Comic History Editorial cartooning

Wayback Whensday with Michael de Adder’s First Cartoons (1990)

Years ago cartoonist Eli Stein would interrupt his regularly scheduled blog entertainment with what he called the “We All Have To Start Somewhere Department” where he would present the earliest work of celebrated cartoonists. Today we borrow his idea and apply it to political cartoonist Michael de Adder.

The recent death of a Canadian serial killer has Michael de Adder remembering his early career:

Already imprisoned for the 1986 murder of shopkeeper John Glendenning, Legere escaped custody in May 1989 while being escorted to the Dr. Georges‑L. Dumont University Hospital Centre. During 201 days as a fugitive he terrorized communities along the Miramichi River, murdering four people-Annie Flam, sisters Donna Daughney and Linda Daughney, and priest James Smith-before being captured nine days after the final killing.

Michael de Adder, Times-Transcript – May 8, 1990

When he first escaped, I just started drawing the odd cartoon for the Times Transcript. Maybe 3-4 per month. I think they paid me $30 per drawing. This was only my second professional cartoon to be published outside of university. Federal prison authority were covering up how he escaped for a period.

If the above was De Adder’s second this cartoon, about the upcoming vote to keep Quebec a part of Canada, from April 1990 must be his first from The Moncton, New Brunswick Times-Transcript:

Michael de Adder, The Times-Transcript – April 27, 1990
Michael de Adder, The Times-Transcript – May 23, 1990

The above cartoon was the third I found in The Times-Transcript archive via newspapers.com. Someone more aware of Canadian history will have to explain it. Below is the fourth de Adder cartoon for The Times-Transcript, it deals with The Meech Lake Accord. But whether it is Brian Mulroney or Lucien Bouchard is for someone else more familiar with Canadian politicians to decide:

Michael de Adder, The Times-Transcript – June 15, 1990

And so began the cartooning career of Michael de Adder 36 years ago.

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Comments 5

  1. “Every artist has thousands of bad drawings in them, and the only way to get rid of them is to draw them out.” — Chuck Jones

    These are the first of more than 20,000 drawings I’ve done.

    When you first start drawing cartoons, you almost have to believe you’re better than you are. If you didn’t, you’d probably quit. A little bit of delusion keeps you going. If I had understood just how bad I was in the beginning, I might have gone back to painting.

    But time has a way of correcting your confidence. Every few years you look back at your old work and are stunned by how crude it seems. Then you reassure yourself: but now I’m good. So you keep going.

    And the cycle repeats.

    Eventually you reach an age when you stop assuming you’re better than you are. By then you’ve been humbled too many times by discovering that what once looked good to you… wasn’t. So you keep drawing, a little more cautiously, a little more honestly, still working through the thousands of bad drawings that every artist carries inside them.

    [It would take another 7 years for my real career to start. ]

    Thanks for posting. I must have shared these cartoons someplace online and forgot. I don’t know where you got three of them. Obviously social media someplace.

    1. The Times-Transcript archives at newspapers.com.

    2. This is fantastic! We’ve all got (or have destroyed) those early, EARLY drawings – so glad these survived. You are the gold standard these days, Michael; thanks for everything.

  2. I believe the people represented in the last three cartoons are Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister), Robert Bourassa (Premier of Quebec), and Jean Chretien (Prime Minister).

  3. That’s Jean Chretien speaking out of the side of his mouth

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