Kerry Waghorn

During the many years he spent under the management of newspaper icon G. Stanleigh Arnold,[3][4] the Chronicle's Sunday and Features Editor, he refined his skills within a team that included Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury), Gary Larson (The Far Side), Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby), William Hamilton (of The New Yorker), Phil Frank (Farley), and Cathy Guisewite (Cathy).

Waghorn, who resides in West Vancouver, B.C., is currently represented by Universal Press Syndicate of Kansas City, MO, and he continues to create about three new caricatures a week.

Kerry graduated from North Vancouver High School in 1965 and soon after attended the recently opened Simon Fraser University in nearby Burnaby, intending to study political science.

When SFU became a Canadian focal point of student and teacher protests, including the occupation of the administration buildings, Kerry's news career became so dominant he lost all interest in academic pursuits.

Posters for concerts of Led Zeppelin, Elton John, the Beach Boys, Boz Scaggs, Chicago, Grand Funk, Canned Heat, Doobie Brothers.

From these first public roots at SFU's Peak, the rock posters and The Straight, he eventually graduated to the city's largest daily, The Vancouver Sun, as a regular contributor.

His work for The Sun would rapidly elevate his craft into the mainstream, learning as fast as he could from two masters, Peterson, and the equally famous local icon, Len Norris.

Visiting San Francisco in 1971 with his partner in the production of rock music posters, Kerry decided to pop into The Chronicle unannounced, hoping to show his art portfolio to cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who later achieved fame as the author of the book and subsequent motion picture about the Zodiac murders.

Shortly after that fortuitous first meeting, Kerry began a life of two cities, migrating back and forth between Vancouver and San Francisco, and contributing to both daily newspapers, among other clients.

Out of his art and cartoon creations, a unique gift began to dominate, and that was his talent for caricature, seeming to be able to drag the depths of a subject's soul and personality, into the visible plane.

"I felt truly gifted during that era - with Stan Arnold's guidance and Stuart Dodds' incredible salesmanship, my work started appearing all over the world," Kerry remembers.

Following Levine's death at the end of 2009, Kerry Waghorn issued this statement: "In caricature to me he was simply the greatest and still, to this day, it brings me a great deal of pleasure to look at his work."

Among his most memorable adventures since returning from San Francisco have been long boat trips up the coast as far as Alaska with his friend, songwriter and recording star Terry Jacks[8] ("Seasons in the Sun", The Poppy Family et al.), an environmentalist and passionate outdoorsman.