{"id":21803,"date":"2018-10-03T17:36:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21803"},"modified":"2018-10-03T17:36:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:36:08","slug":"inside-aurora-conventional-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-conventional-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Conventional Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

What do you call a collection of cartoonists: a scribble? A Jest? An editor\u2019s nightmare?
\nI\u2019m not sure if there even is an official term, but when they get together, I would call them a lot of fun.
\nEarlier this month, the Association of Canadian Cartoonists met as they do every two years. This time around, we ventured to Sacramento where we joined our American cousins, plus friends from Malaysia, New Zealand, Nicaragua and other countries.
\nOver the course of four days we socialized and enjoyed presentations on a number of wide-ranging subjects.
\nYou might think it was all discussions on font types, shading techniques, evil editors, and how to draw Justin Trudeau, but in fact, only one of those topics was touched on.
\nThis was when a cartoonist from Pittsburgh told of how he was fired from his job of 25 years due to his newspaper\u2019s new editors refusing to let him draw uncomplimentary Donald Trump cartoons.
\nAnother illustrator gave a very moving illustrated talk on losing his house and all his possessions during last year\u2019s devastating fires in California. This was based on a series of cartoon-like sketches he had made in the days following the event.
\nAn internationally known cartoonist provided an update on his ongoing battles for free speech in his native Malaysia, where his political cartoons about the government resulted in charges of sedition and the potential for him to spend 43 years in jail.
\nIn his words; \u201cIn a country with no media freedom, cartooning is the only medium we have. No dictator can withstand laughter.\u201d It was terrific to meet him.
\nBut the subject matter that week-end wasn\u2019t all serious. There was a humourous look at Canada\/US relations, entitled \u201cWall Sounds Pretty Good\u201d, and a presentation on the importance of local cartoons, with a focus on Ontario.
\nIn a very entertaining session that was open to the public, a \u201ccage match\u201d was held with four teams representing the US, the US (there were a lot of Americans present), Canada and a mix of internationals.
\nTaking suggestions of wide-ranging subjects, verbs and people from the audience (eg: Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hindenburg, kissing and beer) the teams had 60 seconds to create the best cartoon incorporating all those themes.
\nAfter several rounds, the Canadian team, who managed to also include a hockey reference in each of their cartoons, and who had a brawl on stage with one of the America teams that dared to include hockey skates on Vladimir Putin in one of their cartoons, was declared victorious by the audience.
\nAt the closing gala there were a series of awards. Recognizing the close ties with our Americans colleagues, the Canadians presented a new award of \u201cHonourary Canuck\u201d (the plaque featured a beaver lazing in a Muskoka chair holding a beer and a small Canadian flag), to a surprised and honoured recipient. No doubt it will take pride of place alongside her Reuben Award and Pulitzer Prize.
\nMy friend Graeme MacKay from the Hamilton Spectator was deservedly recognized with the Townsie Award as the Canadian English language cartoonist of the year (the French winner was not in attendance, and will receive their award shortly).
\nThe next day we all went our separate ways, vowing to meet again in Ottawa in 2020.
\nAs always, I left a little more enlightened, and a little more inspired.
\nAs for my new cartooning friends from around the world, one thing I made sure they all took away with them, whether they liked it or not, was a newfound knowledge of the Ontario town of Aurora.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston What do you call a collection of cartoonists: a scribble? A Jest? An editor\u2019s nightmare? I\u2019m not sure if there even is an official term, but when they get together, I would call them a lot of fun. Earlier this month, the Association of Canadian Cartoonists met as they do every two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5FF","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 05:45:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}