award-winning cartoonist to sign olympic visual memoir at martello alley
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terry mosher, the cartoonist who has signed his work aislin since the 1960s, will be signing copies of his latest book, jean drapeau's baby at martello gallery during the evening of friday, may 22, 2026 in kingston.
illustration courtesy of aislin
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supplied photo
terry mosher, artist, author and hyper-prolific polymath, will be discussing his latest book, jean drapeau’s baby, and signing copies of this and any of his 50 published works at martello alley gallery in kingston on friday night.
rather than a simple collection of previously published work, mosher is framing the book as “a visual memoir” of the 1976 summer olympic games in montreal, a scrapbook that captures not just the famous sporting event, but also the artist at work.
the book’s title alludes to then mayor jean drapeau’s infamous line about the economic viability of the event: “the olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby.”
proceeds from the book will benefit the montreal children’s hospital, though if they were fully directed to the neonatal department, mosher would be fully closing the circle with a callback to drapeau’s risible forecast. the original budget projected a cost of $315 million, but by the time the olympic flame was extinguished that number had reached $1.5 million because of construction overruns. given the scale of his misreading, it was as if the visionary mayor made his vow when he was not just with child but rather carrying quintuplets.
mosher (self-anointed aislin, a nom de plume inspired by his daughter’s name) might be best known for his cartoons in the montreal gazette, where he has been the house illustrator since 1972. his work has appeared in a score of other publications and his immense oeuvre captures his vision of all matters historical, be they political, scientific, cultural or sporting, celebrating or skewering as he saw appropriate.
he has won two national newspaper awards for his penwork, which would seem like undercount given that he is almost certainly the best-known newspaper illustrator in the country, his style recognizable at first glance. one must suppose the group bestows the editorial cartoon prize in most years with the unspoken qualifier “other than the guy with the gazette.”
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in conversation this week, mosher betrayed an undying affection to the event and the moment. “(former international olympic committee vice-president) dick pound makes the claim that, despite problems before and after, the olympics were a brilliant event,” mosher said.
“the world loved it. there wasn’t a hedge. there wasn’t security problem. montreal reached its zenith in terms of international importance. with the metro, then having 50 million people come to expo ’67, then having the expos coming shortly after that, anything seemed possible. then the olympics came, and it was a miracle that actually happened.”
as with everything in montreal for almost six decades, mosher was around to capture the miracle with pen and sketchbook in hand and see his vision play out on the pages of newspapers and magazines.
mosher didn’t hesitate to name two athletes as his favourite subjects at the games: romanian gymnast nadia comaneci and soviet weightlifter vasily alekseyev.
though the gymnastics competition dates back a half century, mosher’s memories of comaneci’s performances at the forum come in rush. “as a kid in the ’50s, i lived just a few blocks from (the forum) and had no idea how momentous it was seeing rocket richard and jean beliveau,” he said. “but the most phenomenal thing i’ve ever seen in sports was nadia getting her two 10s — the scoreboard couldn’t post a 10, so they had to put up a one instead.”
comaneci might have been the defining athlete of montreal’s summer games, yet mosher’s favourite cartoon from those glorious days featured the athlete who stood in sharpest physical contrast to the lithe gymnast. “alekseyev’s strength was just astonishing,” he said. “canadian magazine [a weekly magazine supplement to many newspapers of the era] ran my cartoon of tiny nadia and alekseyev standing arm and arm — it was in colour back in the day when only a few publications were doing colour images.”
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“cartoonist” understates his body of work — on a daily basis, mosher has brought to life a cast of characters great and small not just in the 1976 olympics but also in life and times of his city and this country for almost six decades. they are in full colour even when they are rendered with a bottle of black ink and the artist’s nib.
for those who weren’t at the games, who weren’t yet born, documentary films and photos might offer glimpses of the moments, but nothing so fully evokes the times and brings to life comaneci’s astonishing marks of 10 and alekseyev’s hoisting 500 pounds than terry mosher’s olympic opus.
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