© 2009 La Presse. Tous droits réservés.

World Press Freedom 10th International Editorial Cartoon Competition

2010-03-04T14:17:00.001-05:00

The Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom 10th International Editorial Cartoon Competition

1. The theme for the 10th International Editorial Cartoon Competition is:

The « right » not to be offended is not a right.

In Canada, Mark Steyn is brought before three different Human Rights Tribunals for allegedly “insulting Islam”.

Meanwhile at the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission, Arab states have for years attempted to make that a crime.

What started out with a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for insulting Mohamed and was dismissed by many as an isolated incident, culminated years later with the assassination of Theo Van Gogh in the streets of Amsterdam for the same offense.

In Denmark, cartoonists still fear for their life for having drawn Mohamed in newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Meanwhile in Ireland, blasphemy is now a criminal offence.

How can we encourage vigorous debate while being respectful of religious sensibilities?

2. Prizes: three prizes will be given: a first prize of $1500, a crystal trophy, plus a Certificate from Canadian UNESCO, a second prize of $750 plus a certificate, and a third of $500 and certificate. All sums are in Canadian dollars. Ten additional cartoons will receive an ‘Award of Excellence.’ Regrettably no financial remuneration accompanies the Awards of Excellence.

3. Only one cartoon will be accepted from each cartoonist. It may be either in colour or black & white and must not have previously won an award.

4. The size of the cartoon should not exceed A4; 21 by 29.2 cm; or 8.50 by 11 inches.

5. The cartoonist’s name, address and telephone number must be included in the e-mail to which the cartoon is attached. A short biography of the Cartoonist should also be provided.

6. The Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom shall have the rights to use any of the cartoons entered in the Competition for promotion of our World Press Freedom Day Luncheon on May 3. Entrance by the cartoonist in this Cartoon competition is deemed acceptance of this condition.

7. The winners of the Cartoon Competition will be announced at the World Press Freedom Day Luncheon held at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2010 and will be advised by e-mail.

The winning names and their cartoons will be posted on the CCWFP web site: http://www.ccwpf-cclpm.ca/

8. The best 30 cartoons will be exhibited at the Luncheon.

The deadline for reception of cartoon is 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 20th, 2010.

Send submission by e-mail to: info@ccwpf-cclpm.ca

The cartoon should be in jpg format at 300 dpi

Andy Donato beats the tax man - again

2009-11-30T21:32:00.005-05:00

Andy Donato has been skewering politicians, bureaucrats and public figures for nearly 40 years in his editorial cartoons in the Sun newspaper chain. But for the past seven years, Mr. Donato has been waging a personal battle with the government, and federal tax officials in particular.

The dispute centres around 710 cartoons Mr. Donato donated to Touro College in New York and Ontario's Brock University in 1999 and 2001. The contributions were valued at close to $500,000 in total and Mr. Donato claimed a charitable tax credit on his taxes.

In 2002, officials from the Canada Revenue Agency went after him.

First, the CRA disallowed some of the credits, alleging Mr. Donato improperly made some of the donations through his wife. When Mr. Donato resolved that issue through the courts, the CRA took him to task again, alleging he owed capital gains taxes on the gifts. At one point, the CRA was seeking more than $100,000.

Mr. Donato fought back. He filed a tax appeal and took the case to the Tax Court of Canada. In a ruling made public this week, the court dismissed the bulk of the CRA's case.

"It was almost like a persecution," Mr. Donato said yesterday from his home in Toronto. "What bothered me was I was the only cartoonist in the country that they went after. [Several other] cartoonists have been donating to universities for years, and getting tax receipts, and they haven't been touched. I was the only one they went after and that pissed me off. ... They just kept up. They wouldn't let up."

Mr. Donato said he was particularly upset because he had planned to make more donations to universities but stopped because of the dispute. He has been especially proud of the gift to Brock because the university uses his work in several courses, including art classes and political science studies.

"I wanted to keep donating to Brock because they put them to good use," he said, noting that he has donated cartoons to other universities, including Ryerson University, and to the National Archives of Canada.

"Now that this is over, I'm going to look into it again because I really would like to donate to universities rather than the archives. The archives have a huge collection of mine now."

He has also cautioned other cartoonists about his plight. "I gave them a warning about what not to do," he said. This case "has got to haunt every cartoonist."

Mr. Donato has been drawing editorial cartoons for nearly 50 years and has won numerous awards. He started at the Toronto Telegram in 1961 after working as a layout artist at Eaton's department store. When that paper closed in 1971, he helped launch the Toronto Sun. He took a buyout from the Sun in 1997 but continues to draw for the chain, with his trademark bird signature, under a contract that pays him roughly $400 per piece.

He said many editorial cartoonists began donating their work years ago because there is virtually no market for the drawings after they have been published. "You don't sell any," he said. "The odd time, you get a request for one. The first time you draw a politician, they want the cartoon and that's it. They sit around, what are you going to do with them?"

When asked if the CRA might have gone after him because he has been too hard on politicians, Mr. Donato laughed and said: "I don't think I've been that bad."

His contract with the Sun expires next year but he hopes to renew it and keep going. For how long? "As long as I can," he said. "There's so much going on." Source: The Globe & Mail

Fleg and Chapleau: 1981

2009-11-23T21:17:00.002-05:00

Christian Daigle has unearthed this great interview he did with Serge Chapleau way back in 1981. The hair alone makes it worth viewing:

Portfoolio23 Hits the Bookstores

2009-10-09T12:17:00.006-04:00

Quebec cartoonists need only wait for politicians to hand them ideas

BY BILL BROWNSTEIN, THE GAZETTENOVEMBER 15, 2009

There was much grief and gnashing of teeth in certain quarters when Dubya sashayed out of the White House this year, and when Sarah Palin failed to make it in, with John McCain.

No, not only among the Republicans, silly. But also among editorial cartoonists.

Similarly, there was sadness in these parts - not only Liberals - when Stéphane Dion got the boot as boss. On the other hand, Canadian editorial cartoonists aren't complaining about his replacement, Iggy, as a target. Or, for that matter, Chuckles Harper.

Sure, the world is on the brink of disaster: swine flu, economic crises, global warming, North Korean nuclear testing, Twitter, John Minus Kate Plus 8. But what a grand time our cartoonists are having depicting our planet's demise in their gloriously irreverent drawings.

To many local anglos, there may appear to be only two kinds of compendiums of Canadian editorial cartoons: those by Terry Mosher (Aislin), such as his most recent and 42nd delight, Shenanigans, and those in which Aislin merely contributes, along with colleagues across the country, such as the new Portfoolio 23: The Year's Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons (Amazon - $14.56).

And as Aislin would be the first to mention, this country is a hotbed for editorial cartoonists. This province in particular.

Apart from Aislin, there is his buddy Serge Chapleau, the ever-piquant La Presse cartoonist; Le Droit's Bado, Guy Badeaux; Le Soleil's André-Philippe Côté; Le Devoir's Garnotte, Michel Garneau; Pascal Elie, The Gazette's Sunday and Monday cartoonist; freelancers Fleg (Christian Daigle) and Nemo (Jose Neves); and, of course, the Mirror's Dave Rosen. And for the record, some of the above - Chapleau, Côté, Garnotte, Rosen - have also released their own solo volumes.

But all of the above, as well as representatives from across the land, are included in Portfoolio 23: The Year's Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons. And what a year it has been. Then again, so were the preceding 22 years, documented in previous Portfoolio editions. And, likely, so will be the years to come, until the planet blows up.

Their drawing styles may contrast dramatically, but these Canadian cartoonists all share one thing in common: they take no prisoners when lampooning ludicrous politicos and alleged cultural icons, not to mention the sad state of the universe. It is, of course, to laugh. Which beats the alternative all to hell.

Rosen feels that Quebec produces an inordinate number of acidic cartoonists for a couple of reasons.

"For starters, there are an inordinate number of daily, weekly and monthly and whatever newspapers in this province, almost all of which employ cartoonists," says Rosen, who has seven of his creations, in Portfoolio 23, including the back cover. "But more to the point, Quebec politics just makes it so easy for us. And, as an added bonus, Montreal politics have suddenly become juicy. Add to that the seemingly annual federal elections, and there's just never a dull moment here.

"You don't even have to come up with ideas here anymore. The politicians pretty much just hand them to you. And then there's the whole world stage for fodder - be it the U.S. or North Korea. These are golden times for editorial cartoonists."

Rosen, a one-time CBC Radio traffic reporter, has been doodling since he was a young teen. Not long after, he did editorial cartoons for the defunct local underground paper Logos. His inspirations were famed American cartoonist Robert Crumb as well as Aislin - who also did time at Logos - and Chapleau.

"When I began, I tried doing Aislin's masterly cross-hatching style, but over the years I've simplified my style," notes Rosen, who drew for Hour for 10 years before moving over to the Mirror seven years ago. "I'd say I was more of a minimalist now. Actually, I'm moving closer to the Looney Tunes style - which may be because I'm a big fan of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones.

"But I love doing the Canadian party leaders. They look like Star Trek characters: Harper is Kirk, Iggy is Spock; and Jack and Gilles, the two expendable crewmen on the ship. Canadian politicians are essentially a gift to cartoonists. It's the good-looking politicians like Obama who are a problem. It takes time to get their likeness into caricature."

Rosen faces different challenges than fellow cartoonists who work for the dailies. "It would be a blast to get in there four or five days a week and draw on the topic du jour," says Rosen, who has had a cartoon published in the New York Times. "The difficulty about cartooning for a weekly is to pick a story that will have legs for a week. There's a lot of serious head-banging on Monday morning before my deadline trying to find that story."

But Rosen, like the others, is at least blessed to live in a place where there is no shortage of enduring stories - soaps, sitcoms?

After a two year absense, Portfoolio reawakens for its 23rd edition. You can now order it on Amazon.

ACEC CONVENTION 2010

2009-09-23T10:38:00.006-04:00

One year from today, Hamilton will host the 2010 convention of the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists. Please mark in your calendars the dates September 23, 24, and 25 and do what you can to attend this event. While we won’t be blessed by the breathtaking surroundings of the Rocky Mountains as was the case with our last convention in Banff, you are guaranteed to be impressed and surprised by what Hamilton has to offer in terms of entertainment, culture, and, believe it or not, its natural environment.

If you’re coming a long distance and plan to make the most of it by adding a few extra days you’ll be interested to know that we are less than an hour away from Niagara Falls to the east, less than an hour away from Toronto to the north, and less than an hour away from the rolling hills of Mennonite country to the west.

The shape of the convention itself is still in its early stages with plans for engaging panel discussions plus,

a gallery show at the newly refurbished Art Gallery of Hamilton ( http://www.artgalleryofhamilton.com/)
a charitable auction of original works (supported by willing donors)
a Niagara wine tour. This is the time of the year when wine festivities are in full flight, and we’ll be taking full advantage.
Flexibility. While there’ll be scheduled events lots of time will be allocated for catching up, meeting new members and grooving to tunes.

Our hotel is most likely the downtown Sheraton, pending a competitive rate. You’ll be notified once we’ve secured a block of rooms:
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=185

Lots of flights arrive and depart daily from Hamilton from all over Canada. Here’s a taste of who’s coming and going:
http://www.flyhi.ca/

More interesting links:
Tourism Hamilton - http://www.tourismhamilton.com
Niagara Wine Festival - http://www.niagarawinefestival.com/page/winefest_home

Stay tuned for more updates. If you’d like more information or have any suggestions, please contact me at gmackay@thespec.com, or call (905) 526-3439. Assistance is needed to make this a successful convention, so please volunteer if you can.

Why the portrait gallery matters

2009-09-14T10:55:00.003-04:00

'A picture of the Canadian people': Why the portrait gallery matters

BY PAUL GESSELL, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Most countries have artworks considered to be such an important part of the national patrimony that they are rarely, if ever, removed from the museums that exhibit them like holy relics.

Examples include the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci at the Louvre in Paris and Las Dos Fridas (The Two Fridas) by Frida Kahlo at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.

Canada's closest equivalent, many art experts say, is a group of four paintings in the collection of that institution we used to call the Portrait Gallery of Canada. They are The Four Indian Kings, portraits of four aboriginal leaders who served as ambassadors from Canada to the court of Queen Anne in 1710.

The four chiefs represent the very soul of Canada. They are, in essence, the royal forefathers of all Canadians. Few Canadians have had the opportunity to see them because, for the last quarter of a century, they have mostly been locked up in a vault at Library and Archives Canada.

The portrait gallery never had a dedicated exhibition venue for the thousands of photographs, paintings and other images in its vast collection and now the institution does not even have a name.

A leaked memo revealed this week it has been reduced to a mere "program" lumped together with other Library and Archives activities.

Daniel Caron, head of Library and Archives, maintained Thursday the portrait gallery continues to exist in a new format. But some of his employees privately disputed that, and so did much of the Canadian art world.

"This is a tragedy," said Jerry Grey, an Ottawa artist whose body of work includes many portraits, some acquired by the portrait gallery, the City of Ottawa and other institutions.

Diana Nemiroff, director of Carleton University Art Gallery, agreed. A portrait gallery is "a picture of the Canadian people," said Nemiroff.

Without an institution to identify it, that picture is out of focus.

Ottawa-based art historian Maureen Korp noted that portrait galleries began thousands of years ago when images of humans were scrawled onto the walls of caves. In fact, there seems to be a basic need by people to create portrait galleries, whether by cave drawings or a living room wall of family photos. Today, countries as diverse as the United States and Barbados have some form of a portrait gallery.

But not Canada.

The demise of the portrait gallery means most Canadians will likely never get to see The Four Indian Kings. They may show up from time to time in some exhibition in Vancouver or Halifax. But, unlike the Mona Lisa or The Two Fridas, they will have no permanent home where Canadians can come to pay their respects and make a human connection to their country's history.

The portraits, painted by John Verelst, were once owned by Queen Elizabeth, but were given to Canada in 1977.

These revered aboriginal portraits were part of an exhibition in 2007 in England. Afterward, under the auspices of the portrait gallery, there were supposed to travel across Canada alongside some contemporary First Nations portraits.

But the tour, along with so many plans of the portrait gallery, never happened. Chances are far more people in England than in Canada have seen these portraits.
The original portrait gallery was supposed to be in the former American embassy on Wellington Street across from the Parliament Buildings. There was to be a room just for the photographs of Yousuf Karsh, whose entire body of work is held as prints or negatives by the portrait gallery.

Gilbert Gignac, the retired manager of the art collection of Library and Archives, says there are enough materials in the portrait gallery collection to fill a room just on Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. There's the first portrait of Macdonald ever done, showing a young law graduate, as well as some older pictures, and portraits of Macdonald's first wife and his children. Together, there are all the elements to bring Macdonald to life.

Portraits, said Gignac, "shorten the distance to the past." As well, portrait collections are "the family albums of the nation."

When fires or floods threaten a house, people first rush family albums to safety. Canada's family album is not threatened. But will anybody get to see it? And will more images be added?

The portrait gallery holdings date back to a superb collection of 17th-century French prints, including various kings and their top-ranking officials in New France. That collection takes Canadian history through the centuries to the present, including a cool photograph of jazz musician Diana Krall by rocker-photographer Bryan Adams.
The portrait gallery had been collecting portraits of contemporary writers, athletes, actors and others, including poet Leonard Cohen, author Margaret Laurence, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and politician Elijah Harper. But some gallery officials privately said they fear these contemporary acquisitions will end or greatly diminish under the new arrangement at Library and Archives Canada. The danger is that the collection will become static, or only offer portraits of the long dead.

Art-savvy individuals such as Grey and Gignac say all is not lost. Grey thinks Library and Archives can stop a catastrophe if it shows some "imagination." Gignac notes that it took the National Gallery four architectural competitions spread over a quarter of a century to get its current "world-class" building on Sussex Drive.

"Maybe there will be another kick at the can for the portrait gallery," said Gignac.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Cartoonist Bob Muirhead Dies

2009-08-12T13:15:00.002-04:00

From the Salmon Arm Observer

Another bright light has been extinguished far too soon.

Cartoonist Bob Muirhead died in his Salmon Arm home on Sunday morning. He was 66 years old.

A school counsellor during the day and a talented cartoonist, Bob Muirhead’s drawings offered insightful weekly commentary on the Observer’s editorial page for close to 20 years.

Until his debilitating stroke four years ago, Muirhead’s weekly visits to drop off his cartoons in the newsroom were highly anticipated.

His no-holds-barred look at the issues of the day always evoked a strong reaction – usually laughter.

Muirhead’s arrival on the Observer’s editorial page was arranged by then-editor Gordon Priestman, who often met with the cartoonist over a cup of coffee.

Ian Wickett owned the paper at the time and says Priestman, who drew cartoons himself, began running some of Muirhead’s creations. And, he adds, somewhere along the line, Muirhead wanted to create a collection of cartoons.

They were successful and, as they say, the rest is history.

“I remember one of his first cartoons involved teachers,” Wickett says, noting that the birds in the drawings represented co-workers and that the cartoons were a bit gentler in the beginning.

“He was taking humorous looks at life in Salmon Arm; then, when he was syndicated, they (cartoons) moved into politics and other issues beyond Salmon Arm.”

Recuperating at home from a stroke in October 2007, Muirhead said he got his cartooning start in Mexico, where he attended the Instituto Allende in the 1960s. He practised his craft throughout his 40-year career with school boards, first in Vancouver and then in the Shuswap.

Struggling to overcome the effects of the stroke on his speech, Muirhead said he enjoyed both his careers with the school board and as the Observer cartoonist – a position that earned him many awards over the years and sparked letters to the editor.

And his views were always his own. Though many tried, he never allowed others to give him suggestions for his cartoons.

An avid CBC radio and television fan, Muirhead said he came up with his ideas, sometimes in meeting someone or in the news of the day.

In the two years following his stroke, Muirhead had undergone intensive physiotherapy, which included a stay at Bastion Place.

His drawing table had been modified and, with CBC Radio playing in the background, he was, once again, trying to set the ideas of a keen mind onto paper.

“It’s frustrating, not to be able,” he said during an interview with the Observer in 2007, referring to his inability to create the finer details of a cartoon. “I am drawing bigger things.”

A date for a memorial service for Bob Muirhead had not been set as of presstime Tuesday.

SPECIAL REPORT: Will the Editorial Cartoonist Vanish

2009-06-11T19:45:00.005-04:00

By Mark Fitzgerald for Editor and Publisher
Article June 11, 2009

CHICAGO To be a newspaper staff editorial cartoonist these days is to live in dread that the next phone call is coming from the human resources department. "There's a great sense of dismay and gloom in the editorial cartooning world," says Steve Greenberg, a member of that fraternity. Because their numbers were so small to begin with, the departure of cartoonists amid the mass layoffs in newsrooms around the nation has had a huge impact on the craft.

MSNBC cartoonist Daryl Cagle, who hosts the Political Cartoonists Index Web site, counts more than 30 who took buyouts or were laid off by mid-April, including such well-known figures as Don Wright at The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, Jim Borgman at The Cincinnati Enquirer and Bill Day at The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn. More recently, the departures of editorial cartoonists have been coming at a rate of two or more a month.

"The number of staff editorial cartoonists who are extremely safe is tiny," says Greenberg. He speaks from experience: Before he was laid off at the Ventura County (Calif.) Star last November, he reasoned that he was safe because cartooning was a secondary job to his main occupation there in news graphics.

Winning a Pulitzer Prize isn't even enough in some cases. David Horsey, who won Pulitzers for cartooning in 1999 and again in 2003, lost his job when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased print publication. Though he stayed on as the newspaper went online-only, he now draws for all Hearst papers, but not as a local cartoonist. Following the layoff of Eric Devericks at The Seattle Times last December, there is no major-metro local editorial cartoonist in Seattle.

Being syndicated is also no job guarantee. In King Features' stable of editorial cartoonists, for instance, are Brian Duffy, who was laid off from The Des Moines Register in December, and John Branch, who was let go at the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News in March. The two continue to draw, and are included in the syndicate's weekly "The Best and the Wittiest" package. "They're still extremely good at what they do, and we still value what they do," says King Features Comic Editor Brendan Burford.

Losing their staff positions hasn't affected their marketability, Burford adds: "I think there's a lot of sympathy for those cartoonists who are laid off or take the buyouts. It doesn't speak to how good they are, it just speaks to the economy of newspapers these days."

Chip Bok, who took a buyout from the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, is another example of a cartoonist without a newspaper who continues to be syndicated, in his case by Creators Syndicate. "I'm concerned about them as a friend, but on the other hand we're hoping there will be opportunities" in new media in the future, says Creators President and CEO Richard S. Newcombe.

This exodus of editorial cartoonists, however, isn't creating any real selling opportunities to newspapers suddenly without staff artists, syndicates say. "I wish I could tell you there was something positive out of this," Newcombe adds. "That certainly seems to be what logic would dictate — but at the same time, budgets have been cut so much that I haven't seen any change. It's just such a depressed market these days."

Another reason there's been no bump for the syndicates is that newspapers with staff editorial cartoonists often were also substantial buyers of syndicated cartoons, says King Features' Burford. While the demand for that material hasn't slackened, neither has it increased, he notes.

Greenberg, who self-syndicates cartoons themed for Jewish newspapers, admits he is experiencing the same stalled demand. "I would have thought there would be more opportunity for freelance work because of the cuts," he says, "but unfortunately, freelance budgets are being cut too."

Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P's editor-at-large.

Roy Peterson Laid Off

2009-06-03T10:29:00.011-04:00

In what must come as a shock to our members, and fans of editorial cartooning in general, Roy Peterson's 47 year career at The Vancouver Sun has come to an abrupt end, as he becomes the latest victim of newspaper cost-cutting.

Roy's cartoons are the stuff of legend in Canadian cartooning, his wit and artwork second to none, as proven by his 7 National Newspaper Awards. Roy has always been an ardent supporter of this association and our members, and has been a mentor to many of us. There will no doubt be a wave of anger moving through our waters at this news. Frankly, for his position at the Sun to come to an end in this fashion is appalling.

Following is his bio from our site and a link to an article in Saturday's Vancouver Sun.

Roy Eric Peterson is western Canada's pre-eminent editorial cartoonist. Although he works for many publications, it is his work for The Vancouver Sun as successor to the late Len Norris that constitutes his major contribution to the world of cartooning. He began work for The Vancouver Sun in 1962. His work has appeared in Punch, The Spectator, Time and The New York Times, and for many years MacLean's magazine.

He is a founding member of the ACEC and served as president in 1990. He was the first Canadian editorial cartoonist to be elected president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (1983). His cartoons have won numerous citations and international awards, including the Montreal International Salon of Humour Grand Prix. In 1999, he won his seventh National Newspaper Award, the most ever won by any journalist in the 50 years of the awards. In 2004 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Roy Peterson: Cartoons that afflict the comfortable.

Quebec Community Newspaper Awards for Best Editorial Cartoon Announced

2009-05-27T12:31:00.004-04:00

Click image for detailed version

The winner of this year's Quebec Community Newspaper Awards in the category of Editorial Cartooning is Anthony Bonaparte of The Suburban City Edition. The runners-up are Ferg Gadzala of The Westmount Examiner, and Stan Roach of The Chronicle West Island.

Cam wins the NNA

2009-05-25T14:13:00.002-04:00

Cam Cardow, of the Ottawa Citizen, has won Canada’s top prize for editorial cartooning in the 2008 National Newspaper Awards. The runners-up were Brian Gable of the Globe and Mail and John Larter of the Calgary Herald. This is Cam’s second NNA, after having won the award in 1989.

A Gable Cartoon, From Conception to Final Draft

2009-05-12T22:37:00.009-04:00

By Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief of The Globe & Mail

Article from May 10, 2009

In September, 1980, a high-school art teacher from Brockville, Ont., started drawing cartoons one row behind me in the newsroom of the Regina Leader-Post. His name was Brian Gable and he had the largest space in the newsroom to accommodate his drafting table and a pointy collection of implements of wit, satire, simile. If you were a public figure drifting from the public interest, Brian would almost certainly nail your head to the coffee table.

The thing was, he was so genteel on a personal level. And the subjects he skewered would be on the phone the next day begging to buy the original.

Four National Newspaper Awards later - and possibly a fifth later this month - Brian remains as fresh as ever. A thoroughly modern man, he has been doing his cartoons for nearly 10 years on a digital drawing tablet. He's also taken to producing an electronic sketchbook on globeandmail.com.

And now our hyper-innovative cartoonist is about to break new ground in partnership with our boundary-busting video-editor-cum-impresario, Jayson Taylor.

A time-compressed video of Brian's creative process has been posted on The Globe website. Hours brought down to minutes, you can follow along from the conception of an editorial cartoon through to the final draft. Believe me, it's fun to watch.

Photo Credit: Nikahang Kowsar

ACEC Banff Convention Cartoons

2009-04-24T16:56:00.005-04:00

I had the pleasure of speaking to a school on the south end of Calgary today. They invite me every year to their 'Life Choices' day to talk about editorial cartooning. The classroom where I normally speak is proof that editorial cartoons are still appreciated. Many printouts and tearsheets are up on bulletin boards around the class featuring the cartoons of many of our members, along with student interpretations and projects about editorial cartooning. The Vice Principal and Social Studies teacher are big fans of editorial cartoons and they pass that on to their students.

These kids (Grade 7 and 8) are very knowledgeable about politics and current events and I really enjoy the opportunity each year.

For those of you who attended the Banff Convention last year, you may have wondered what happened to all of the environment cartoons featured in the gallery showing. Those created by the Calgary area cartoonists (Rodewalt, Larter, TAB, LaMontagne) went to our sponsor, Mona Lisa Art Supplies. The rest of them have sat in my basement until today.

I donated all of the cartoons to the school on behalf of the association and they were very pleased to receive them. I have no doubt that the next time I attend, they will be hanging up around the classroom or in the library. Unfortunately I've no photos to share as there was no official presentation, but I'd thought you might like to know that your efforts were not wasted, and that the collection was appreciated.

Cheers,
Patrick

J.J. McCullough Calls it Quits, for now

2009-04-23T10:01:00.004-04:00

At the age of just 24, J.J. McCullough has proven himself to be an accomplished editorial cartoonist after banking nearly one thousand cartoons on his popular website, Filibuster Cartoons. After 8 years, he's calling it quits. In his own words is his farewell... for now.

* * * * * *

It’s with a heavy heart that I have decided to put Filibuster on an indefinite hiatus.

My reasons are multiple, but the simplest explanation may also be the most blunt — the site is simply not popular enough.

I have been doing Filibuster for nearly eight years now, which is not an insignificant period of time by webcomic standards. I’ve produced almost 1,000 toons, and while my update schedule has obviously become far more loose over the course of the last year or so, overall, I’ve still held pretty firm to my self-imposed mandate of at least one toon a week, every week, since 2001.

Yet I don’t feel I have very much to show for it all. If Google Analytics is to be believed, I average an extraordinarily pathetic 2,000 visitors a day, a rate that has remained depressingly constant over the last few years, in spite of producing a number of very popular comics that have been cross-linked from some big-name blogs. In such situations I may get an enormous deluge of new visitors for a day or two, but it always trickles back into a wimpy stream soon enough. I likewise get very few emails from readers, and this site’s forum, though home to much intelligent and engaging dialogue, remains sparsely inhabited. It’s all very unsatisfying.
I don’t know exactly why Filibuster never “caught on.” Usually sheer longevity (coupled with a vaguely consistent standard of quality) is enough to drive up some sort of stable support base with just about any webcomic, but not so with mine.

I have my theories, of course. A leading one is that most people simply don’t like editorial cartoons, so I always faced an uphill battle. Editorial cartooning is a somewhat anachronistic art form with a subtlety that many people either don’t get, or actively dislike. Political cartoons, with their stock symbols and labels and visual metaphors and all the rest are formulaic, yes, but so is Manga and so are superhereo comics and so are online strips about video games and all the rest. But I’ve never quite understood why some folks get such a thrill out of eagerly denouncing and mocking the traditions (admittedly unimpressive and boring as they sometimes are) of political cartoons with a snobbish venom few other forms of cartooning ever have to face.

But editorial cartooning may be on the way out, anyway. According to Daryl Cagle, the prolific commentator on all things relating to editorial cartoons, as newspapers become less profitable in the internet age, editorial cartoons are often one of the first costs to cut. As a result, claims Cagle, there are now “only a few dozen editorial cartoonists left” in the United States “and they seem to be losing their jobs at a pace of about one per week.” So maybe I bet on the wrong horse.

Of course, this theory does not explain the tremendous success enjoyed by Cox and Forkum, another solely online editorial cartoon (now in hiatus too) whose popularity was enough to inspire tens of thousands of visitors, two books, reprints in newspapers across the United States and Canada, and all the accompanying rewards. Granted, Cox and Forkum was always an explicitly right-wing comic, which gave them a strong support base during the fanatic polarization of the Bush years. I’m not going to self-righteously suggest that I was somehow above crass partisanship myself when my pet issues were at play, but I was certainly less interested than most in making my comic openly pro or anti left or right. And that probably hurt me. Content wise, I was probably also too Canadian for my majority-American readership, and not Canadian (or perhaps not pro-Canadian) enough to get a strong Canadian base. But who knows, maybe I just should have updated more.

A webcomic can only be a labour of love for so long. In recent months Filibuster has become a bit of a chore, and its obligatory nature has often drawn my creative / artistic energy away from other projects that I am more interested in perusing. Living in Japan has likewise proven to be a much more difficult and unhappy experience than I anticipated, and the last thing I need when I’m in such a state is one more unpleasant chore to further lower my mood.

Lastly, I’m simply just not as into politics as I used to be, at least for now. I think President Obama deserves the benefit of the doubt for the time being, and I don’t wish him any particular ill in pursuing whatever agenda it is he’s pursuing. America voted for change, and he has a right to implement it. Politics in Canada, by contrast, has become so profoundly anti-change that I really have a hard time getting passionate about it anymore. Harper and Ignatieff are both decent men, I guess, but it’s going to be a long time before any effort is made to address Canada’s fundamental problems, which as a wise man once said, are never openly acknowledged, let alone solved.

Anyway, while one never wants to say never, especially when one is as fickle as I, I think this is going to be the end of Filibuster for a while. I’ve had a good run. Enjoy the archives, and if you are still interested in following my art, be sure to check out my Deviant Art page, which I will hopefully be updating more regularly in lieu of this site. When I do more writings or charts, I’ll also stick them on here, so updates will occur. I’m also planning on revamping my Canada Guide sometime in the future, so… don’t abandon Filibuster completely.

Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me this long. Though I may sound down, it has been a great experience for me overall, and I’ve learned a ton. Hopefully you’ve gained something, too.

Editorial Cartoon Animation for the established cartoonist

2009-04-09T13:34:00.002-04:00

Still thinking about animating but not knowing where to start? Greg Parker is an animator who has already proven his skills by putting motion to the editorial cartoons of Andy Donato, Patrick Corrigan, and Robert Ariail. Now he wants to offer his services to other editorial cartoonists. So, here's Greg:

Editorial Cartoon Animation for the established cartoonist

by Greg Parker

I'm an animator who has always enjoyed Editorial cartoons and had great respect for the cartoonists, who consistantly come up with humorous, thought provoking, poignant, relevant cartoons. Not an easy task!

So with most newspapers having websites I worked out a process where I could fairly quickly animate existing cartoons while staying true to the cartoonist's style. Then I approached some papers with my idea.

The cartoonists and editorial page editors were enthusiastic, but when I started this I had no idea how bad a state newspapers were in, and they did not want to spend any money. I lowered my price to $300 an animation which is extremely low for animation, but apparantly a king's ransom to newspapers these days. That's unfortunate, because I think editorial cartoon animation could help bring the traffic they need to their websites.

Now with newspapers failing and editorial cartoonist's being laid off in record numbers, I don't think because newspapers are going down, the wonderful and important artform of editorial cartooning should go down with them!

So now I'm on a crusade to help editorial cartoons with animation which can give the cartoonist more media options. I'm working on some different ideas, but I'm open to suggestions.

Anyway, you can check out some examples at my website http://editorialcartoonanimation.com

Wacom Introduces Intuos4 Tablet

2009-03-25T10:31:00.007-04:00

With twice the sensitivity of any tablet previously on the market, better handling, and a whole bunch of amazing new features, this is a major upgrade over anything Wacom has released before. If you're finally ready to take the plunge and get a tablet or if you're in the market for a new one, this may just put you over the edge.

The Wacom website has been up and down this morning, likely due to the fact that news of the launch has overloaded their site with visitors, so try again later if it's not working.

Check out the links.
Wacom Intuos4 Photo Gallery
What's New On The Intuos4

The NNA Nominees are in...

2009-03-19T16:11:00.004-04:00

For the category of editorial cartooning...

Cameron Cardow, Ottawa Citizen

Brian Gable, the Globe and Mail

John B. Larter, Calgary Herald.

Winners of the 2008 National Newspaper Awards to be announced May 22 in Montreal.

ALSO...

2009 Better Newspaper Competition Winners
Canadian Community Newspaper Association

Best Local Cartoon - Circulation up to 9999

1. Wyatt Tremblay, Whitehorse/Yukon Territory (YT) Yukon News
2. Dennis Parker, Salt Spring Island (BC) Gulf Islands Driftwood
3. Jonathan Mahood, Parry Sound (ON) North Star

Best Cartoon - Circulation 10000 and over

1. Steve Nease, Oakville (ON) Beaver
2. Tim Dolighan, Peterborough (ON) Peterborough This Week
3. Bob Castle, Courtenay Comox Valley (BC) Comox Valley Record

Self-Syndication Seminar

2009-03-19T15:36:00.010-04:00

While perusing The Daily Cartoonist this week, I came across mention of a seminar in September in Las Vegas on self-syndication of comics. While the focus is not specific to editorial, many of the topics they'll be speaking on directly apply. With the slicing and dicing of many newspaper budgets, we're all aware that we're entering into a new reality of cartooning, and it's come a lot faster than many have expected. This is potentially one opportunity to adapt and take better control over our own businesses and cartoons, editorial and otherwise. Newspapers seem to be having a very difficult time adapting to the digital age. There is no reason for each of us to follow their example.

I spoke with one of the organizers, Bill Kellogg, by email today and asked him some pretty straightforward questions, specifically...if newspapers are failing, aren't comics and comic strips following as well? Here is part of his response, quoted with permission...

"The line-up of speakers we have is meant to cover how to make money in all
areas of cartooning, from syndicates, self syndication, online syndication,
web sites, magazines, books, calendars, newsletters, licensing, etc. I chose
these speakers because they are all successful in their areas and they are
all willing to talk about it which means we should all be able to benefit
from their experience and what they have to say.

Some of the 'big guys' in comics make hundreds of millions of dollars per
year off of their comics; Garfield & Peanuts for example and only a tiny
percentage of that comes from newspapers."

I've paid my deposit and will be attending. If you think this may benefit you as well, here are a couple of excerpts from The Daily Cartoonist Postings on the seminar, with all of the appropriate info and links included.

Cheers,
Patrick

Self-syndication seminar set for September

Posted by Alan Gardner
February 16, 2009

As mentioned before, Bill Kellogg, the marketing/sales guy who has taken Chad Carpenter’s Tundra from a handful of papers to over 275 in just a couple of years will be hosting two 2-day seminars on how to self-syndicate your feature. Also invited to speak are known cartoonist/speakers who have found creative ways to monetize their cartoons beyond the traditional syndication model (internet, licensing, merchandise sales, etc.)

The seminars will be September 26-27th and the 28-29th at the Tuscany Suites in Las Vegas. Seminar admission is set at $500. You can repeat the seminar (take all four days) for an additional cost of $30 per day. You’re responsible for travel, food and lodging. The Tuscany has a $85/night rate for the 25th and 26th and $45/night for the 27th and 29th.

The guest speakers include:
Chad Carpenter and Bill Kellogg - Chad and Bill will discuss how they managed to get Tundra in 275+ newspapers without a syndicate including some of the largest papers in the US and Canada. They will also talk about self-publishing books & calendars, licensing and distributors.

Amy Lago - Amy is the comics editor for the Washington Post Writers Group. Being a big syndicate boss, she will look over attending cartoonists’ strips and give individual suggestions as well as talk to the group about what the syndicates are looking for. Be sure to bring your best samples of material. Who knows, she might find the next syndicated cartoonist at our seminar.

Andrew Feinstein - Andrew is the co-creator of Girls & Sports, a comic strip about dating and sports that has appeared in over 300 newspapers nationwide. What began as a comic strip for college newspapers, Andrew self-syndicated Girls & Sports into over 200 college and non-college newspapers in 2004, making Girls & Sports the most widely self-syndicated comic strip ever at that time. Girls & Sports is now syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

Mark Anderson - Mark is the creator of Andertoons. He will discuss his “mostly web-based” model including selling to magazines as well as selling to individuals and businesses for newsletters and presentations.

Howard Tayler - Howard quit his six-figure salary job in 2004 to concentrate on his webcomic Schlock Mercenary and has grown the strip, books sales and merchandize to a modest (near six-figure) income. See “Howard Tayler’s journey to profitable webcomics” for a good summary of Howard’s success.

Adrian Raeside - Adrian is the creator of The Other Coast. He is also the editorial cartoonist for the Victoria Times-Colonist. His editorial comic is self-syndicated in about 100 newspapers and The Other Coast is self-syndicated in Canada but syndicated in the rest of the world through Creators Syndicate. Adrian says he is about 95% sure he will make the seminar.

More information will be posted shortly. If you have questions or suggestions for topics you’d like to hear from any speaker at the seminar, contact Bill at bill@tundracomics.com.

Self Syndication seminar adds Daryl Cagle

Posted by Alan Gardner
March 18, 2009

Another big name will be attending the Self-Syndication seminar hosted by Tundra guys Chad Carpenter and Bill Kellogg. Daryl Cagle will also be on-hand to answer questions and talk to individuals about the market. Daryl runs one of the biggest cartoon websites at cagle.com and started his own syndicate service in 2001 distributing over 50 editorial cartoonist to nearly 800 papers. He’s been past president of the National Cartoonist Society and built a career in illustration and syndication.

One last item that should be of interest to anyone wanting to attend. You can’t seriously get a bunch of cartoonist together without including a bit of alcohol. Bill tells me he’s renting a hospitality suite for each evening where all the participants can gather to talk shop and enjoy complimentary beer, wine, sodas and snacks.

If you’re interested in attending, visit the information and registration page over on Tundra’s site.

Frozen Footsteps: Raeside's Adventure to Antarctica

2009-03-17T09:51:00.005-04:00

In December, Victoria Times-Colonist editorial cartoonist Adrian Raeside set out on an icebreaker for the final leg of research into Robert Scott’s expedition to the South Pole, following the path taken by his grandfather Sir Charles (Silas) Wright, who was on Scott’s team.

Quark Expeditions’ Russian icebreaker, the Kapitan Khlebnikov, would be just what’s needed for Christmas shopping. At 122 metres long, 12,000 displacement tons, and powered by six 24,000-horsepower engines, it can bust through pack ice like it was styrofoam. Imagine what it could do to the Ford Taurus that just swiped the parking spot near to the mall entrance you were just about to turn into? We should all go shopping in a Khlebnikov.

I wasn’t at the mall this past Christmas, but I was on the Kapitan Khlebnikov, south of the Antarctic Circle to put together the final chapters of Return to Antarctica, a book about the 1910 Scott expedition, my grandfather, Sir Charles (Silas) Wright and my great uncles Sir Raymond Priestley and Griffith Taylor.

Qand their roles in the expedition. At the entrance to the Ross Sea, we landed at Cape Adare, home to half a million Adelie penguins. Priestley spent the winter of 1911 here, when he was on Scott’s Northern Party, and since then their hut has been reduced to matchwood by the hurricane-force winds that batter this area, but the latrine still stands — a credit to Victorian-era outhouse builders.

After Cape Adare, there was no guarantee we would make any more landings ashore as thick winter ice was still choking Ross Island, which was awkward as that was the location of the main Scott expedition huts. Although the ship was equipped with two helicopters, it was limited in its range and at the mercy of the blizzards that sweep off the Ross Ice Barrier without warning.

Unless the wind changed and blew the ice away from shore, I might have travelled all this distance just to see the huts through binoculars. Nuts.

Fortunately, by the time we made it the 400 miles to Ross Island, ice conditions had improved to the point we were able to get close enough to land at Cape Royds, where Shackleton’s 1907-1909 Nimrod hut still stands, preserved by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust and restored by a team led by Mill Bay’s Gordon Macdonald — a specialist in impossible restorations.

I didn’t expect to see much inside the hut in the way of provisions, as my grandfather, Silas, and great uncle Griff would take every opportunity to ski over from their quarters at Cape Evans and loot the joint. The quality and selection of food Shackleton had left behind was far superior to what Scott was providing his men, but Granddad and Griff missed a few rather choice items.
A tide crack opened up in the ice that afternoon, allowing the Khlebnikov to move within helicopter range of Cape Evans.

Although 95 years have passed since it was vacated by the Scott expedition, it felt like they had just left that morning. Plates and provisions were piled neatly, clothes hung from hooks on bunks and the smell of sweat, soot, seal grease, oats and leather permeated the hut.

The Macdonald brothers are in the process of securing the hut’s exterior from the elements, but the latrines appear to have been untouched. I expect that plum job is reserved for the most junior of the preservation team.

A few dog skeletons lie outside, still with their collars on and chained to the hut. As Granddad and his companions took their surviving dogs with them, these poor beasts were probably abandoned by Shackleton’s Ross Sea party, who were left stranded here in 1916.

Granddad took two sled dogs back to Canada with him, Bullet and Beally Chick. Beally Chick went to his brother, Adrian, in Vancouver, and Bullet went to his other brother, Alfred, a land surveyor in Prince George.

At Hut Point, a few miles down the coast, the Discovery Hut was in much shabbier shape, partly due to rough handling by Shackleton’s Ross Sea party, but more so because of its close proximity to the U.S. The McMurdo base had made it easy prey for generations of souvenir hunters and polar squatters.

McMurdo base was just what one would expect of a large American base, sprawling and with every possible amenity, including bars, and no, they weren’t open when I was there. Swine.

They did have a PX that sold liquor — limit two bottles of wine per person per day and one of spirits per day. Talk about deprivation.

We were able to get into Evans Coves and anchor off Inexpressible Island where the Northern Party spent the winter of 1912 trapped in a nine-by-12-foot ice cave they had carved out of a frozen snowdrift. Over the years, the snowdrift has receded up the moraine, but there is a small wind-scoured plaque marking the original entrance to the ice cave.

Pretty easy to tell that was the entrance as the mummified remains of several butchered seals suspiciously litter the spot.

Poseidon had obviously taken this Christmas off and the Ross Sea was eerily calm for the duration. This meant I got to see places that I never thought I would, and was able to put people that are a part of my family into historical perspective.

I gained newfound admiration and respect for those who suffered under Scott’s authoritarian leadership and found answers to many of the questions relating to the failure of the Polar Party, including why the death of Scott and his four companions was completely avoidable if Scott had just listened to my grandfather. But to Scott, Silas Wright was just a 24year-old Canadian physicist — what the heck did he know about the logistics of polar expeditions?

For me and the 100-odd passengers on the Khlebnikov, all good things must end eventually.

Poseidon came back from vacation with a raging hangover and in a foul mood. We crossed back over the Antarctic Circle and into the Southern Ocean to grey seas, grey skies, grey rain and the ship rolling like a moulting elephant seal in a Macquarie Island mud hole.

From Macquarie Island to Hobart, the trip was nastier, green seas over the bow and green passengers over the rails. I was reassured by a crew member that the ship was seaworthy and he himself had experienced a roll to 48 degrees, which made me feel better the next night when we rolled to 42 degrees.

That was the night when my cache of wine bottles, laptop, illustrations, halffinished manuscript, and myself, ended up in a heap on the cabin floor.

Compared to what my grandfather went through on this same part of the Southern Ocean 98 years ago, this was a harbour dinner cruise. The following is an exclusive excerpt from Return to Antarctica:

Winds had built to hurricane force, with waves sweeping over Terra Nova, tearing the lashings off drums of petrol, sending them careening across the deck, smashing everything in their path. Scott ordered them jettisoned, rather than risk life and limb in an attempt to re-stow them. Fortunately, they were able to save a few drums, for without petrol, Scott’s precious motorized tractors would be useless. And as it turned out they were about as useful in the Antarctic as a lawnmower — Scott just didn’t know it yet. …

Besides the crew, the sled dogs were having a terrible time of it, chained to the open decks, soaked and shivering. Osman, the toughest, orneriest dog of the pack was hit by a massive wave that snapped his chain and washed him overboard. He would have surely drowned but was grabbed by a sailor and hauled back aboard as he floated past on the next wave. This chastening experience led to his miraculous conversion to friendliness toward the crew for the rest of the trip.

After Osman’s unscheduled swim, the remaining dogs were unchained and herded down into Silas’s cramped chemical lab, much to his chagrin, as they started fighting and some of his chemical apparatus was broken in the melee.

Conditions were far worse for the Siberian ponies, which were being flung around their cramped stables in the fo’csle and unlike the dogs, didn’t have the luxury of taking shelter below decks. Oates and Atkinson attempted to calm them, as the ponies were vital to the success of the expedition and they needed to keep them alive at all costs. However, if the ponies had even the slightest idea of what was waiting for them at their destination, they would have chewed through their stalls and leapt overboard, joining various other animals at the bottom of the ocean that had the misfortune to sign on as crew aboard the Terra Nova. The ship’s rabbit had been squashed under a pony hoof and the ship’s guinea pig that had set up house in an empty cigar box, met an unfortunate end when a seaman on cleaning detail tossed the box overboard.

But none of this mattered right now, as the Terra Nova was coming apart and starting to sink.

From Return to Antarctica by Adrian Raeside, published by John Wiley and Sons, Canada, in bookstores September 2009. To pre-order the book, go to www.returntoantarctica.com.

2009-03-17T09:24:00.003-04:00

Action Week against Racism (Semaine d’actions contre le racisme, SACR) is celebrating its 10th edition from 12 to 22 March 2009 with several activities. SACR is hosting in Montreal, and for the first time in Canada, a major exhibit entitled "Cartooning for Peace", bringing together a selection of works by 50 cartoonists from around the world. Plantu, editorial cartoonist for the French daily Le Monde, and Michel Kichka, President of the Association of Israeli cartoonists, will be the guests of honor.

The exhibit "Cartooning for Peace" will be presented from 12 to 22 March 2009 at the Intergenerational Community Center, Outremont (Centre communautaire intergénérationnel d’Outremont). This presentation in Montreal as part of the 10th edition of the SACR is made possible through partnership between Images Interculturelles, the Canadian Jewish Congress and others.

Action Week against Racism
Performed in addition to all the daily educational activities against the evils of racism and discrimination, the Action Week against Racism (SACR) is a time for reflection, exchange of ideas, awareness raising and intercultural reconciliation. Founded in March 2000, the SACR is part of events surrounding the 21 March, declared by the UN as International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The opening ceremony of the Week was on Thursday, 12 March 2009 at 10:00 in the presence of Plantu, Kichka and other partners.

Photoshop CS4 Update

2009-03-13T10:23:00.003-04:00

The latest Photoshop release was kind of a letdown when it came to performance. While I was really looking forward to the new features, painting (and everything else) was slow and the whole thing was twitchy. Hardware and driver updates failed to solve the problem and I was ready to go back to CS3, ticked off that I'd spent the money on a lemon. But apparently, I wasn't the only one experiencing problems because Adobe recently released an update. The difference is night and day, and CS4 now runs incredibly smooth and fast, as it should.

If you're having Photoshop CS4 issues, click on the appropriate link to take you to the Adobe site download. You'll be happy you did.

Photoshop CS4 Update - Mac
Photoshop CS4 Update - Windows

Cheers,
Patrick

The U.S. Newspaper Industry

2009-03-12T09:57:00.004-04:00

This great graphic in today's New York Times illustrates a good chronicle on the sorry state of newspapers in the U.S. Click on the image to read what it says. A website called Newspaper Death Watch keeps a toll on the crumbling industry.

David Parkins Draws in the Walrus

2009-02-13T10:03:00.003-05:00

The Walrus, which describes itself as a Canadian general-interest magazine with an international outlook, features a monthly "Britishy" political cartoon strip by Jason Sherman and David Parkins. Jason Sherman is co-creator of the CBC radio drama Afghanada, and David Parkins recently left the UK to take up residency with his family near Cobourg, Ontario. The website also features a link to the original pencil sketch.

Barry Blitt Talk in Toronto

2009-02-05T11:35:00.003-05:00

By Andrew Skinner

Barry Blitt (website coming) ran through some of his New Yorker covers for a large and enthusiastic audience at the Ontario College of Art and Design [OCAD], yesterday. He is of course famous now mostly for his July 21, 2008 cover of a Muslim Obama and his black militant wife fist bumping each other in the Oval Office. Barry was funny and unserious about much of his work.

It was interesting to hear about the back and forth between Barry and his editors. The line between illustration and political cartoon seems to be very blurred here. When asked, he suggested that in his early days he just sent out all kinds of work. And it so happens that the political satire and cartoony work was most popular. His work, although spontaneous, betrays far more skill and knowledge of art and politics than his modest and self-deprecating manner of speaking seemed to show. But that I think is an apt approach in trying to explain why you did or did not draw something-especially on serious New Yorker covers. You could probably put a book together on rejected Barry Blitt cartoons. Knowing the New Yorker they are probably working on it.

Barry Blitt has a wonderfully loose and delicate style, and yet also shows fantastic accuracy or artistic skill throughout. You have to credit the New Yorker for appreciating the work of Barry Blitt in a world where the opportunities for talented cartoonists with hand artistry seems to be diminishing in the world of magazines.

When asked why he works in the United States Barry said jokingly, that Canada’s four magazines had not called him lately. He made the point to his audience that the whole world is our own. He said he doesn’t really distinguish between markets. The market is simply much bigger in the States. When his wife got a job at Sports Illustrated it just made things a lot easier to move south of the border.

After the Obama cover Barry spent several days in despair, fear and shock at the publics’ email reaction to his cartoon [or illustration?]. Blameless and yet still quite relieved when his editors offered to handle the media and everybody else.

Is Barry aware that he produced a piece of work that put political cartoons back into the spotlight, lately, not to mention a little boost to the industry? It had an impact and that’s a great thing. Everyone seemed to ‘get it’ eventually, after all, and it was an education I think, on the art of satirical illustration. I’m pretty sure he does know that but he doesn’t show it.

On the subject of the future physical ridicule of Obama, if that’s possible, Blitt’s renderings have Obama appearing as tall and skinny as an Abraham Lincoln cartoon (see above).

Blog Review: Christian Adams

2009-02-03T09:20:00.005-05:00

With a couple of exceptions editorial cartoonist blogs are a non-entity within Canada's space on the Internet. Personally managed websites are also a rarity in Canada. So, when it comes to looking for freshly updated information of interest to Canadian editorial cartoonists we're mostly left to relying on stuff we read on blogs based in the U.S.

The quality of those American blogs mostly range from abandoned to the mildly amusing to banal. Many cartoonists started out eager to explain their work and add some uninteresting political commentary, but a great many fell to time constraints and now visitors are left to find only daily cartoons without any corresponding text or sketches (example, example, example).

British editorial cartoonists are like Canadians in that they don't generally like wasting much time posting silly commentary about their jobs. There is one exception: Christian Adams.

Adams is the weekend political cartoonist at the Daily Telegraph in the U.K. and he writes a blog about editorial cartooning. His thoughts and reflections are quite similar to the mindset of the average Canadian editorial cartoonist. Some topics of interest include: Are Political Cartoons Meant to be Funny?, Why All Cartoonists Hate Each Other, On Cartoonists' Political Leanings, What's in a Cartoon Name?, and The Pitfalls of Drawing Barack. Here he defends the use of the old, overused skiing through a tree cliche.

Besides pointing out some of the praiseworthy work of his British colleagues he spends a good amount of time observing what's being churned out in the United States. In a arts sector where its crafts-people are particularly sensitive to criticism, Adams isn't afraid to pull punches -- which is refreshing. In a November entry he draws a spoof of your typical American editorial cartoon by including a lot of text, labeling, and mimicking a style which he says reminds him of cartoons drawn 100 years ago. In this piece he critiques a Jeff Danziger cartoon on Prince Charles turning 60. He disagrees that Pat Oliphant is the best US cartoonist.

While he likes to dish it out against American cartoonists he also finds the time to praise them as well (here too). Still, it's the criticism that is the most delicious because it needs to be said. Wouldn't it be nice if Adams could look at the work of Canadian editorial cartoonists and write some of stuff and reveal what we're all thinking of each others work? Then again, maybe not. - Graeme MacKay

News From The Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists

Canadian Cartoonists draw "Polar Lines"

«Expressions polaires» par les dessinateurs de presse canadiens

Exposition de peintures de Ray Lengélé à Boucherville

Participation canadienne au World Press Cartoon 2011

Canadian Participation in World Press Cartoon 2011

ACEC's Dave Rosen

Norm "Bush" Muffitt passes away at age 69

NDP Leadership uproar a gift to Quebec’s satirists

Ranan Lurie UN cartoon award

BRUGGE COMPETITION

38th International Humor Exhibition of Piracicaba/2011

Rosemère Biennial of Caricature

La Biennale internationale de caricature de Rosemère

CAM CARDOW IS AHEAD OF THE CURVE

GRAHAME ARNOULD AMONG CARTOON WINNERS

Three cheers to ACEC Member Grahame Arnould who was awarded third prizeat The 16th International Cartoon Exhibition in Zagreb 2011.There were 733 works submitted from 326 artistsrepresenting 60 countries. The theme of the competition was 'Vice'.Good job Grahame!

Cartooning For Japan

Gable wins National Newspaper Award in Editorial Cartooning

Rosemère Biennale of Caricature

World Press Freedom 11th International Editorial Cartoon Competition (Results)

"Freedom in Broad Strokes" Exhibition

Exposition «La liberté d'expression à grands traits»

World Press Freedom 11th International Editorial Cartoon Competition

Le 11e Concours international de dessin éditorial du Comité canadien de la liberté de la presse mondiale

2010 Convention Review

The first CANADIAN BANANA Contest

2010 Dalton Camp Award: The power of political cartoons

Brian Gable Wins 2009 NNA

Sheraton Hamilton -- ACEC Convention Hotel

Histoire de la caricature au Québec (VLB)

World Press Freedom 10th International Editorial Cartoon Competition

Andy Donato beats the tax man - again

Fleg and Chapleau: 1981

Portfoolio23 Hits the Bookstores

Quebec cartoonists need only wait for politicians to hand them ideas

ACEC CONVENTION 2010

Why the portrait gallery matters

Cartoonist Bob Muirhead Dies

SPECIAL REPORT: Will the Editorial Cartoonist Vanish

Roy Peterson Laid Off

Quebec Community Newspaper Awards for Best Editorial Cartoon Announced

Cam wins the NNA

A Gable Cartoon, From Conception to Final Draft

ACEC Banff Convention Cartoons

J.J. McCullough Calls it Quits, for now

Editorial Cartoon Animation for the established cartoonist

Wacom Introduces Intuos4 Tablet

The NNA Nominees are in...

Self-Syndication Seminar

Self-syndication seminar set for September

Self Syndication seminar adds Daryl Cagle

Frozen Footsteps: Raeside's Adventure to Antarctica

Photoshop CS4 Update

The U.S. Newspaper Industry

David Parkins Draws in the Walrus

Barry Blitt Talk in Toronto

Blog Review: Christian Adams

Three cheers to ACEC Member Grahame Arnould who was awarded third prize
at The 16th International Cartoon Exhibition in Zagreb 2011.
There were 733 works submitted from 326 artists
representing 60 countries. The theme of the competition was 'Vice'.
Good job Grahame!