The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Patrick LaMontagne has never been to Flin Flon, but like many Canadians, he knows the name well. So when the editorial cartoonist needed a familiar small town to reference in his latest piece, he turned to the oddly named Manitoba town. 'It's just one of those names that sticks in the Canadian memory,' says LaMontagne, who lives and works in Canmore, Alta., west of Calgary. LaMontagne's cartoon honours Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield for becoming commander of the International Space Station. Beneath the heading 'Hadfield Takes Command!', it depicts the mustachioed astronaut operating the robotic Canadarm, which hoists a giant camera pointed at the earth. 'Ok, Canada, big smiles! Let's take this group shot again,' Hadfield says through a speech bubble. 'Somebody in Flin Flon blinked.' The cartoon was published in Tuesday's Winnipeg Free Press and has or will appear in an unknown number of other newspapers across the nation. The bespectacled LaMontagne, who distributes his own cartoons, basically knew what he would draw when he sat down at his desk last Sunday. But where would the person who blinked be from? LaMontagne didn't want to single out a big city for fear of appearing guilty of favouritism. Had the blinker been in Toronto, he thought, readers in Calgary might not be impressed. The vice-versa would also be true. LaMontagne wanted a small town, and Flin Flon was the first one that came to mind. 'Just because it's a funny name,' he says. 'But not funny to be made fun of _ it's just funny enough that people know it.' Scratch heads? But would everyone know the name? Did LaMontagne risk leaving some readers scratching their heads? He didn't think so, but to be sure he asked his wife. She assured him that, yes, everyone knows Flin Flon. Whereas a typical LaMontagne cartoon takes two to three hours to complete, this one was more like four to five hours. It had nothing to do with the Flin Flon reference, but rather the elaborate detail of the International Space Station and the famous Canadarm. 'It's not all 100 per cent technically accurate, but I wanted it to be close,' LaMontagne says. Flin Flonners got a chuckle out of the cartoon's appearance in Tuesday's Free Press, but because of how his newspaper clients are billed, LaMontagne won't know how many papers picked up the piece. Having worked as a cartoonist for the past 16 years, LaMontagne, 42, says his goal is often to make people laugh, think or both. But sometimes he just wants to pay homage to a feel-good news item, and the ascension of the popular Hadfield fit that bill. 'I like the Hadfield story. I like how much press he's getting,' says LaMontagne. LaMontagne, who also draws portraits, had earlier done one of Hadfield that the astronaut personally praised from outer space. And what if Hadfield happens to see the cartoon? 'I'm absolutely certain if Hadfield saw it, he knows where Flin Flon is,' LaMontagne says with a laugh.
