Alberta syndicated cartoonists react to Paris attack
Posted Jan 7, 2015 4:58 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Like their peers in Canada and the rest of the world, past and present Alberta editorial cartoonists have been swift in responding to the horrific attack on the staff at French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
John Larter and Patrick Lamontagne are both nationally-syndicated cartoonists whose work appears in the Calgary Herald and Lamontagne explained his feelings when he first heard the news Wednesday morning.
“I couldn’t believe it at first and then I thought okay it’s another terrorist thing that I’m going to have to investigate because I know I’m going to have to do a cartoon on it,” he said from Canmore. “As I got into it more, I realized that it was hitting very close to home because it was in my own profession.”
For Larter, the extremist attack didn’t come as a surprise considering journalists and cartoonists have been targets before, such as in 2005 when Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published satirical pictures of Muhammad which led to violent protests and eventually a plot to kill cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
“It didn’t shock me in the slightest, they’ve been chopping peoples’ heads off and killing kids and crucifying animals,” Larter said, adding political correctness is stifling a real discussion on Muslim extremism, which is also affecting cartoonists’ work.
“We usually go for it like a dog after a bone, but there’s so much political correctness around it nowadays, that we can only do what our newspapers will allows us to do,” he said. “We don’t mind going after some of the terrible things that are taking place, but I think all of society has to go after it.”
Vance Rodewalt is a retired editorial cartoonist whose work also appeared in the Herald and is now living in B.C., who echoes Larter’s thoughts about stifling expression.
“It’s hurt editorial cartoonists as well, but to be honest cartoonists have always gotten away with a lot more than word people,” Rodewalt said, calling the act shocking and senseless.
But he also said it’s an example about the effectiveness of freedom of the press.
“This is kind of a not-so-subtle reminder that there is a power of the press involved and on the other hand, it’s also something to stand up for and not be intimidated by anything that is as outrageous as the attacks in Paris today,” he said.
Lamontagne also said it’s been impressive to see the kind of quick reaction from others in his field around the world and noted the difference between what’s allowed in North America compared to Europe.
“Some people are walking the line pretty far, some people are doing cartoons and I’m looking at them thinking, there’s no way anyone in the Western world is going to print that,” he said. “Other ones are very respectful, a lot of them are talking about freedom of speech and I think the different perspectives have been interesting to see because everybody clearly has been hit by it personally.”
Rodewalt added when it comes to violent attacks involving editorial comment specifically, it’s key for reaction to come quickly.
“We are a pretty solid group and we do respect each other’s work,” he said. “We take our freedoms in our spots in newspapers and our expressions very seriously, so to see editorial cartoonists come back with visual versions of condemning the attack and the people behind it and the cowardliness of it and all, it’s good to see and I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
