ACEC


Alan King had been the staff editorial cartoonist at the Ottawa Citizen for 15 years when Neil Reynolds came in as editor in 1996. He fought with Reynolds frequently about the content of his work, and about the changes that Reynolds was making to the newspaper--particularly the changes to the editorial board. Unlike editorial cartoonists at most Canadian dailies, King, whose work has been self-described as low taste, had to get approval from both Reynolds and the paper?s publisher, Russell Mills, before his cartoons were allowed to run. After King depicted Don Cherry in a way that Reynolds referred to as nasty, Reynolds killed the cartoon late in the day, and King did not provide the paper with a cartoon for the first time since he?d worked there. The next morning he was demoted to staff illustrator at the Citizen, a paper which rarely used illustrations. He quit the paper three days later and is now working freelance as a digital artist. (When Reynolds was asked about this, he said that he would not discuss internal matters.)

King sent a letter privately to three or four cartoonists, warning other would-be Citizen cartoonists about working under Reynolds, a heads-up somebody posted on a webpage of the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists."Reynolds has given the cartoonists reporting to him a very difficult time," King wrote."Attempts at rational debate are regarded as mutinous insolence and deviations from the ideological line of the editorial board as evidence of mental deficiency."

Reynolds started wooing Charles Jaffé before King left the Citizen. Jaffé, who was working primarily as an illustrator and whose only experience with editorial cartooning was at The Varsity, a University of Toronto student newspaper, accepted the job gradually, expressing doubts about the viability of editorial cartoons. Nevertheless, he decided to take the job and was hired on contract. During his first few months, only about half of the cartoons he drew were about political topics, since he had heard that they could get him into trouble. Instead, he created work that he referred to as "loopy." This tactic proved to be at odds with Reynolds's vision of editorial cartooning. Having received letters from puzzled readers regarding Jaffé's work, Reynolds said that Jaffé's cartoons were too obscure, explaining that"readers have to get the cartoons on at least one level." After about a year on the job, and soon after Jaffé had drawn a cartoon depicting Santa Claus interrogating children on his lap as a comment on Christmas consumerism, Jaffé was politely asked to leave. Just recently, Cameron Cardow, who signs his work "Cam" and lives in Calgary, was hired as the Citizen's newest editorial cartoonist, the paper's third in two years.

The Citizen is an extreme example of the editorial cartoonist's precarious position at Canadian newspapers. Cartoonists are the jesters who provide the humour that breaks up the dense text on the editorial and op-ed pages. But beneath the humour there often lies sharp, satirical commentary. The tradition of graphic arts as a form of social protest in Canada has been strong--consider politicians such as Sir Wilfrid Laurier, R.B. Bennett, Joe Clark, John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney or Jean Chrétien, all of whom have been targets of cartoonists' wrath.

The first wave of political cartooning began 150 years ago when cartoonists such as J.W. Bengough, creator of Grip, found his muse drawing the follies of former Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, among others. Over the past half century, artists such as Andy Donato, Duncan Macpherson, Robert Lapalme, Terry Mosher (best known as Aislin, his daughter's name) and Len Norris have contributed to the legacy. Cartoonists like these and others continually provoke reactions from the politicians whom they disparage, as well as the public on whose behalf they comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

So what happens if the jester falls out of favour with the king? The role of the king is played by the publishers and editors at Canada's daily papers, who have the power to hire and fire cartoonists and demand changes to their work. Neil Reynolds believes there is a lack of innovation in Canadian editorial cartooning, that the range of visual metaphors has been restricted to single gags--for example, to variations on strange bedfellows or someone slipping on a banana peel. But it seems as though Reynolds's biggest problem with cartoonists is that they do not hold a position on issues. The fourth wave of cartoonists claim that their job is not to pick one group and target them, but to point out the stupidity and malfeasance everywhere, regardless of their personal views or those of the paper for which they work. Reynolds has identified this as the problem with Canadian political cartoonists: they lack a philosophy. The late Duncan Macpherson, one of Canada's premier editorial cartoonists, who was credited with establishing the separation of the cartoonist's position from that of a paper's editorial board, would be livid.

The heyday of political cartooning may be over. From the 1950s to the '70s, cartoonists held much more influence over public opinion than they do today. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark was once quoted as saying that Canada's political cartoonists cost him votes in the 1980 election. It was a boom time, when every respectable paper had a staff cartoonist. But these days many of the dailies are still recovering from the recession of the early 1990s, when circulation fell. Today, many newspapers still fight for readers, cautious of controversy and fiscally conservative. Cartoonists, by their very nature, are seen as dangerous by many editors and publishers, and when there is cost-saving to be done, staff cartoonists, whose salaries can range as high as $100,000, are among the first casualties.
Off With Their Heads!
By  ALAN MLYNEK
RYERSON REVIEW OF JOURNALISM - Summer 1999

There's trouble in the land of 'toon. What's happening to editorial cartoonists is no laughing matter.
Source: Ryerson Review
of Journalism
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