1970S RICHLER GAINS A CARTOONOGRAPHER
I always thought Mordecai Richler’s satirical writing about Canadians made him a kind of Stephen Leacock with spurs.
In the early 1970s, we became firm friends, often meeting at the Montreal Press Club. In those days I drank too much, but Mordecai didn’t seem to mind. He had the juiciest gossip and good, timely advice: “Mosher,” he once offered, “a satirist must have 360-degree vision. Spare no one, not even me.”
Here is a drawing I did of him chatting with boxer Maxie Berger in the Montreal Press Club in the ’70s. Over 30-plus years, I must have drawn more than 40 cartoons of Richler, including a Time magazine cover. I don’t believe I have caricatured any cabinet minister to that extent. But then, none of them was ever as interesting.
Most of the time, Richler enjoyed being caricatured and had a number of my originals hanging like trophies in his Lake Memphremagog home. I became a kind of barroom court jester for him — his official cartoonographer, if you will. Admittedly, there were times when he was a bit touchy, but he never told me to stop.
1976 was an especially busy year for me, what with the Montreal Olympics and the election of the Parti Québécois. Coincidentally, the U.S. contacts Mordecai had been encouraging me to establish were beginning to pay off nicely. It was an American election year and my cartoons started to appear in Harper’s, The Atlantic and Time. Further, National Lampoon commissioned me to do a rather rude tongue-in-cheek spread on how Americans might be encouraged to enjoy hockey more.
Most exciting of all, the New York Times began to use my cartoons regularly. George Cowan, managing art director of the Times, was very helpful in getting me special H-2 status from the U.S. Department of Immigration. During my monthly visits, Cowan tried to tempt me to move to New York City. My first wife, Carol, and I talked it over at length and decided to stay in Montreal. I have never regretted the decision. In New York, I would simply be another illustrator on the prowl for work. In Canada, I had a lot more freedom to draw what I wanted, at The Gazette and elsewhere. Besides, as Richler once said about himself: “I would like to be remembered for recording my place in time — and for getting it right.”