Renowned editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder may have lost his job, but he promises he hasn’t lost his voice.
The author and illustrator, who is a member of the Order of Canada and has won multiple national newspaper awards, says he was let go by The Chronicle-Herald newspaper this week after nearly 30 years with the publication.
“I’ve seen this coming for a long time, but I thought I had more time. I knew newspapers are in trouble all around the world. It’s not just Halifax. So I’ve been preparing for this,” he said Wednesday, one day after getting “the call.”
“They told me they no longer required my contribution, I guess you could say. And they were reducing the cartoon section to twice a week.”
The paper was recently sold as part of a $1-million deal. Toronto-based media company, Postmedia Network Inc., purchased the insolvent SaltWire Network Inc. and the Halifax Herald Ltd., and about 60 SaltWire staff were laid off in August.
De Adder has been one of Canada’s top political cartoonists for years, skewering celebrities and politicians with biting humour or capturing the mood of a moment.
He said the industry has shrunk over time, and there is little job security.
“The better you are in editorial cartooning, the more the powers that be are scared of you,” he said. “They’re scared I’m going to give my opinion.”
Accolades and controversy
Over the years, his cartoons have moved the nation and at other times, prompted backlash.
His 2018 editorial cartoon in the wake of the tragic van attack that left 10 dead and 14 injured in the city of Toronto was shared widely. It depicted two young hockey players — one in a blue and white Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, the other in 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 crash in Saskatchewan and the Toronto attack.
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“The job of the editorial cartoonist is to draw what everybody is talking about and most often what everyone is talking about is something ridiculous to do with politics and that’s a normal day,” he told Global News at the time. “On days like these, it’s the opposite, no one is laughing, you have to capture something that is 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 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 a boxing ring. Trudeau is being advised to “keep beating her up, solicitor-client privilege has tied her hands.” The depiction of Wilson-Raybould showed her tied and gagged.
Critics said it drew an ugly parallel to violence against women and Indigenous women in particular.
Later that year, in July, he drew the ire of Fox News and was let go from all New Brunswick newspapers after a controversial depiction of then-U.S. president Donald Trump.
The cartoon showed Trump walking past two dead migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, asking them, “Do you mind if I play through?”
“I do 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 artform is suffering.
He told Global News the voices of his colleagues are needed, and called the newspaper’s decision on de Adder “really, really stupid.”
“In a word, in a gesture, this is what we do. We laugh at people. We laugh at our institutions. Because we understand that nothing’s perfect,” Mosher said about their work.
De Adder, meanwhile, has no intentions of stopping.
“I’m not going anywhere. I will continue to do this until I die, I suppose,” he said.
He currently has contracts with The Globe and Mail and The Hill Times. He’s also building a subscription-based model to share his work.
— with files from Global News’ Mike Armstrong and Rhonda Brown
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
