November 13, 2021
I do not plan to use this page to repeat Facebook posts, but I will make exceptions on occasion if there’s a backstory I find interesting and hopefully insightful on how a cartoonist works.
When I started drawing editorial cartoons, I vowed to stick to lighthearted satire and leave darker matter to other content providers. I figured we all needed a break from the dreary news around us. But the recent drowning in lower Niagara’s powerful rapids stuck in my mind as a story that I should address. The initial challenge was simple: where’s the satirical angle? Once the cartooning gears started turning, possibilities emerged.
My first idea had something to do with Niagara’s history of attracting fearless (or senseless) risk-takers. “Unintended Daredevils” popped into my mind as I recalled the story about the 1912 Ice Bridge Disaster when unsuspecting Sunday pleasure seekers met their doom.
But this accident wasn’t some dusty century-old tale of woe. It had just happened and the victim was a local young man only 15 years old, out fishing with his father. There would be no clever gag to explore, not if I cared about the heartbreak of the young man’s family and friends.
There had to be another way to make a commentary with sensitivity. After running a rough idea by the managing editor at the Niagara Gazette, he agreed that my approach would work.
Any loss of life is tragic, but it’s particularly poignant for parents who lose a child. And almost unimaginable if they are eyewitness to a horrifying mishap.
1 thought on “Swept Away”
We lost a distant family member in the Canadian side of the river, and it is a near-miracle that two other members of that family were not lost to the sudden current change which dashed them all into debris while diving. I grew up on a harbor with many ponds in the area. Each was usually friendly but that can change in an instant, so no matter how used to a body of water someone is, it is always essential to remember precautions and awareness, because even with them things can get risky.