Michael de Adder, a well-known cartoonist, has been let go by Postmedia-owned NS newspaper – Halifax
Well-known 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 numerous national newspaper awards, says he was let go by the Chronicle-Herald newspaper this week after nearly 30 years in the publication.
“I’ve seen this coming for a long time, but I thought I had plenty of time. I knew that newspapers were in trouble all over the world. It’s not just Halifax. So I was preparing for this,” he said on Wednesday, one day after receiving “the call.”
“They told me that they no longer need my donation, I guess you can say. And they were cutting the animation part to twice a week.”
The paper was recently sold as part of a $1-million deal. Toronto-based media company Postmedia Network Inc. has purchased SaltWire Network Inc. bankrupt Halifax Herald Ltd., and about 60 SaltWire employees were laid off in August.
De Adder has been one of Canada’s leading cartoonists for years, mocking celebrities and politicians with sharp humor or capturing the mood of the moment.
He said the industry has declined over time, and there is no job security.
“If you get better at editorial cartooning, the powers that be will fear you,” he said. “They are afraid that I will express my opinion.”
Awards and controversies
Over the years, his cartoons have moved the nation and at times, caused backlash.
His 2018 editorial cartoon after a van attack that left 10 dead and 14 injured in downtown Toronto was widely shared. It showed two young hockey players – one in a green and white Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, the other in a white and yellow Humboldt Broncos jersey – together on the bench. The cartoon showed how the country mourned two tragedies: the Humboldt group bus accident in Saskatchewan and the Toronto attack.
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“The job of an editorial cartoonist is to draw what everybody is talking about and usually what everybody is talking about is a funny thing to do in politics and on a normal day,” he told Global News at the time. On days like this, it’s the opposite, no one laughs, you have to photograph something completely weird.
At times, de Adder found his cartoons fraught with controversy.
In February 2019, he said he would “strive to do better” after another of his cartoons, depicting the SNC-Lavalin dispute, 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 was advised to “keep hitting him, attorney-client privilege has his hands tied.” A photograph of Wilson-Raybould showed him bound and gagged.
Critics say this amounts to abuse of women and indigenous women in particular.
Later that year, in July, he drew the ire of Fox News and was fired from all New Brunswick newspapers after a controversial cartoon of former 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 play?”
“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’
Editorial cartoonist Terry Mosher, who has worked in the industry since the 1960s, agreed that the art form is suffering.
He told Global News that the words of his colleagues were necessary, and called the newspaper’s decision on de Adder “really stupid.”
In short, in action, this is what we do. We laugh at people. We laugh at our institutions. Because we understand that nothing goes wrong,” said Mosher about their work.
De Adder has no intention of stopping.
“I’m not going anywhere. I will continue to do this until I die, I think,” he said.
He currently has contracts with The Globe and Mail and The Hill Times. And he built 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.
