How to Eat a Cat - The Cartoonist Mike Constable
This is a fun, political, documentary portrait of artist Mike Constable. It was first seen on the Rough Cuts series on CBC Newsworld. It's an entertaining and captivating 39 minutes.
Synopsis
Mike Constable is a rough-hewn, acerbic, colourful character who has survived a hand-to-mouth existence as a political artist and still manages to hold on to his left-wing ideals. Now he is becoming more successful than ever and his cartoons are in demand by the mainstream press and corporate clients. Will success spoil this one-time Communist Party member?
Out of a cluttered, run-down studio in an alley off of Dundas Avenue in Toronto, Constable draws cartoons for both labour and the mainstream, plans Labour Day parade skits and makes cartoon animation on the computer he bought out of a court settlement against his landlord. With his bushy grey beard and his politics of opposition, he comes across as a jolly, contemporary version of Karl Marx. But there is another side of Constable. He makes his main living doing cartoons for Saturday Night magazine, corporate clients and professional associations.
An amusing exchange between Constable and his long-term agent makes clear the contradictions of his life as an artist. Diane Jameson describes herself as the political opposite of Constable: he was a communist for years; she is anti-communist. They depend on each other to make a living.
Constable was one of the founders of Guerilla, a 1960s underground newspaper that coincided with the Yorkville hippie scene. He became a member of the Communist Party in the 1970s, later had his eyes opened by perestroika in the Soviet Union and finally found himself without a party when the Canadian CP split in 1991.
Circumstances and success are changing things for Mike Constable. Evicted from his 30-year studio, he takes up residence in a new condo, gets to know the daughter he was separated from for 19 years, accepts work from corporate clients and still manages to hang on to his view that capitalism's injustices must be combated.
How To Eat a Cat was selected for competion in the Hot Docs! Canadian International Documentary Festival 2000, chosen for the Mayworks Festival (Toronto) and won the Certificate of Merit Ð Finalist award at Worldfest Houston.
How To Eat a Cat is distributed by Kinetic Inc., (www.kineticvideo.com) and by VTape (www.vtape.org)
