In the USA, editorial cartoonists such as Mike Ramirez at the LA Times, Mike Keefe at the Denver Post, Tony Auth at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Nick Anderson at the Houston Chronicle and Kevin Kallaugher at the Baltimore Sun have even lost their staff positions not long after winning a Pulitzer.
Canada has seen the disappearance of the full-time jobs held by Denny Pritchard at The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Frank Edwards at The Kingston Whig-Standard, Roy Peterson at the Vancouver Sun, John Larter at The Calgary Sun, Vance Rodewalt at the Calgary Herald, Dan Murphy and Bob Krieger at the Vancouver Province, Marc Beaudet at the Journal de Montréal, Cam Cardow at the Ottawa Citizen, Dale Cummings at the Winnipeg Free Press, Susan Dewar at the Ottawa Sun and Adrian Raeside at the Victoria Times-Colonist.
Patrick Corrigan and Theo Moudakis (Mou) are now freelancers at the Toronto Star, while Merle Tingley (Ting) was not replaced at the London Free Press when he retired.
In fact, save for Malcolm Mayes at the Edmonton Journal, there is no longer a permanent position west of Hamilton, Graeme Mackay having been fortunate enough to be hired by the Spectator twenty years ago. This rare occurrence has not been repeated since.
The trend has spared the Quebec press thanks to the absence of syndicates in the francophone market.
This business model makes it possible to publish editorial cartoons at a lower price without having to pay social benefits or pensions to their freelancers.
Since there are only nine daily newspapers in Quebec, it is not profitable for freelancers to offer their services during the cartoonists' vacations.
Furthermore, the two major press groups, Québécor and cn2i (Coopérative nationale de l'information Indépendante), exchange the work of their staff / freelance cartoonists.
This is how Mario Lacroix of the Quotidien, Jean Isabelle of Le Nouvelliste and myself are reprinted in Quebec City's Le Soleil when André-Philippe Côté is absent.
We also see our work published in Sherbrooke's La Tribune where we fill the void left by the departure of Hervé Philippe, who saw his permanent position eliminated in January 2017.
Québécor publishes the work of freelancer Ygreck in both Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec.
At Le Devoir, Pascal Élie draws five cartoons a week while Eric Godin fills the Monday spot.
According to my calculations, there are no more than seven staff positions for editorial cartoonists in the country.
Quite a change from forty years ago when I joined the profession.
UPDATES
La Presse no longer publishes a paper edition and has moved to the free app LaPresse+
The app features the work of staff cartoonist Serge Chapleau as well as Coté.
My own cartoons are also published on the app.
Terry Mosher (Aislin) has officialy retired from The Montreal Gazette, but but still provides the paper with a few cartoons a week as does Jacques Goldstyn, who goes by the nom de plume Boris.
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