Terry Mosher
 
Terry Mosher
Political Cartoonist, The (Montreal) Gazette
On occasion, Terry Mosher has been called Canada's nastiest political cartoonist.
AISLIN is the name of his elder daughter, and the nom de plume that he uses
as the editorial page cartoonist for The Gazette in Montreal. Aislin cartoons
are syndicated to newspapers throughout Canada and, through Los Angeles' Cartoonist
& Writer's Syndicate, to publications in the rest of the world. Mosher has
free-lanced in the US and abroad for such publications such The New York Times,
Time Magazine, The National Lampoon, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly and Punch.
Born in Ottawa, Mr. Mosher, now 60, attended fourteen different schools in Montreal,
Toronto and Quebec City, graduating from Quebec City's École des Beaux-arts
in 1967. He then began working for The Montreal Star, moving over to The Gazette
in 1972. Aislin has traveled extensively on assignment for The Gazette, writing
and drawing interpretive sketchbooks throughout Canada, The U.S., Ireland, Japan,
Russia, Cuba and North Africa.
Mr. Mosher has produced 35 books, either collections of his own works or books
that he has illustrated. His latest collection, published in the fall of 2001,
was entitled In Your Face. Mr. Mosher also wrote a book with journalist Peter
Desbarats entitled The Hecklers, a history of political cartooning in Canada.
The recipient of two National Newspaper Awards and five individual prizes from
The International Salon of Caricature, in 1985 Mosher became the youngest person
to be inducted into The Canadian News Hall of Fame. Also interested in the new
technology, Mosher's home page on the Internet, which features his daily Aislin
cartoon, was judged the most entertaining Canadian Web site for 1996.
An avid baseball fan, Mr. Mosher is a 25-year member of The Baseball
Writers' Association of America, which allows him to vote for Baseball's Hall
of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Montreal's McCord Museum recently hosted a large exhibit of the best caricatures
of Aislin of The Gazette and Serge Chapleau, the editorial page
cartoonist for La Presse. Both cartoonists were well pleased to have such a
retrospective given that neither of them are dead yet.
Mr. Mosher is a member of the board of directors for The Old Brewery Mission,
Montreal's largest homeless shelter. In addition to his regular cartoon work
for The Gazette, Mr. Mosher was recently named cartoon editor of Maclean's,
Canada's national magazine. Part of his mandate includes increasing the national
profile of young, aspiring Canadian cartoonists.
In January of 2003, it was announced that Terry Mosher would be appointed as
an Officer of the Order of Canada.
|
