
Cartoonists on the Left: 1873-1939
by BK Munn
In honour of May Day, and on the eve of the federal election, Sequential presents a small historical gallery of cartoons by Canadian cartoonists on the theme of politics, labour and human rights.
From the earliest beginnings of cartoons and caricature in Canada, artists have portrayed the struggles of subaltern groups against oppression and hypocrisy. From the 1850s drawings of George Townshend and the woodcuts of Jean-Baptiste Cote in the 1860s to the political cartoons of the present-day, this non-conformist spirit endures. The Progressive Tradition in Canada is well-documented. Less evident is the work of the cartoonists who contributed to this tradition. Here are a few of the key English-language artists and publications from Canada’s forgotten “left history” –taken from magazines published during 3 key periods: Grip (1800s), Masses (1920s), and New Frontier (1930s).
1. JW Bengough and Grip Magazine
Founded in 1873 by the cartoonist JW Bengough, Grip was a satirical weekly full of news, jokes, and cartoons, with a decidedly anti-Tory politics and a penchant for progressive causes. Grip chronicled the major events and social-cultural battles of the late-1800s, including the Riel rebellion and the various scandals involving Prime Minister John A. MacDonald. Under the editorship of the radical writer Phillips Thompson, Grip became even more left-wing and cartoons concerned with taxation, women’s suffrage, and worker’s rights became more common.
2. The Masses Magazine and “Prolet-Cult”
Founded by writer and artist members of Toronto’s Progressive Arts Club, Masses was a monthly magazine associated with the Canadian Communist Party, sharing some of the staff and contributors of party organs like The Worker newspaper. The Masses (not to be confused with the American leftist magazine of the same name) had a very distinct design and featured work by some of the more important Canadian cartoonists and artists of the 1930s. Each issue celebrated “Proletarian Culture” and featured a large woodcut picture on the cover, with every headline and article subtitle also using the same method. This specific woodcut style was popularized by European artists like Frans Masereel and the American Lynd Ward, both of whom created their famous picture novels using woodcuts, telling universal human stories without words. Consequently, it was a style taken up by many left-wing artists in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Masses was concerned with Depression-era issues ranging from unionization and workers’ rights, the historic On-to-Ottawa Trek of the homeless, anti-Fascism, exposing anti-Semitism, civil rights, and left-wing arts and letters. Many well-known Canadian and international poets, playwrights, and novelists published in the magazine’s pages.
3. The New Frontier
Founded by left-wing Canadian writers, the New Frontier was a monthly magazine that constituted a slight break from the tradition of leftwing publications in Canada. Although most of the editorial board, including poet Dorothy Livesay, were associated with the Communist Party, New Frontier was much more a product of the Common Front of anti-fascist workers and artists. In addition, it tended to be more interested in matters of art and literature over pure politics.
The magazine was especially concerned with the fight against fascism in Spain, Germany, Italy and within Canada and the US (and especially in Quebec) in the years before World War Two. It was also interested in larger questions of Marxism and art.
Avrom Yanofsky (1911-199) was a Ukrainian-Canadian Jewish cartoonist whose work appeared in The Canadian Tribune, Vokhnblat (Canadian Yiddish newspaper), Outlook, and in the U.S. in The Worker and The New Masses. Yanofsky (or Yanovsky) also created characters like Hugh Dunnit, Major Domo and Jojo for Bell Features during the boom in Canadian comic book publishing during the 1940s.
Many of Hyde’s pictures for New Frontier were concerned with the carnage in Spain and the atrocities committed by the fascist army of Franco and its efforts to crush the revolutionary democratic Republican government.
(versions of this article originally appeared elsewhere)