Montreal Gazette: Kazi Stastna

“Quebec cartoonist and illustrator Albert Chartier was buried yesterday in St. Jean de Matha, the small town near Joliette that was his home and the setting for his beloved comic strip Onésime for more than half a century. Chartier died in a hospital on Feb. 21 at the age of 91 and is survived by four of his five children and five grandchildren. Although his brightly coloured illustrations appeared on the covers of such popular weekend supplements as La Presse’s Le Samedi and the Montreal Star’s Weekend magazine, Chartier remained largely unknown outside rural Quebec. It was there his pioneering comic strip Onésime – the first and for many years only one of its kind in Quebec – found a devoted following amid subscribers to the farming journal Le Bulletin des Agriculteurs, where it appeared monthly from 1943 to 2002.”

A decent little write up from the local team. The Montreal Gazette is operated by the same media group that brought us this sad excuse for an Obit last week in The National Post…

“Drawing attention: Only now being given his due, the late Arthur Chartier spent his life in relative obscurity”

With that headline I wonder if the flubbing of his name, a simple mater to faq-check, isn’t an ironic and pointless jab…but given that they refer to one of the more well known Quebecois cartoonist as obscure – relative to what, world fame? – I tend to suspect that it’s just indicative of a complete lack of research of any kind.

Feh!