{"id":32484,"date":"2023-01-19T18:42:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T23:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32484"},"modified":"2023-01-26T21:14:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T02:14:51","slug":"auroran-cartoonist-publishes-first-volume-of-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroran-cartoonist-publishes-first-volume-of-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Auroran cartoonist publishes first volume of work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scott Johnston has been \u201cscribbling\u201d ever since he was a kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Influenced by the funnies in any number of newspapers, he spent many hours poring over comic strips like Peanuts developing his own characters, voice, and style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than 20 years, he has used his pen to take a light-hearted look at the issues and people that make Aurora tick, and now he can add \u201cauthor\u201d to his resume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnston, recently retired from a job with the Provincial government, has now published his first volume of cartoons. Now on sale at Aurora\u2019s Bookworms & Co., as well as on Amazon, the book expands his canvas well beyond Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce I retired, it coincided with the arrival of COVID, so I had more time on my hands being retired \u2013 and a lot more time on my hands from COVID because you couldn\u2019t do anything,\u201d says Johnston on the genesis of the book. \u201cI had a lot of ideas for gag cartoons over the years but hadn\u2019t really followed up on them because I didn\u2019t have the time or an outlet for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing social media, I was able to draw something just for fun and see what kind of reaction I got from family and friends; I got a lot of positive feedback\u2026and I just kept going, and thought, \u2018Let\u2019s test myself and see if I can draw five cartoons a week.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing gag cartoons, he said, was somewhat \u201cliberating\u201d from the editorial cartoons he creates for The Auroran. As topics typically covered for the paper are municipal in nature, inspiration for the gag cartoons has been much wider ranging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can let your mind just go all over the map,\u201d says Johnston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnston joined The Auroran as a cartoonist and columnist shortly after founder Ron Wallace established the paper in 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched in the heat of a municipal election campaign, his first cartoon naturally focused on the mayoral race and depicted candidates going door to door trick-or-treating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember spending an inordinate amount of time on it because it would be the first thing I published,\u201d he said. \u201cAt that point, for me, it was a very detailed cartoon \u2013 but my cartooning has evolved over the years \u2013 it\u2019s still simplistic, but it\u2019s \u2018better\u2019 simplistic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last two decades, Johnston\u2019s editorial cartoons have gained quite a following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looks back with a laugh on a letter to the editor praising his viewpoint on the community, suggesting he run for mayor. While he kept the headline for his scrapbook, he says it\u2019s \u201cmuch more fun being on the sidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what editorial cartooning is all about: it\u2019s to get people thinking. It\u2019s not to be nasty; it\u2019s hopefully, in some cases, to be funny \u2013 and to get people thinking about certain subjects in a new light. All four mayors I have cartooned about \u2013 Tim Jones, Phyllis Morris, Geoff Dawe, and Tom Mrakas \u2013 have all asked for cartoons over the years. It\u2019s very gratifying to know that they appreciate the work I do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As his new book is subtitled \u201cVolume 1,\u201d Johnston is leaving the door open to a Volume 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun to see it out and it\u2019s really neat to have something you have published in your hands,\u201d he says. \u201cI hope readers find it enjoyable \u2013 the cartoons are mostly meant for fun, to lift people\u2019s spirits, maybe get a little thinking involved, and I hope they laugh as they go through it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Collection of Scott Johnston Cartoons: Volume 1 is available now from Bookworms & Co. and Amazon for $24.99. Bookworms & Co. will host Johnston for a book signing at their St. Andrew\u2019s Village location (Yonge Street and Orchard Heights) on March 4, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Johnston’s first volume of cartoons is result of a life-long love of sketching – and COVID downtime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32485,"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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2023-01-19-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8rW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 07:52:49","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\/32484","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=32484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}