Brian Gable (1949-)

Gable, Brian 1949-

Personal

Born 1949, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Education: University of Saskatchewan, B.F.A.; University of Toronto, B.Ed., 1971.

Career

Illustrator and cartoonist. Art teacher in Brockville, Ontario, Canada; freelance cartoonist, beginning 1977; Regina Leader-Post, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, cartoonist, beginning 1980; Globe and Mail,Toronto, Ontario, currently editorial cartoonist.

Awards, Honors

National Newspaper Award (Canada), 1986, 1995, 2001, 2005.

Sidelights

Known to his fellow Canadians on the strength of the many editorial cartoons he has contributed to the Toronto Globe and Mail, artist Brian Gable has also won a younger following through his collaboration with children’s-book author Brian P. Cleary on the “Words Are CATegorical” series. Cleary’s humorous books about the intricacies and inconsistencies of English grammar, which include such titles as How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear?: What Are Homonyms and Homophones?, A Lime, a Mime, a Pool of Slime: More about Nouns, and Pitch and Throw, Grasp and Know: What Is a Synonym?, have earned the praise of teachers and critics alike.

Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Gable studied fine arts at the University of Saskatchewan and also earned a degree in education at the University of Toronto. Originally intending to be a teacher, he found a greater satisfaction in creating editorial cartoons, and he began his freelance career in the mid-1970s. As the editorial cartoonist for the Globe and Mail, Gable has been honored with several prestigious National Newspaper Awards in his native Canada.

While Gable’s editorial cartoons often feature caricatures of presidents, prime ministers, and other current movers and shakers, in his work with Cleary he is allowed to range more widely, creating what Hazel Rochman described in Booklist as “wild cartoon scenarios” featuring loosely drawn animal characters. “The energy and sheer razzmatazz of the text and graphics [in Dearly, Nearly, Insincerely: What Is an Adverb?] will have young grammarians entranced,” asserted Dona Ratterree in her School Library Journal review of one Gable-Cleary collaboration, while in Booklist Carolyn Phelan praised Lazily, Crazily, Just a Bit Nasally: More about Adverbs for luring readers into its pages with “comical line drawings zapped with color.” “Cleary’s often-goofy examples” of peoples, places, and things in A Lime, a Mime, a Pool of Slime are paired with “wildly colored, cartoonlike drawings [that] have a zany edge,” Phelan also noted, while in the same periodical, Rochman described Pitch and Throw, Grasp and Know as a “fun” way to convey to young readers “the message that words are not boring.”

In addition to his work in children’s picture books, Gable has also collected his most popular editorial cartoons in the books Gable: The Editorial Cartoons of Brian Gable and Another Day, Another Doom: Brian

Gable’s Cartoon Commentary. His political-based art is also included in Poetic Justice: Satirical Verse from the Globe & Mail, a book collecting the verses of journalism colleague John Allemang.

FOR CHILDREN

Diane L. Burns and Peter and Connie Roop, Backyard Beasties: Jokes to Snake You Smile,Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2004.

Peter and Connie Roop, Holiday Howlers: Jokes for Punny Parties, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2004.

Sam Schultz, Don’t Kid Yourself: Relatively Great (Family) Jokes, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2004.

Sam Schultz, Game-Day Gigglers: Winning Jokes to Score Some Laughs, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2004.

Sam Schultz, Monster Mayhem: Jokes to Scare You Silly!, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2004.

Sam Schultz, Schoolyard Snickers: Classy Jokes That Make the Grade, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2004.

June Swanson, Punny Places: Jokes to Make You Mappy, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2004.

Rick Walton, Foul Play: Sports Jokes That Won’t Strike Out, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.

Rick and Ann Walton, Magical Mischief: Jokes That Shock and Maze, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.

Rick and Ann Walton, Real Classy: Silly School Jokes, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.

Sharon Friedman, Grin and Bear It: Zoo Jokes to Make You Roar, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.

Diane L. Burns, Horsing Around: Jokes to Make You Smile, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.

Sam Schultz, Ivan to Make You Laugh: Jokes and Novel, Nifty, and Notorious Names,Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.

Scott K. Peterson, Let the Fun Begin: Wacky What-Do-You-Get Jokes, Playful Puns, and More, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.