Mad Bear

Carrying on with the Aislin retrospective at City Hall from October, our relationship with Americans can be seen in the top left cartoon featuring Paul Martin, a former Prime Minister, while the bottom left cartoon with President Obama is one of my personal favourites. Those at the right feature another former prime minister, Brian Mulroney, who was a frequent target for many editorial cartoonists here during his time in office. That chin alone could keep you occupied.

Two Canadian giants closely tied to Montreal feature in the top pair- Mordecai Richler and Leonard Cohen. On the bottom, the left cartoon was a favourite for Pierre Trudeau, while the right one features the great Oscar Peterson, who often could play the piano in a way that sounded like he had to have more than ten fingers.

Here's Pierre himself in a Time cover Aislin did early in Trudeau's time as Prime Minister.

Another personal favourite of mine plays off an incident that actually happened: Prime Minister Jean Chretien strangling a protester. In this case, it's Joe Clark, one of the opposition party leaders (and a former PM himself) getting strangled. I've seen both men on occasion here in Ottawa; Chretien could still strangle someone even all these years later.

This dates back to around the time of Peter Jackson's King Kong film, and pretty much sums up how we Canadians sometimes feel about our neighbours. Pierre Trudeau noted that being next door to America was like trying to sleep next to an elephant. A giant ape will do just as well. 

This is one of Aislin's iconic works, featuring Rene Levesque and Robert Bourassa, done after Levesque's separatist Parti Quebecois won a majority provincial election over Bourassa's Liberals.

A close up of two of his hockey toons. Occasionally Montreal has a bad year, but not with anywhere near as much regularity as the Toronto Maple Leafs- a fact that fans of every other Canadian team relish. The success of Canadian women on the ice is an inspiration.

This is another of his collage works, done for the Montreal Olympics in 1976.

This shot features a cartoon Aislin did of Pope John Paul II after he assumed the papacy. The photograph below it features the pope being presented with the toon itself during a visit.

I like this pair. The top features the eternal struggle of Quebec society, while the bottom one is downright universal to anyone who's ever dealt with traffic delays.

The weather, particularly in winter, is a wonderful subject for the cartoonist, such as with these two. The top one came out of the aftermath of the notorious 1998 Ice Storm, while the second one went unpublished in the papers, but has proven popular online.

Arguably the most loathsome, unfit for office politician (which made him priceless material for editorial cartoonists) ever to appear in Canada was the late crack smoking drunken thug Rob Ford, a former mayor of Toronto (is it obvious I didn't like him?). This is an Aislin take on him.

I finish with this one, which was featured for an article on the Canadian Rockies. The bear's expression is just perfect.