Famed editorial cartoonist Michael De Adder may have lost his job, but he promises he hasn’t lost his voice.
The author and illustrator, a member of the Order of Canada and winner of numerous national newspaper awards, says The Chronicle-Herald left him this week after nearly 30 years in publication.
“I saw this coming for a long time, but I thought I had more time. I knew newspapers were in trouble all over the world. It’s not just Halifax. I’ve been preparing for this,” he said Wednesday, a day after receiving the call. .
“They told me they no longer needed my input, I guess you could say. And they were cutting back on the animation department to twice a week.
The newspaper was recently sold as part of a $1 million deal. Postmedia Network Inc. Toronto-based media company has acquired SaltWire Network Inc. The Halifax Herald Ltd. went bankrupt, and about 60 SaltWire employees were laid off in August.
De Adder has been one of Canada’s best political cartoonists for years, attacking celebrities and politicians with biting humor or capturing the mood of the moment.
He said the industry has shrunk over time, and there is little job security.
“The better you are at editorial cartooning, the more the authorities will fear you,” he said. “They’re afraid I’ll give my opinion.”
Accolades and controversy
Over the years, his cartoons have stirred the nation’s emotions and, at other times, sparked violent reactions.
The 2018 editorial cartoon was widely shared in the wake of the tragic truck attack that left 10 dead and 14 injured in Toronto. I photographed two young hockey players — one wearing a blue-and-white Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, the other wearing a white-and-yellow Humboldt Broncos jersey — together on a bench. The cartoon showed how the country was mourning two tragedies: the Humboldt team bus accident in Saskatchewan and the Toronto attack.
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“The job of an editorial cartoonist is to draw what everyone is talking about, and most of the time what everyone is talking about is something silly that has to do with politics, and that’s a normal day,” he told Global News at the time. “On days like this, it’s the opposite, no one’s laughing, you have to pick up something that’s completely sobering.”
At other times, de Adder found his cartoons mired in controversy.
In February 2019, he said he would “strive to do better” after one of his cartoons, depicting the SNC-Lavalin controversy, caused an uproar on social media.
The cartoon showed former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on opposite sides of the boxing ring. Trudeau was advised to “continue hitting her, as her hands have been tied by attorney-client privilege.” Wilson-Raybould’s depiction showed her bound and gagged.
Critics said it drew ugly comparisons to violence against women and indigenous women in particular.
Later that year, in July, he drew the ire of Fox News and was booted from all New Brunswick newspapers after a controversial portrayal of then-US President Donald Trump.
The cartoon showed Trump walking past two dead migrants at the US-Mexico border, asking them: “Do you mind if I finish this?”
“I think it was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” De Adder told Global News at the time.
“I’m not going anywhere”
Fellow editorial cartoonist Terry Mosher, who has been working in the field since the 1960s, admitted the art form was suffering.
He told Global News that his colleagues’ voices were needed, and called the newspaper’s decision on De Adder “really stupid.”
“In a word, in a gesture, this is what we do. We laugh at people. We laugh at our institutions. Because we realize that nothing is perfect,” Mosher said of their work.
Meanwhile, De Adder has no intention of stopping.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll keep doing this until I die, I guess.”
He currently has contracts with The Globe and Mail and The Hill Times. He’s also building a subscription-based model for sharing his work.
– With files from Global News’ Mike Armstrong and Rhonda Brown
&Copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
