28 -— Wednesday, August 19, 1992 ~ North Shore News Waghorn accepts fame with Luvelyn Jacob _ SPOTLIGHT FEATURE HE SECOND time © Kerry Waghorn cancelled our inter: ° started having my doubts... ~ Sure, the Washington Post call- ed him away for a late-breaking ‘ory; something about James Baker quitting the Secretary of State to take over as George . Bush's campaign manager. Uh . huh. How come there. was nothing -on the Saker story on the news “that night — or the next night or the next? —_ And who ever heard of a caricaturist working on big-break- ing news anyway?. “the answers came later; it turns out that Kerry Waghorn is no or- dinary political doodler. You may not recognize his face, © but ‘chances are you've come across Waghorn’s drawings on the Pages of the Vancouver Sun or any | one of.250 newspapers - worldwide, including the New -York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. ‘t make a big deal of it,” . rn says of his success, pick- ing away at his beer bottle iabel. “4t's just something that’s hap- pened, and !’m really fortunate. I. don’t wear it.” : The exposure has earned him -. near-celebrity status, but Waghorn dislikes attention and praise. In fact to get his work done, he has .. Sived the life of a hermit. Just . knowing someone is in another ” room in the same house i is distrac- bah ee the last 11 years he has “.worked in.the seclusion of Abode _ Island, not’much more than.a - _ stone’s throw. from West Van-- couver's Eagle Harbour: Holed up in-a rustic.cabin,. Waghorn was the island’s sole inhabitant. ° >» Nowadays he is “homeless,” dividing his time between a” > ~-friend’s place on Bowen Island >and “Cottage 10".on a beach * * near San Francisco. Sometimes Waghorn gets the . itch to move to California, but he admits he could never leave his + Canadian home permanently, “especially not the North Shore. © . “After all, my dad is Mr. . Capilano,’’ he laughs. ‘He built ‘+: the house | was born in. | want to stay in Canada — | always -would.” . Fifteen years ago, Waghorn . drove to San Francisco with a friend on a whim. His friend’s truck broke down, and while it was in the shop get- ting fixed, Waghorn decided to pay a Visit to the San Francisco Chronicle. When he got there the art direc- tor wasn’t in, so he met with the features editor instead, who also happened to be head of Chronicle Features Syndicate. ‘Waghorn showed him some ex- amples of his work, and before you know it, the two were talking a national syndication deal. KERRY WAGHORN's recognizable caricatures have appeared in ‘top newpapers in forth America. It was the turning point in his career. Up until then, he had done one-on-one work for Iccal publications like the Georgia Straight and the Vancouver Sun. One condition of the deal hing- ed on his ability to come up with 100 drawings. He didn’t have anywhere near that number, so he spent the next year building up his portfolio. - . After being picked up by United Media, his iflustrations now appear in hundreds of papers in 28 coun- tries. Just about every political figure has been shrunken down and car- icatured in the trademark Waghorn cross-hatch style: giant heads and teeny-weeny bodies. ° Notable subjects include Syrian president Hafez El-Assad, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, former israeli president Yitzhak Shamir (complete with missing lower in- cisors), and a rumpled Gorbachev with doves on his port-wine-stain- ed crown. Many of his subjects have _.. bought their caricatures (David Bowie, Bryan Adams, Bruce Willis, after threatening Waghorn with a lawsuit, and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney), but not all of them have been enamored of their likeness. “A long time ago,” says Waghonrn, “I did a poster of Elton John, and the producer really liked it. He plastered it all over Elton John’s room, ail down the corridor of the hotel and even in the eleva- tor. “Elton John came in and just freaked oui. He absolutely hated . it, and ordered them all taken down.” He works from photographs, usually taking about four hours to complete an average drawing. See After page 29 THE WORLD'S BEST. A BOATHOUSE SPECIALTY! Broiled, Mustard, Blackened, Thai, Teriyaki Chcose any 4 dishes on cur "Eee C Free Crab" Z Prepared 4 differen 4 Oy ; ways : RaKonh kangen LUNCH or DINNER menu and receive a FREE GRAB! Authentic Gourmet Cu ‘sine WDE Selection of vegetarian and nonvegetarian dishes. GUR SPECIALTY: TANDOORI. 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