Old Whores: More Aislin Cartoons

Beverly Rasporich is a professor in the Faculty of Communication and
Culture at the University of Calgary. She is the author of Dance of the
Sexes: Art and Gender in the Fiction of Alice Munro and Magic Off Main:
The Art of Esther Warkov.

This collection of cartoons by Terry Mosher (pen-name Aislin), previously published in 1985, 86, and 87, has all the strengths and weaknesses of Aislin’s previous work. First, as the political cartoonist for The Montreal Gazette Aislin tends, quite naturally, to communicate visually to / about his Quebec parish on such topics as local politics and the Montreal Alouettes. These cartoons, then, have a limited appeal for the rest of the country. A very few of these cartoons, too, have too much text. “The Official Tory Stewardess, “for example, has a great number of arrows with printed explanations of the stewardess’s various gear, such as a hat, drawn as half a pig’s head labeled “Muldoon headgear and walkman,” and a glove labeled “Michael Wilson sequined, pick-your-pocket pigskin glove,” etc. These printed comments are overwhelming as didactic detail, and contribute to the kind of explicit, overstated cartoon preferred by sophomores in college newspapers; this sophomoric style is occasionally favoured by Aislin.

In the majority of these cartoons, however, Aislin takes on the Tories and satirizes political figures and events in the national and international arena with his remarkable characteristic savage wit and mordant, irreverent humour. The title of his collection, Old Whores, is in itself a satirical coup, an ironic reversal of Mulroney’s statement about political patronage made in reference to the Liberals before he came to power, that is, “Let’s face it, there’s no whore like an old whore.” Aislin has great fun with “Muldoon’s” own Conservative “prostitutes,” including a caricature of Sinc Stephens selling Christ coins for $300.00 each, as “just a hobby.” The most outstanding characteristic of this collection is, in fact, the number and excellence of Aislin’s caricatures. Mulroney, Levesque, Reagan, Tammy Baker, Don Cherry, Margaret Thatcher, Pat Carney, and — one of Aislin’s favourite targets — the Queen — are all satirical subjects in first-rate caricatures of great visual artistry.

It is worthwhile to buy this collection if only to see “Soft Wood” — a caricature of Mulroney with the top of his head hinged as a tree — or my favourite, a mock movie poster advertising “The Thing from BC! Starring Bill Vander Zalm,” with a caricature of Vander Zalm as Frankenstein rising above the mountains, totem pole in hand. There are no words, of course, that can do justice to these cartoons. Suffice it to say that “Old Whores” will do nothing to harm Aislin’s reputation as Canada’s most gleefully radical and brilliantly disrespectful political cartoonist.