A Look at Aislin

“The best preparation [had for being a political cartoonist wasn’t artschool, - -

it was

beingon welfare”

Says

Terry Mosher. The Montreal Gazette’s political cartoonist- better known as Aislin-has a lot of respect for the average Joe in the streets; he used to be there himself.

Born in Ottawa 42 years ago, Mosher used to make his money on the streets as a portratist and caricaturist in Quebec City, drawing for tourists in the summer.

He has come a long way from then to becoming one of Canada’s most respected political cartoonists. Back in 1961 he was kicked’ out of school in Toronto’s Central Technical School and the Ontario College’of Art, before graduating from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Quebec City.

Mosher has said that if he hadn’t become a cartoonist he probably would have been a professional forger. In fact that is precisely how he

caricature which Mosher did of him. Rock singers David Bowie and Bob Dylan also have Aislin originals — of themselves. In fact, Brian Mulroney is known to have one of himself by Aislin hanging in his office.

Former Conservative party leader Robert Stanfield once said about political cartoonists that, ‘‘there is no way you can deal with a heckling cartoon- ist.’” When Mosher sits down in his director’s chair in his studio and puts pen to paper, he does so as someone who has been infuriated by a particular government or one of its actions. In this sense he is your average citizen. There are two differences, however. He has the medium to vent his anger, and he does not have any political affiliations.

“When people ask me if i'm left or right (political leanings) | answer them that I’m North.

Mosher firmly believes that he should not have any political commitments, ‘‘When | started to get work | was totally apolitical.’’

Despite what would appear as a total disdain for authority, Mosher is actually grateful to politicians. ‘‘If governments didn’t try to cover their asses, |’d be out of work.’’ You don’t make too many friends in Mosher’s line of work. About every two to three months he will anger one group or another, he said.

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‘| like to think of myself as evenhandedly — malicious...| would like to think, at one time or another, I’ve upset them all.”’

While there are probably a few people Mosher hasn’t upset, there are lots more he has; Gazette ombudsman Clair Balfour regularly receives complaints directed at Mosher.

During the 1984 Montreal Urban Community _ transit strike, Mosher drew a cartoon with a frustrated transit user holding a gun and asking a bus driver if the bus passed by Lawrence Hanigan’s house (Hanigan was the Chairman of the MUCTC at the time). Long time Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau wrote a letter to the editor of the paper deploring the cartoon and the

Gazette apologized to Hanigan. Perhaps his two most

controversial cartoons were ones in which he depicted Prince Charles as a puppet on Queen Elizabeth’s lap and another inviting readers to send a message with the words ‘‘Quit Now Slime Bucket,’’ to either Ottawa (for or Quebec _ (for Levesque).

Following the cartoon about the Queen and _ Prince Charles, the Queen’s press secretary. wrote to Mosher and asked him what the point of the caricature was, and he

responded that it was a specially-made German draw- ing tip.

The only real trouble he encountered was when he drew a cartoon of then Conservative Party leadership candidate Claude Wagner shooting at the CBC logo. The CBC suggested in a report that Wagner had Vancouver mafia connections, and Wagner sued both the CBC and = Mosher. However, Wagner died and the lawsuit was dropped.

While some politicians are not always enamoured by Mosher’s talent, most of his peers are. Jean-Pierre Girerd, the political cartoonist for La Presse, is impressed by Mosher’s style. He credits his black humour as his biggest asset.

However, Girerd criticized Mosher on a couple of points. He felt Mosher sometimes, ‘“‘has too many things in his picture, and he rarely draws about international affairs.’’

It takes two to four hours to draw a cartoon and Mosher does this five days a week for nine months a year. While the workload doesn’t sound back-breaking there is more to consider. He says he monitors seven daily news- papers and watches television news regularly for material.

‘| spend more time researching than | do drawing,’’ he says.

According to Mosher the

gained his college entrance; he forged his own high school leaving certificate.

One thing is for sure, he is not doing too badly for a guy who began cartooning while - hitch-hiking around’ Canada, the United States, and Mexico, drawing caricatures of people in bars. - Today, Mosher’s cartoons are syndi- cated in the Toronto Star, and | he is known worldwide. The | Pope has a copy ofa |

by JACK BRANSWELL |

reprinted from the LINK

Canadian University Press

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Three Quebec labor leaders jailed. Trois chefs syndicaux du Québec sont emprisonnés.

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April 15,1986 page 3

hardest part -of the job is keeping up, and, he was quick to add, you have to know every side of the issue, ‘otherwise you could end up with egg on your face.”’

There were times in the early seventies when Mosher thought he would never draw a good cartoon again. As in any profession, he said, ‘‘you come to realize that you have good weeks and bad ones,’’ Things have changed for Mosher since then. His style has matured and he_ has gained self-confidence.

It has been 18 years since he had his first cartoon published in the now defunct Montreal. Star-he moved to the Gazette in 1972-and he has published the same number of books, including a book on the history of political cartooning in Canada entitled The Hecklers, as well as a children’s book and _ several anthologies of his caricatures. He is currently working on a religious novella called, The Sound of One __ Testicle Hanging.

So where will the future lead this man, who is, among other things, a member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America? He says he wants to do material that is more universal, such as a book on the nature of man. ‘‘I enjoy doing what | do immensely, but | would like to do stuff that is understood in Pakistan as easily as it is in Canada.’’

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