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Terry Mosher

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Terry Mosher
BornChristopher Terry Mosher
(1942-11-11) 11 November 1942 (age 82)
Ottawa, Ontario
NationalityCanadian
Area(s)Author
Cartoonist
Humanitarian
Pseudonym(s)Aislin
AwardsNational Newspaper Awards (2)
Canadian News Hall of Fame
Order of Canada

Christopher Terry Mosher, OC (born 11 November 1942) is a Canadian political cartoonist for the Montreal Gazette. He draws under the name Aislin, a rendition of the name of his eldest daughter Aislinn (without the second 'n').

Life and career

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Mosher attended fourteen different schools in Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City, graduating from the École des Beaux-arts in 1967. He famously won entrance to this fine arts college (now part of UQAM) by forging his high-school graduation certificate, which he called his most successful work.[1] He then began working for The Montreal Star, moving to the Montreal Gazette in 1972.

Aislin's drawings have also appeared in numerous international publications, such as Punch, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, National Lampoon, Time, The Washington Star, The New York Times and the Canadian edition of The Reader's Digest. He is the author of 43 books.[2]

Terry Mosher has had a long association with the Old Brewery Mission, Montreal's largest shelter for the homeless, and in 2001, was appointed to the institution's board of directors.

Mosher famously turned down shares in the board game Trivial Pursuit for which he provided the original artwork. The co-inventor Chris Haney gave Mosher a choice: $1,000 or shares. Mosher took the cash.[3]

He and fellow Montreal cartoonist Serge Chapleau were the subject of a 2003 documentary film, Nothing Sacred, directed by Garry Beitel.[4]

Honours and awards

He is the recipient of two National Newspaper Awards and five individual prizes from the international Salon of Caricature. In 1985, Mosher became the youngest person ever to be inducted into the Canadian News Hall of Fame. In 2002 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from McGill University. In 2012 he was inducted into the Canadian Cartoonist's Hall of Fame (aka The Giants of the North) in a ceremony in Toronto as part of the 8th Annual Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning. He received the Canadian Version of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 [5] and the Canadian Version of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.[6]

Controversy

In 1993, MP Robert Layton denounced Aislan's cartoon depicting outgoing Prime Minister Brian Mulroney lying face down in the snow after having been tripped by a whistling Pierre Trudeau[7] as "a crime against fundamental Canadian values of decency and mutual respect", making him the first political cartoonist censured in the House of Commons.[7][8]

On 12 March 2010, he drew a cartoon depicting a woman in a niqab as being in a prison. One community leader pointed out that he had made similar cartoons about women wearing a hijab.[9]

References

  1. ^ Aislin Receives Honorary Doctorate from McGill
  2. ^ Most Recent Books
  3. ^ Allan Gould (1984). "How a motley crew of Investors took a flier on a new game called Trivial Pursuit -- and are on their way to becoming newly minted millionaires". allangould.com. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  4. ^ Nothing Sacred (Documentary film). Montreal: National Film Board of Canada. 2003.
  5. ^ http://www.gg.ca/honour.aspx?id=7914&t=6&ln=Mosher
  6. ^ http://www.gg.ca/honour.aspx?id=104065&t=13&ln=Mosher
  7. ^ a b Mesley, Wendy (30 April 2017). "From Trudeau to Trudeau: Political cartoonist Aislin looks back at 50 years of drawing Canada". CBC News. Retrieved 15 October 2017.
  8. ^ "Terry Mosher". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 4 October 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
  9. ^ "Niqab Gazette cartoon steps up debate". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 12 March 2010. Retrieved 4 August 2017.