Michael de Adder

Thanks for all your support Mark.https://twitter.com/HamillHimself/status/1145401768752214016 …

I have a million texts, emails, dms, tweets, status updates, replies and phone messages. I just don't know where to start. I apologize to every reporter, news organization and television station that may have been under deadline and waiting for me to reply. No reception.

I'm home from the wilderness. What's been going on?

But in the past 2 weeks I drew 3 Trump cartoons. 2 went viral and the third went supernova and a day later I was let go. And not only let go, the cartoons they already had in the can were not used. Overnight it was like I never worked for the paper. Make your own conclusions.

With this said, I had been giving the NB newspapers what they want for several months. Trump wasn't on my radar. I work for canadian newspapers so there's no need to cover Trump 24/7. And Canadian politics is quite interesting right now.

The Premier of New Brunswick Blaine Higgs is a former Irving Oil executive and any cartoon I drew that was slightly critical of him was systematically axed. You want to know why I was let go? I wanted to do my job as an editorial cartoonist, and they wanted me to do their job.

And Donald Trump doesn't even matter. It's a distraction from the big picture.

It got to the point where I didn't submit any Donald Trump cartoons for fear that I might be fired.

Does it matter if I was fired over one Donald Trump cartoon when every Donald Trump cartoon I submitted in the past year was axed?

I do this relunctanly and only because I'm cornered. And I don't know how it happened, but I feel my credibilty is on the line. And all I did was lose my job.

But I will defend myself. And I will talk about why I think I was let go. It's my perspective and they clearly have there perspective.

I could write a thesis on my experience at the newspaper that would be captivating. But do you know what? I'm not going to. They gave 17 years of employment and gave me a job when the Daily News folded. And what would that say about me?

When you work on the editorial pages at an Irving owned newspaper for 17 year, you learn how they operate. It's not a front row seat, but it's a third row seat. You definately get a clear picture of how they run a newspaper.

It sounds corny, but I have a personal code of conduct. It's kept me employed for 20 years in a business that's been dying for 10.

So for me to get into a fight with my employer, especially in public, is not something I do lightly. The reason I keep surviving is because not only do the editors I admire call me back but so do the jackasses.

Sure I got into fights over cartoons. But in the end I said, you know it's not personal. I'm just doing my job- fighting for my cartoon. And you're doing you're job- fighting for the paper.

I've spent my 20 year career not burning bridges with any employer. I've had more editors than anybody I know. Many were jackasses. But the jackasses didn't know I thought they were jackasses. I treated the jackasses the same as I treated the editors I admired.

Suddenly losing a job doesn't seem that important.