comic strip

Gridlock – Hammercab

In my earlier days as an editorial cartoonist at the Hamilton Spectator, between 1999 and 2003, I co-created a three times a week cartoon strip called “Gridlock,” featuring five cab drivers navigating life in Hamilton. The following is a post from 2007. It’s a neat little time capsule that reflected on the issues of the day with a diverse group of character.

Above: celebrating New Years the staff of Hammercab, from left to right: Sammy Singh, Bev, Edward (aka Edgar), and Eddie Wight, a.k.a. Whitey

Speaking of past cartoon strips I have drawn, here’s a more recent strip that ran between 1999 and 2003. Gridlock featured 5 characters who worked at a fictitious local taxi company called Hammercab. Like Alas and Alack, Gridlock’s creation came about through a partnership, with me as illustrator, and Spec colleague Wade Hemsworth who wrote the scripts. On its first day of printing, on July 3, 1999, editor-in-chief Kirk LaPointe introduced it this way,

“We are one of the few papers anywhere to attempt such a portrait of its communities. Our belief is that our region offers great source material. We can afford to laugh at ourselves without getting mean-spirited, and Gridlock is one way we’ll share a chuckle at our plight…The aim is to keep the cartoon current. Whatever afflicts or infects the region, positively and otherwise, will make its way into Gridlock. But there will be time and room for general musing, too.”

Since it was born over the Canada Day weekend, we commemorated each anniversary of Gridlock with a song as shown above and below.

The strip went through an evolution of different shapes and frequency. In the beginning it was a three or four panel black & white strip published 3 times a week. Then, it moved to the front page, became colour, and took on a rectangular gag cartoon shape. We can actually blame 9/11 for removing it from the front page, when the Spectator higher uppers felt it wasn’t the right time to put humour on the cover. After 9/11 Gridlock took on the large multiple panel strip shape you see from the examples.

The above cartoon features me as the customer being rushed to the hospital for the birth of my first daughter, Gillian. It’s a favourite of mine since it ran around the time she was actually born — now Gillian’s approaching her sixth birthday.

The above cartoon was also one of the last Gridlock strips. Since creating the strip was a freelance gig requiring several hours outside work to illustrate, I found it a bit frustrating to draw. I’m not too fond of drawing cars, and the composition of the strips relied on templates with some photoshop tweaking here and there. It became creatively limiting working within the confines of scripts and I found, as an editorial cartoonist with solitary instincts, quite bored with Gridlock.

When plans were made to trim the alloted space we were used to getting it was decided to unceremoniously end Gridlock for good. There were no tears, no replacement, no letters from the public.

Looking back though, I’m discovering appreciation for the old strip. Many remain timeless. Others remind us of people and politicians who are no longer around. Some other favourites of mine which feature every day things and special guests:

The 407 ETR
The Hippy
The Peregrin Falcon
Pope John Paul II
Martha Stewart
Autumn
Prince Charles

The old Gridlock website has become a hollowed out shell of what it once was on the Internet through an early Yahoo tech platform called Geocities and seen through the link thanks to the Internet Archive. Fortunately they are preserved in my digital archives. Please contact me if interested in viewing the collection.

Originally posted August 23, 2007

August 20, 2007


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Continuing with some memories of a cartoon I drew 18 years ago for the University of Ottawa student paper, The Fulcrum, which was my first foray into getting my stuff printed on a regular basis (Part I). The above cartoon was the first Alas & Alack strip to be published. It was completely inspired by the brilliant work of British Cartoonist Steve Bell, and in particular his wonderful series of cartoon strips chronicling the years 1979-1987 when Margaret Thatcher led the UK, entitled, “Maggie’s Farm.” It set the foundation for a series which would focus in Brian Mulroney and his cabinet. The main figures included Finance Minister Michael Wilson (dubbed Earl Mike, Minister of Pelf and Filthy Lucre), Joe Clark (Erstwhile king in charge foreign things), John Crosbie, (Sir John of Foundling), Lucien Bouchard – who wore a Napoleonic outfit (Baron Lucien, Minister of Nature), and Barbara McDougall, who as Minister for the Status of Women, who was known in the strip as Lady Barb the Dougall, ye minister of Shrews and Wenches. That’s right, Shrews and Wenches — they were different times in 1989 — political correctness was on the verge of getting traction in the universities at the time but hadn’t quite made it to my school yet. The Barbara McDougall character carried a coat hanger which I suppose had some reference to the abortion issue at the time. For whatever reason, it’s a head scratcher to me now, and probably not the sort of symbolism I’d depict in a cartoon these days.


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Referring to Sheila Copps as “Damn Sheila Witch Bitch” is also an indication of how permissive editors and readers were in the pre-PC period of the student press. Even worse, it serves as an indication of how perhaps nobody bothered to read my cartoon. I don’t remember any complaints, afterall. I like the little blurb from David Suzuki who explains the activities of the Diefenbeaver, and the reference to Pierre Trudeau who at the time was speaking out against the Meech Lake Accord is a nice touch to a bygone period of Canadian history.


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I’m guessing Jesse from the Beachcombers, or even the long running CBC series is becoming more and more forgotten from the collective memory banks of Canadians. Pierre Trudeau was a featured fixture in this 1990 strip. It just goes to show how influencial the former Prime Minister was even as Mulroney’s term was winding down. Trudeau had been out of office over 6 years when he was campaigning against the Meech Lake Accord. It was just the beginning of Jean Chretien’s reign as Liberal leader.


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And there is a nice segue between Trudeau and Chretien, with David Suzuki presiding over.


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The late Governor-General Ray Hnatyshyn featured here. While living in Ottawa I had the opportunity to see some of these characters in real life. Parliament Hill was only a 10 to 15 minute walk from my residence so occasionally I would venture down and sit in on Question period to see them in action — if you want to call it action. With Ray Hnatyshyn I witnessed some aspect of his coronation or induction or swearing in or whatever they call it when you become Governor-General. Admittedly, I don’t remember much except for him wearing a top hat and being lead on and off Parliament Hill in a horse drawn landau on a dreary overcast day and only a few people interested enough to watch the events. A few other guys in this cartoon continued on to other functions of administration. Michael Wilson, portrayed as Minister of Pelf and Dirty Lucre, is now Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. He holds the severed head of Jean Charest, (I guess he was demoted while in Mulroney’s cabinet). He went on to become Tory leader and is now Premier of Quebec.


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A couple international cartoons done in 1990. Above with Saddam Hussein, and below around the time Margaret Thatcher was hoisted out of office.


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August 14, 2007

Last week I did a cartoon showing Vladimir Putin atop Lenin’s tomb reminiscent of photos we’d see of Soviet leaders during the cold war years. I was inspired to draw it following renewed interest by the Russians in the Arctic from the North Pole to the Mediterranean via the Caucasus. It made me think back, before Boris Yeltsin, to the last time I drew Lenin’s tomb back when Mikhail Gorbachev was in power, as he warming up to the west with Glasnost, and implementing political and economic reforms otherwise known as Perestroika. The year was 1989, democracy was spreading throughout Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall had just come down, and I was a student at the University of Ottawa. I was just starting out getting my worked published in the student press, through the campus newspaper called The Fulcrum. I had a cartoon strip called:

It was modern day (mostly Canadian) political news placed in a medieval setting. Brian Mulroney was the King of Canadaland, Gorbachev was the Russian Tsar, they rode around in horses, they spoke in Monty Pythonesque olde englishe. For most of the time it existed between September 1989, and April 1991, I collaborated with my friend, Paul Nichols, who was a fellow history student. He helped write it, and I drew it. It was published for each weekly edition of the Fulcrum.


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In retrospect, they were a bit wordy. The jokes were corny. The drawings were a bit crude, but keep in mind that we were twenty year olds. At the time home computers were still very basic word processors, there was no Internet, and early versions of Photoshop were still half a decade away. The inking of Alas & Alack had to be configured with exacto knives and glue stick. Tones were done using Chartpak shading film, and some special text was incorporated using Letraset transferrable lettering. It was all very time consuming work to put together a single Alas & Alack cartoon. A perfect excuse to keep me from reading textbooks, writing essays and studying for exams.


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Throughout the series I portrayed former Canadian Prime Ministers Clark and Turner, who were still active in politics at the time, as “erstwhile kings” who would show up every now and then carrying the crowns they once wore when they were in charge. Pierre Trudeau would show up portrayed as some sort of God-like character who lived in an acropolis type of temple on Mount Royal.

More Alas & Alack in the days to come….

FEEDBACK

I remember Alas and Alack quite well, Mr. Mackay. I started studying at U of O in 1990 and I remember seeing it and a whole bunch of other cartoons of yours in the newspaper. Looks like you’ve done pretty well in cartooning eversince. Not surprising! Glad I can keep enjoying your work.

Marc LeBlanc (August 16, 2007)