Stretch Marks: 15 Years of Aislin Cartoons

Toby Rupert was a librarian living in Toronto.

Terry Mosher, aka Aislin, is a first-rate caricaturist. His latest book collates some 15 years worth of cartoons and figures, some of them dated and sourced, some not. Some have been previously published, while some of the more naughty ones have never been published (the Canadian publisher alluded to in the last unpublished, bitter cartoon in the book looks remarkably like the publisher of the defunct Today magazine). A lot of the material is still “topical” and may be mystifying to younger or forgetful readers. But all of the drawings are witty and incisive, and there is a distinct feeling of helplessness about many of the characters. Also, it is nice to see Bob Stanfield without either longjohns or bananas. Most of Aislin’s better work must have been collected in book form by now, since this is his thirteenth book.