The thing about perusing the internet is you never know what you’ll find on a spontaneous cyber-journey.

So Canadiana

Finding lost pieces of our heritage is certainly a mystery always worth solving. For instance, I discovered a book titled The Collected Doug Wright: Canada’s Master Cartoonist.

I must admit, although my knowledge of Canadiana is probably above average, I never came across Doug Wright (1917-1983) and if I did, he slipped through my consciousness.

More familiar to me (or at least managed to stick in my head) were - among others - Joe Shuster (creator of Superman), Jim Unger (Herman), Ben Wicks (The Outcasts), Lynn Johnston (For better or for worse) and Todd McFarlane (Spawn).

Speaking of Unger, this reminds me of something. Some of you reading this may remember being given an order form from Scholastic books in grade school. For my part, I recall stocking up on Herman and Heathecliff (the real bad cat. Garfield was nothing next to ‘Cliff).

Writer’s note: You don’t know this (because you can’t see or read time) but I just spent one hour retrieved and reading some Heathecliff’s I kept. He cracks me up that crazy cat.

Back to Wright. As I marched on getting aquainted with his work, it also became evident Canada has a long animated history.

Wright is a distinguished part of this country’s rich cartoon heritage. Thanks to a brilliant career,  he became an internationally reknowned artist best known for his wordless masterpiece Nipper (later Doug Wright’s Family) which ran for over three decades in succession.

Follow the links to learn more about a great and prolific creative artist.