Sad to hear of the untimely death of the Toronto’s Sun’s iron man of editorial art, Andy Donato. The man spent a lifetime drawing cartoons.
I met Andy many years before I worked as the Sun’s television columnist from 1999 to 2007. Back when I was a student at the University of Toronto I used to draw the editorial cartoons for the school paper, The Toronto Varsity. I was always into the genre, growing up a fan of The Toronto Star’s Duncan Macpherson and even attempting to trace and copy his penetrating caricatures of John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau and others.
This was back in Grade School and probably before I really understood that “Dief the Chief” was once the prime minister. I used to make buttons out of the drawings and sell them in the schoolyard for dimes and nickels. Macpherson’s detailed pen and ink renderings, all fire and drama, just seemed cooler than a comic book.
By the time Donato was sharing cartooning duties with Yardley Jones in the new and cheeky Toronto Sun, I was in high school. The Scarborough native was never the exacting caricaturist that Macpherson or Mad magazine’s Mort Drucker was, but he packed a punch with his feisty panels. His Pierre Trudeau, for example, always looked creepier. Quebec premiere Rene Levesque looked like an unmade bed. To this day I have several of Donato’s annual collections of political cartoons in book form.
After graduating from UofT in 1980, I boldly cold called Donato at The Sun and he kindly invited me to the newspaper’s offices, then on King St. West. I remember thinking, with his wilder-than-usual hair, that he looked a bit like his drawings.I showed him what I had, and he took his time checking the drawings. He was very friendly and encouraging.
Then he helped me find the door. I’m sure these weren’t his exact words, but he basically said, “Sorry kid – I already have the job.”
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I’m glad I didn’t hang around waiting for him to retire! Earlier this month, Donato packed it in (in a huff, apparently, after a cartoon was rejected) at 89. He had outlasted them all to become the longest serving newspaper editorial cartoonist in North America, a job he held, starting at The Toronto Telegram, for over 65 years. The National Newspaper Award winner joins a small but elite group of Canadian editorial cartoonists whose members include Terry Mosher (“Aislin”) at the Montreal Gazette and current fearless firebrand, Halifax-based Michael de Adder, who’s work appears in print and on-line.
Many years after meeting Donato, and after more than a decade at TV Guide Canada, I landed at The Sun as a writer. The entertainment department was right next to Donato’s office. There he sat at a tilted easel, creating his cartoons. He was just as welcoming and friendly as I remembered him.
It is one thing to type up a story with mere words but to work up an artistic concept, make it satirical and funny, a drawing that speaks immediately with readers, and clean it up in ink and colour on a daily newspaper deadline — that is a magic trick. To do it almost into your nineties — inspirational.
One day, knowing my fascination with his work, he invited me to take one of his original drawings that had run in the paper. He was very generous with his work, giving the same privilege to many of his print colleagues over the years.
I took my time and finally selected a drawing I liked best. It showed his skills and efficiency. Back when all the sketches ran in black and white, Donato would draw not just with pencil but also with an eraser, carving out negative lines in, for example, the fabric of suits.
The Donato original hangs in my house today.
Condolences to his colleagues, many who worked with him for decades, as well as his family, friends and many fans.
