The cartoonist of To have to Pascal Élie, known as Pascal, died on Friday of the consequences of a degenerative disease he had been fighting for a decade. Recognized for his “very personal graphic approach”, he has earned a place of renown among his Quebec “accomplices” by focusing on the “humorous” dimension of press cartoons.
“Today I am losing a friend, but I am also losing a colleague,” confided the cartoonist of The PressSerge Chapleau.
For several years, he had made his telephone discussions with Pascal a daily meeting. Practicing a “lonely” job, the two friends liked to tell each other their ideas, talk about drawing techniques or their family life.
“He is not someone who had a professional rivalry, jealousy. […] If we want to seek the incarnation of the definition of gentlemanwe just have to put a photo of Pascal, “said the director of the To have to, Brian Myles, a longtime friend of the cartoonist.
It is moreover Mr. Myles, then freshly appointed director of the To have towho in 2016 chose Pascal to succeed Michel “Garnotte” Garneau, as full-time cartoonist.
“Pascal was already a well-known caricaturist who worked for [le quotidien montréalais anglophone The Gazette] as a regular contributor. It’s rare for a cartoonist to be able to work on both sides of the linguistic border. Pascal was able to understand the codes, the subtleties of the public of the Gazette, then he swam like a fish in water in the subtleties of French-speaking Quebec,” said Brian Myles. “Knowing how to draw is one thing. Making a gag is another. But making a gag with the cultural referent for the audience was a high attribute. »
“His last drawing for us, when he was sick, it’s a nice wink”, according to Brian Myles. After throwing soup on the Sunflowers of Van Gogh, two environmental activists find themselves, in the guise of Pascal, facing a Campbell’s soup can painted by Andy Warhol. “You have to have cultural referents to understand environmentalists who are caught in the sprinkler trap,” Myles said.
“That one is really exceptional,” said Chapleau, who “still regrets today [de ne pas lui avoir envoyé un] email to tell him: “Awesome”. It was really beautiful. »
“A Consecration”
Born in 1959, Pascal was an “eternal freelancer”. A graduate in visual arts and law, he went through the Bar Journal, The Gazetteand collaborated on The Pressto Businessto the weeklies of Transcontinental as well as to the magazine of the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec The thirty.
” When [Pascal] got that job [au Devoir], he was completely flabbergasted. It was his first job permanently,” said Marie-Andrée Chouinard, Editor-in-Chief. ” Then The duty, It’s not nothing. It was the newspaper that was revered by his parents. I don’t want to sound like I’m exaggerating when I say this, but working on the To have to it was a consecration, a great source of pride for him, as much as for us for that matter,” added Brian Myles.
“Nice”, “humble”, “sensitive”, “chic guy”, are words spoken by all the people contacted by The duty who paid tribute to Pascal.
” I discussed [du départ de Pascal] with cartoonists across Canada, and everyone loved him,” says Terry Mosher, who draws under the name Aislin for The Gazette, where he rubbed shoulders with Pascal, from 1972. He was good at all levels: in Montreal, in Quebec, in Ottawa, from time to time in America, and he was very good in people. Often, his good caricatures took place in a bedroom, with a couple talking. He was very empathetic. »
“I want to pay tribute to him because I loved working with him,” said Garnotte, who shared the editorial section of the To have to with Pascal from 2016 to 2019. […] I mourn a good friend. I have rarely seen someone so generous. In the trade, it was a silk. He was a good designer, who first tried to make people laugh. »
“Pascal has always refused to write editorials. The humorous nature of his drawings was very important to him. […] His caricaturist’s gaze, for me, was the citizen’s gaze on a sometimes absurd and aberrant reality, and winks that made us laugh,” added Ms.me Chouinard.
“He was not vindictive. He wasn’t trying to make a nasty drawing, he was trying to make the reader think and then make the reader smile, so that he could take a certain distance,” underlined Michel Garneau.
If there is another characteristic of Pascal that seems to be unanimous, it is his perfectionism. “He was a great worker. He could start over different tracks several times, and worked until he was really satisfied,” recalled Mr. Garneau. “Then he had a very personal graphic approach, with a line very close to the sketch. He tried to be as natural as possible while drawing, but all that with a lot of work. »
“If you look at one of his drawings from afar, you immediately know it was made by Pascal,” Aislin observed. “And there, what is sad is that we will no longer see Pascal’s drawings”, lamented, moved, Serge Chapleau.
Despite his “ruthless” disease, which he fought “with courage and determination”, Pascal worked tirelessly on his caricatures, which ended up being polished into little “jewels”, said Brian Myles. “He was a bit tortured, it must be said. Sometimes he came up with a good idea in the morning at 9 a.m., then spent the rest of the day complicating it. »
“When his illness got worse, his life became very calculated,” said Aislin, who says Pascal had to take medication at specific times to regulate the effects of his illness and be able to work. But Pascal did “not want to be seen as a sick person,” added Garnotte.
“I take my hat off to him, and he’s sure to leave a big void in the To have to “, greeted his predecessor.
Pascal Élie leaves in deep mourning his “accomplices” of the caricature, his colleagues from the newspaper, his spouse and his two children.