Another Day, Another Doom: Brian Gable's Cartoon Commentary

Geoffrey Hayes is an assistant professor of history at the University of
Waterloo.

Collections of political cartoons are a longstanding Canadian tradition.
In 1886, Queen’s University principal G.M. Grant introduced a
collection by The Globe’s legendary J.W. Bengough. Eleven decades
later, columnist Jeffrey Simpson provides a thoughtful beginning to the
work of cartoonist Brian Gable.

Bengough, Gable, and scores of other Canadian political cartoonists
have that remarkable gift of making us laugh at topics that are seldom
funny. Whether it was the Pacific Scandal in Bengough’s day, or the
Gulf War in more recent times, memorable political cartoons draw upon
what Simpson calls “a blend of wit, farce and serious purpose.”

Gable’s style hails from a kinder, gentler, and (in my view), more
effective era of political cartooning. His wild caricatures are so
disarming that one cannot help but “get” his sobering message. No
one, for instance, uses “Death”—with black robe and scythe—as
extensively as Brian Gable. “Death” shows up three times in this
collection: congratulating Saddam Hussein, standing before a mass grave
in the Balkans while talking to a news reporter about the O.J. Simpson
trial, and chumming with a tobacco lobbyist. It is simple, funny, and
powerful work.

Perhaps Jeffrey Simpson is right: in a country where people have little
in common, at least we have cartoonists who remind us to laugh at
ourselves. Let the tradition continue.