anniversary – mackaycartoons

Happy 20th Anniversary!

July 7, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Friday July 7 2017

In the early Summer 1997, I was a GO bus commuter living in Toronto and starting out my new job in the city where I was born.

My 1st cartoon published in a mainstream paper was of then Fed. Foreign Minister Lloyd. Toronto Star, 1995

Hamilton and its daily newspaper was drawing me back, and it all began with a big giant bonfire and a black smoke plume that drifted off in the skies for as far as the eye could see. The festive atmosphere inspired the above cartoon and the resulting angry reader feedback quickly thrust me into the new gig that would bring much much more hate mail. Knowing the lasting effects of the Plastimet fire, and increasing numbers of firefighters dying prematurely in the following years, I don’t think I would’ve been as frivolous in my depiction. Yet it illustrates a popular sentiment at the time, and something that a photo or story can’t do on its own. It also presents how attitudes and opinions change over time, and in the time I’ve been a cartoonist, there has been plenty of that as I look back at my own work and wince and scratch my head.

1997 Introduction

I had been getting my illustrations printed in the Spec for a couple of years, but it was a brash young editor by the name of Kirk LaPointe who put out the call for a staff editorial cartoonist – a position the Spectator had abandoned when the great cartoonist Blaine had taken to retirement 5 years before. I don’t know what competition I was up against, but I recall doubting I was ever going to be the one who’d get chosen, and was probably the reason I showed up at the interview with Mr. LaPointe wearing shorts.

To the point of being hired at the Spectator my only experience working for another company had been in retail, mostly to grocery stores, wrapping up meat for customers, and destined to become a life long butcher. I joke that the pursuit of becoming a butcher happened in a metaphorical sense by becoming a satirist, carving up public figures on a daily basis.

Yet, even 20 years ago, the thought of a newspaper hiring an editorial cartoonist seemed pretty crazy. There were many many of them around in 1997, compared to now, and almost all had decades of tenure at their respective newspapers when I and a few others of my age came on the scene. Over the past 2 decades many of the greats, like Sue Dewar, Roy Peterson, Norm Muffit, Bob Krieger, Cam Cardow, Anthony Jenkins, Dale Cummings, Mike Graston, and Thomas (TAB) Boldt, to name a few colleagues just in Canada, have either retired, moved on to other jobs, or died.

The joke in 2008 was that all of Canada’s working editorial cartoonists could fit in a pickup truck. In 2017, we could probably fit in a Volkswagen Beetle.

A lot of changes have happened in 20 years. A lot. When I was escorted to my work area in 1997, I was given a table to sit at in a back corner of the editorial page cave. I could use Blaine’s old drafting table, but at the time he had been saying over the previous 5 years since retirement that he was going to drop by sometime to take it home (I think it hung around for another 5 years.) It probably took another month after being hired before I got a phone, and probably 2 more years until I got my first computer to use in the office. In the time between, and you can see the change in my style as evidence, technology in the form of Photoshop, has completely changed the look of my drawings. The Internet and social media has changed the way I deliver my editorial cartoons. This website mackaycartoons.net, has been archiving my cartoons since the year 2000.

And, oh yeah, in 20 years I moved back to Hamilton, got married, bought a house, became a father to 3 girls, built lasting friendships, got syndicated, became a President (Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists), hosted a convention (of the ACEC), got Wikipediaed, a “shop” owner, and published a book. Who knows what the next 20 years hold but I owe much of my present day success to the one and only The Hamilton Spectator.

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On July 7th 1997 I became editorial cartoonist at the Hamilton Spectator. In that time, more than 4500 cartoons have been created in the past 20 years. Above is a slide show of 20 cartoons one for each year.

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Wednesday October 19, 2016

October 18, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday October 19, 2016

Nearly two-thirds of Canadians approve of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government: Ipsos

One year since the Liberals won the federal election, two-thirds of Canadians approve of the job Justin Trudeau’s government has done, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News.

“He’s very popular. If you look at leaders in the rest of the world, he’s got numbers that any of them would envy,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs. “We’re finding 64 per cent of Canadians saying that they basically approve of his performance and the government’s performance.”

March 29, 2016

But although Trudeau is popular, his numbers aren’t that different from the last time Canada elected a new government at the federal level.

“People might say that Justin Trudeau is at an unprecedented level of public support, but we did the same poll with Stephen Harper in 2006 after one year of him being in power and he was at 62, so the difference is only two points, pretty much within the margin of error,” said Bricker.

“So I think when big change happens, after 10 years somebody’s in power, somebody new comes in and they deliver something different, people generally respond well to it. That’s what we saw in the first year of Harper and it’s what we’re seeing in the first year of Justin Trudeau.”

If Trudeau’s government follows the same kind of public opinion trajectory, they’re in for a slow, steady drop: by the 2015 election, the Conservative approval rating had fallen to 41 per cent. (Source: Global News)

Happy Anniversary Kathleen Wynne Government!

February 12, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

It’s been exactly two years Kathleen Wynne has sat on the throne in Ontario. In other words, it’s been two years since Dalton McGuinty has been out of power, which we can all be truly thankful for. Ms Wynne was a long time minister in McGuinty’s cabinet who kept herself under the radar and out of trouble. It wasn’t until she was ran for the leadership of the Liberal party that I even bothered to draw her thinking the overtly ambitious Sandra Pupatello or Gerard Kennedy had even better shots at winning the top job. My first ever drawing of her came late in the leadership race:

With her cat eye rimmed glasses and curled hair she quickly became my most favourite caricature to draw. Not to mention, Kathleen Wynne’s bone structure in her face and high cheek bones closely resembles my mother. The majority she won for her party last year guarantees she’ll be around for at least the next 3 plus years. Her victory not only gave her a mandate from the voters, it was my starting point to regularly draw pupils behind those cat rimmed glasses. Perhaps these cartoons are just the tip of an iceberg of many many more Kathleen cartoons.

Wednesday November 5, 2014

November 5, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

Illustration by Graeme MacKay – Wednesday November 5, 2014

‘The beginning of the long dash’ indicates 75 years of official time on CBC

It has been called the longest-running feature on CBC Radio.

The National Research Council’s official time signal was first broadcast on CBC Radio 75 years ago on Wednesday.

On Nov. 5, 1939, as the Second World War was breaking out in Europe, Canadians first heard “the beginning of the long dash” which officially indicated the arrival of 1 p.m. eastern standard time.

Since 1939, the time signal has been broadcast regularly on CBC Radio, allowing Canadians to set their clocks to the exact time set by the NRC.

The signal served an important role in the pre-digital age, allowing Canadians access to exact time in a world of analog clocks which were not always reliable.

In today’s age of instant communications, GPS systems and 24-hour business transactions, the official time set by the NRC is perhaps even more important. People can now access accurate NRC time whenever they want on their computers and cellphones. (Source: CBC)