GenevaLunch (GL) editor Ellen Wallace met with Patrick Chappatte two weeks before Christmas at his office near Plainpalais in Geneva, where he was trying to juggle time for friends, family and journalists as the holiday rush began, with editors expecting the usual six cartoons a week.
In these days of dramatic if too often gloomy news, I told him I wanted a glimpse of his daily work life, but mainly his thoughts on his craft as we head into a future that many people worry is too uncertain.
GL carries his cartoons in English and occasionally in French, on Swiss and world affairs.
”The beauty of this job is that you never expect the next thing that turns up!” He becomes quickly animated as he talks about international affairs, for which he clearly has a passion.
”The big irony right now is that super-capitalism is begging for money from the State!”
Patrick Chappatte saves his sharpness and ability to get straight to the point for his cartoons: in person, he is a soft-spoken man with a gentle smile who looks younger than his 41 years. He is the multilingual editorial cartoonist for the International Herald Tribune (in English), Le Temps (in French) and NZZ Sunday edition (in German). And right now he is the author of two newly published books, a collection of his cartoons in English, Partly Cloudy, and another of his French cartoons, Super Contribuable.
Continued from Interview, part 1
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“By then I wanted to quit cartooning here. I wanted to work with American newspapers – I thought they were the best [cartoonists]. And they’re still the best!” The boyish grin returns. “And if you’re going to have a 30s crisis, it’s not bad to do it in New York!”
The three years he spent in New York were a turning point for Chappatte. “I’m much happier now than before I was 30. I feel like I’m freer. It’s really refreshing when this happens – I was treated like a beginner and I loved it. I was starting all over again.”
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