About Michael Bedard

Michael Bedard

After growing up in Windsor, Ontario, on the U.S.-Canada border, Michael Bedard moved to Los Angeles in the late 1960s and eventually became a popular poster artist. He is best known for his “Sitting Ducks” poster from the late 1970s, a darkly comical image of three ducks sunning themselves poolside with sunglasses and iced tea. One duck, however, has noticed bullet holes in the wall behind him and is curiously studying them. The poster is representative of Bedard’s skill in using humor to highlight personal and social problems. “Sitting Ducks” was inspired by behaviors Bedard witnessed in ducks he was raising at his Topanga Canyon home, as well as by the death of Beatle John Lennon, who in 1980 was shot and killed by former mental patient Mark Chapman. The “Sitting Ducks” poster gave birth to several other projects, including a storybook, a video game, and a television series that aired in some fifty countries. Bedard, who has no formal art training, also won an Emmy Award for his animated film The Santa Claus Brothers.