The Pen is mightier than the keyboard

Sorry for lack of posts kids. Been overwhelmed with domestic obligations, under the weather and kinda fed up with certain commenters here.

One thing I did want to tell you about is tonight's edition of CBC's Life & Times on political cartoonist Terry Mosher, a.k.a. Aislin, who has often allowed me to post his work on this here blog. On at 8 tonight, it's a frank look at Terry who says he is now in ''a state of grace'' after years of hard-drinking, drugs and partying.

Although he's a swell guy now, there was a period when he was not very nice, I can tell you.

For example, back in 1984, when Jean Chrétien was running against John Turner for the federal Liberal Party leadership, I was a CBC-TV News reporter in Montreal assigned to ask political cartoonists which face they would prefer to win. The assignment editor had already made up his mind -- who says news isn't manufactured? -- and, of course, the preferred caricature, to him, had to be Chrétien's because of his lopsided mouth. So, of course, I called Terry and tried to persuade him to give me the answer the assignment editor wanted.

HE ALMOST TOOK MY HEAD OFF.

And good for him. He was right of course. (But he coulda been nicer about it.)

Anyway, he's mellowed out now, and, aside from an obsession with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, he seems almost normal. (Did you ever notice that Muldoon has no neck?)

Watch it. Dangerous When Provoked: The Life & Times of Terry Mosher. Tonight at 8.

Comments

[CapitalCat]

Terry Mosher spent most of the 1980s hanging around with a sordid bunch of characters. I should know, I was one of them!

Terry and I have mellowed over the years, given that the alternative was moldering in the grave. It's sheer genius to watch him at work. I once saw him draw a quick sketch of Joe Clark and change the Tory leader's facial expressions by adding more hair to the back of his head, moving the placement of his arms, everything except actually touching the face itself.

His knowledge of the history of cartooning is also prodigious. I'm looking forward to the L&T doc tonight.

[Jiminy C at the other daughters]

Hope you are feeling your usual self again pretty soon AZ - hard to imagine the batteries on that toned bod. running down (Ahem - does that guarantee a delete comments free pass for one week?;-)

I'll be watching the Life and Times tonight - got hooked on Aislin in Montreal when I first arrived in Canada.
Always felt that he was the equal in all respects to Gerald Scarfe - whose scribbles provided the background to the Yes Minister TV comedy series...Scarfe had the likes of Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher etc. absolutely nailed - and Aislin had a similar touch with his targets like Muldoon!

[Maz]

I'm almost certain this editorial cartoon was Aislin's. The object of his lampoon: Montreal's Mayor Jean Drapeau. With the cost of the 1976 Montreal Olympics deep in the red, Drapeau was moved to declare: 'The Olymics can no more run a deficit than a man can have a baby.' When the time came, Aislin ran the quote, and a caricature of JD alongside it, standing in profile, belly distended - like that of a mother-to-be in her 9th month.

It reminded me of a poster that was popular in college and university dorms. One of 'Lucy' from the Charlie Brown cartoon strip, also standing in profile, and just about to conceive. The caption at the bottom read: 'Goddamn you, Charlie Brown!'

[Antonia Z.]

Yes, it was one of the all time Aislin classics, along with the Nov. 16/76 cartoon of Rene Levesque and Robert Bourassa standing together and saying, "Okay, everybody take a Valium."

[Pete]

"and just about to _conceive_"

More a Penthouse centerfold than dorm poster.

[V.K.J]

The Drapeau one that I remember had Drapeau, looking pregnant, holding the phone and saying "Allo, Morgenthaler?"

[Antonia Z.]

YES! VKJ, you have it right. My memory is giving out on me.

[jiminy C at the other daughters]

Watched the Terry Mosher L & T last night.
Just loved his description of his obsessive period with Mulroney - where "the Chin that walked" image seemed to appear everywhere to the cartoonist.....
I could "almost" sympathize with Joan Fraser for her job of running interference on Aislin to make sure nothing naughty ever slipped through buried in those drawings!

[JohnnyK]

I always liked the way Aislin makes sure there's dandruff in the air around his victims.