Brian Gable’s cartooning career began in a university classroom. But it wasn’t in art class.
“I was doodling in the margins of what should have been my notes,” says Brian. “A person sitting beside me had just signed up for the student newspaper and looked over and said ‘I think someone said at the paper we’re looking for a cartoonist. Would you like to submit?’ So I did.”
When Brian graduated, he gave up cartooning for a teaching career – but that didn’t last very long. He soon returned to his passion.
“I knew I loved art in all its different manifestations,” he says. “I wanted to just draw.”
In November, Brian marked 25 years with the Globe and Mail. That’s roughly 6500 political cartoons he’s drawn over the years.
“The first fundamental thing is that people have to know what you’re trying to say,” he says. “And then you hopefully say it in such a way that they laugh.”
But when you only have one 4-by-4-inch frame to work with, there’s a thin line between a clear message and subtle parody.
“There are days where I’m at the end of my drawing session and I look at my cartoon and think it’s just brilliant. And I’m waiting for the Nobel Prize in cartooning –which doesn’t exist,” he says. “And then I send it out and people go ‘I’m not sure what you really meant by that.’”
Other criticisms to Gable have been much harsher.
“Occasionally, very spirited responses will erupt from a cartoon that’s drawn,” he says. “Death threats.”
It comes with the territory. In 2006, a Danish cartoon of the prophet Mohammed incited riots. Over the years, some of Canada’s political cartoonists have had to hire security guards – proving a small image can be more provocative than words.
“What an incredible privilege to be sitting on a point where people feel that powerfully about ideas,” he says.
Brian has the freedom to express these ideas through his comics, whether he’s making people think, laugh or rave.
“Maybe the most important thing about cartooning is the very existence of an important page in the newspaper given over to mocking and criticizing power,” he says. “It is a reminder that in our culture… if you don’t like something, you can say so.”
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