with a common touch Brady Fotheringham Contributing Writer Roy Peterson has one of the best jobs in the world. Like a columnist, he gets paicdt to make fun of the economic and political elite and the snotty-nosed whiny rich. Yet because of his humble gnome-like Nature complete with bushy beard, Peterson’s . unobtrusive ego seems to make him more at case when he unteashes his brush and quill oi the powerful. “It’s my job to kick them in the ass,” Roy Peterson remarks about his role as Canada’s pre-eminent editorial cartoonist. Weeks later in May of this year he would win his seventh National Newspaper Award. “T think my job is really to attack the pow- ers that be and its power that you're really attacking and power corrupts,” Peterson con- tends. Casually dressed in toaters and button- down shirt, Peterson lets loose about engaging in character assassination in a subdued, mellow voice. He doesn’t hob-nob with the chattering | ciasses but hz drives them crazy. He offen those who need to be offended. That’s his contribution to our culture. If you arc power- ful and in public, he will savage you with his caricatures, Get cut the knife and get in line. He has that effect on people, mainly politi- cians, who succumb to his scalpel’s work. He ‘has drawn Indira Gandhi, Eddie Shack, Robert Stanfield, Leonid Brezhnev, Henry Kissinger and Lucien Bouchard with unreserved wrath. The first issue of Maciean’s magazine when it went to a weekly in 1978 featured Pierre Trudeau cowering iv a corner — or for haifa day it did at least. The publisher at the “eleventh hour pulled the cover that Peterson had laboured over when the presses were about to roll. 7#e Vancouver Siem ran the car- toon, slightly abridged, the following week. .” Although Peterson draws four cartoons a week plus other commissioned work, fewer international caricatures than before find their way into his work as he prefers the loony MAYFAIR political climate of British Columbia. His chain-smoking illustrations of Rene Levesque, the five o clock shadow of Tricky Dick Nixon and the wily Pierre Trudeau from the "80s are part of every op/ed reader’s mental imagery. His barrages of Slobodan Milosevic car- toons during the Kosova crisis have yer to find their form. But characters take a while to develop and the cartoonist is always grasping for a nose, 2 ieg, something prominent that stands out in an individual. Nestled away in West Vancouver with his Punch memorabilia and World War Two video collection, Roy Peterson would never fet on that his cratt could be a dangerous one. He never has to face the violence that occurred in India last March. Irfan Husain, an editorial cartoonist for Outlook magazine was murdered — stabbed 28 times and slit in the throat for depicting the wrong person in a cartoon. Kevin Kallaugher, 2 cartoonist with the Baltimore Sun, who knows Peterson and has met other editorial cartoonists in Third World countries, believes the role of the cartoonist is much more important where illiteracy rates are high. “People can’t read in many countries but they understand the carroon. Unfortunately most of those countries censor the cartoonist from freely drawing important public figures,” Kallaugher said. . But Canada shares the British sense of humour, which is more deeply rooted in satire. “Roy is one of only 2 few people who can pull che trousers down off (the powerful). America is a bit adolescent satire-wise,” Kallaugher said. As he settles down in the plush brown leather couch of his cosy little backyard studio, ane thing you notice right away about Peterson is he’s like a ffiendly giant. He has a soft chuckle and the soothing voice of a bar- tender. Despite the beard and Grizzly Adams persona he’s a softie underneath. He once even had a gerbil that answered to Mr. Bill. Peterson has the luxury of working, from home, the garage turned studio an additional tax write-off he enjoys. He has worked at a desk at a newspaper but prefers to spend the time with his wife, Margaret, enjoying the reclusiveness of the North Shore. MANOR OPENING SOON } Extensive Refurbishing Now Complete! | Reservations now being accepted '« 24-hour professional Registered - Nurses and Care Attendants * Executive chef prepares well balanced flavourful meals in the attractive dining room. Resident Services and Activity Programming 7 days per week ‘Special Welcome To Our First Residents oe Call For Details & PSaT * Bee eee tha gen et nee anant ’ Pay 468-4856 2250 Wilson Avenue Port Coquitlam, BC V3C IZ5 . Saeteas caveguiTags unc | MAYFAIR MANOR IS OWNED AND OPERATED BY ISHTAR SENIORS COMMUNITIES INC. 9 Cee ALE? = al Phote Ken Mayer PARTNERS. Macieen’s Alian Fotheringham and Roy Peterson at the Vancouver Sun at the old Pacific Press building on Granville Street in the late 1970s. The two have the longest collaboration between a cartoonist and columnist (20 years). “I’m as organized as a cartoonist can be. I have a wife, which is the secret. She is very organized and tries to keep me on course,” Peterson admits. The décor of the one-foor house is, well, cluttered bibliophile-c::m-Ralph Lauren. Roy and Margaret coliect Northwest aboriginal facemasks, old leather books (classics only) and everything Ralph Lauren from chairs to wallpaper. Old English pub paraphernalia adorn the walls in a kind ef culeure clash. Lucy Shelton Caswell, curator for the Cartoon Research: Institute at Ohio State University, knows Peterson’s work and said Americans have a narrower vicw of satire than do Canadians. See Peterson Page 22 333 Brooksbank, N. Van (Park & Titiord) 11763 Marine Dr. W. 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