HUMBOLDT — An editorial cartoonist is being honoured with a postage stamp. The comic being immortalized by the stamp is his reaction to the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.
Bruce MacKinnon of The Chronicle Herald in Halifax is one of five editorial cartoonists being honoured by stamps.
While on most days his goal is to comment on the issues of the day in a humorous manner, when a nation is grieving, MacKinnon shouldered a different kind of responsibility.
“You have to make a statement that somehow gets to the heart of that issue in a subtle, nuanced way,” he told Canada Post Magazine.
MacKinnon's comic showed 10 hockey players in red, labelled by the nation’s provinces, picking up a green hockey player labeled “Sask.”
The stamp was unveiled on Oct. 8.
In 2016, MacKinnon was awarded an Order of Canada for his contribution as an editorial cartoonist. One comic cited was a drawing of the National War Memorial following the death of Corporal Nathan Cirillo in October 2014.
Since being hired in 1986, MacKinnon has produced roughly 8,000 cartoons. He has won 21 Atlantic Journalism Awards, six National Newspaper Awards for editorial cartooning (and a seventh, the inaugural Journalist of the Year award) and the World Press Freedom International Editorial Cartoon Competition.
The other cartoonists being honoured by stamps are Serge Chapleau of La Press, Brian Gable of The Globe and Mail, Terry Mosher of the Montreal Gazette and Duncan Macpherson of the Toronto Star.
