bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2018), p. 37
BY JOHN GRAHAM
BAICO PUBLISHING INC., 2017
108 pp, $17.95
CHRIS WESTDAL headed Canadian
JOHN GRAHAM HAS BEEN DOODLING all his life, his sketching stretching from Soviet missiles in Cuba at the height of cold war to lethal potholes in Manor Park in the depth of cold winter.
Those who’ve had the pleasure of reading Graham’s memoir Whose Man in Havana? are familiar with his derring-do in Cuba, assigned to spy on the secret Soviet missile build-up there which took us close to Armageddon in 1962. Because carrying a camera to do so would have been too risky (as if skulking around Cuban backroads as Soviet convoys passed in the night wasn’t already so), Graham sketched what he saw. For his memoir, he retrieved those once sensitive images from CIA and Canadian National Defence Files.
(Those who have not had the pleasure should run to buy the book, which has been reviewed, accurately, as “brilliant, from one of the foreign service’s best raconteurs… splendidly written and marvellously funny… a truly unique contribution to the history of Canadian external relations.”)
Potholes and Politics is a collection of the editorial cartoons Graham has drawn in his retirement, principally for his Ottawa community’s local paper, the Manor Park Chronicle, and several for bout de papier. It is a modest volume — 108 pages, 93 cartoons and a brief essay — but it does pack a punch. Gently, whimsically, it makes a point: that Graham’s post-War middle-class neighbourhood, Manor Park — nestled in the shadow of leafy Rockcliffe Park, home to Ottawa’s biggest digs — is a healthy community worth preserving and that it should not be overwhelmed by high-rises and major thoroughfares, however much Ottawa’s City Council wants the extra revenue greater density would yield.
The collection celebrates Manor Park, its denizens, its (once) yearly Dinner Dance, its pets, its attics, its marijuana outlet, its Hallowe’en, its town spirit and its local politics and some of the challenges of the foreign service in the age of Trump. Heavier issues, from provincial social service cuts to global warming, are addressed as well, but framed in a local perspective. In all, the book is an insider’s, active citizen’s guide to Graham’s home town. I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to understand the place.
Potholes and Politics is as well a primer in the history and some of the highlights of editorial cartooning, one of Graham’s enduring passions. He echoes Bob Rae’s respect for the art: “The pen, as the saying goes, is mightier than the sword. And the pen that draws can be even mightier than the pen that writes.” Graham pays homage to several greats, from Walt Kelly’s Pogo and Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury to the Toronto Star’s Duncan MacPherson and the Montreal Gazette’s Terry Mosher. Pride of place, though, goes to the British caricaturist, James Gillray, whose engravings on the excesses of the French Revolution had Napoleon complaining that Gillray’s depictions did him “more damage than a dozen generals.” Graham has a framed poster of Gillray’s “Leviathan” on his study wall and includes a fold-out version in this collection. I’ve ripped mine out for the fridge door.
Graham puts it well: “Without the regular sting of well-targeted editorial cartoons, how bland would be our newspapers, how fortunate the bombastic, the opportunistic, the dishonest or even the occasionally wrong-footed public figure — and how much less robust our democracy.”
In a distinguished foreign service and multilateral career, John Graham did his bit for democracy in Latin America and the world. Now he’s doing his bit for it right close to home.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2018), p. 37. Read the rest of this issue →
