The Laurentian

Saw an ad posted by the Laurentian Bank on the metro yesterday. A welcoming ad, with a little red-haired girl in a green sweater embracing a little Asian girl. And that's why Quebec institutions don't understand why they're racist.

The Asian kids have been here as long as the Irish ones. Reverse the paradigm and show the non-white kid having agency in the image, for a change. Even if it means taking agency away from the white kid. criminy.

For Better or Worse?

Holy crap. It looks like Lynn Johnston has finished her strip. I grew up reading her books and the strip and, I gotta say, I have a tear in my eye right now while I think of it ending. She was my mom's favourite cartoonist and will always have my respect and admiration for the way she managed to drag the art form kicking and screaming into a new era of social life.

Vilified by readers for introducing the first gay character and harangued by Schultz for killing the family dog when it got too old to be believable, Johnston generally managed to do what so many of her peers fail utterly at - keeping it real. I've always seen her characters in my life and appreciated the wry wit she used to shake up the world around us with her craft.