Put Up and Shut Up: The '90s So Far in Cartoons

Dennis Blake is a visual arts teacher with the Halton Board of
Education.

In some respects, “the ’90s, so far, in cartoons,” might be
considered a narrow chronological topic, but when the subject is the
politics and social life of Quebec, even a 160-page text of combined
cartoon and prose might still be considered a brief overview. Aislin
(Terry Mosher), long-time political cartoonist for the Montreal Gazette,
has been passing commentary upon Canadian political culture for decades
and to such an extent that he has, himself, become a part of this
sphere. In Put Up and Shut Up his cartoons are sharp, scathing,
wounding, and cynically spot-on. Accompanying these mini-cartoon icons
is a breezy political commentary by Hubie Bauch, an apparently
irreverent, but never irrelevant, Gazette compatriot of Mosher’s. The
book is jam-packed with cartoons—quarter-size, full-size, black and
white, and color. From Oka to Mulroney, from Bourassa to Bill 22, Aislin
and Bauch offer our recent Canadian past as a well-cooked historical
delicacy. Perhaps the history cannot be swallowed easily, but Put Up and
Shut Up can be savored longingly by all political gourmets.