Nick Bougas, the American cartoonist whose virulently antisemitic and racist artwork gained widespread notoriety and whose “Happy Merchant” drawing eventually became one of the internet’s most recognizable antisemitic memes, has died at the age of 71.
A native of Savannah, Georgia, Bougas produced much of his controversial artwork under the pseudonym A. Wyatt Mann. His illustrations began appearing prominently in white supremacist publications during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
By far his most infamous creation was the image known as the “Happy Merchant,” which portrayed a Jewish man using grotesquely exaggerated facial characteristics, a beard and hands rubbing together in a pose intended to suggest avarice. Long after its original appearance, the cartoon took on a new life online, becoming widely circulated as an antisemitic meme.
People associated with Bougas have confirmed that he was responsible for the cartoons, although Bougas himself never publicly admitted that he had drawn them. The Anti-Defamation League and other organizations that monitor antisemitism have identified the Happy Merchant as a recurring hate symbol that proliferated on internet imageboards and, eventually, across social media.
{Matzav.com}
