How to Eat a Cat: The Cartoonist Mike Constable

Director: Michael Connolly | Amistad Video + Film | 39 minutes
Shown on CBC Newsworld - Rough Cuts
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Mike Constable is a rough-hewn, acerbic character who has survived a hand-to-mouth existence as a political artist with left-wing ideals. Now his cartoons are in demand by the mainstream press and corporate clients and he is becoming more patronized than ever . Will success spoil this one-time Communist Party member? Out of a cluttered, run-down studio apartment in an alley in Toronto, Constable draws cartoons for both labour and mainstream publications, plans Labour Day Parade skits and makes cartoon animations on the computer he bought with a court settlement against his landlord. With his bushy grey beard and his politics of opposition, like a jolly contemporary version of Karl Marx, he argues provocatively with his anti-communist business agent. While Constable makes his main living doing cartoons for corporate clients and for such magazines as Saturday Night, he still manages to hang on to his view that capitalism’s injustices must be exposed.