Nick Bougas

{{Infobox person

| name = Nick Bougas

| image = NickBougas.jpg

| caption = Bougas in 2008

| birth_name = Nicholas Bougas

| alias = A. Wyatt Mann

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1955}}

| birth_place = Savannah, Georgia, U.S.

| death_date =

| death_place =

| occupation = Film director, illustrator, record producer, cartoonist

| years_active = 1977–present

}}

Nicholas Bougas (born 1955) is an American documentary film director, white supremacist, illustrator, Satanist and record producer. As a cartoonist, he has used the pen name A. Wyatt Mann to produce racist, antisemitic, antifeminist and homophobic cartoons.{{Cite news |last=Ellis |first=Emma Grey |date=June 19, 2017 |title=The Alt-Right Found Its Favorite Cartoonist—and Almost Ruined His Life |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/story/ben-garrison-alt-right-cartoonist/ |url-status=live |url-access=limited |access-date=May 28, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180702204611/https://www.wired.com/story/ben-garrison-alt-right-cartoonist/ |archive-date=July 2, 2018 |quote=But internet anti-Semites (or at least people fishing for a reaction) started splicing Garrison's work together with the work of Nick Bougas, aka A. Wyatt Man, a director and illustrator responsible for one of the web's most enduring anti-Semitic images.}}{{cite book |last1=Malice |first1=Michael |author1-link=Michael Malice |title=The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics |date=May 19, 2019|publisher=St. Martin's Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-250-15467-5 |page=40 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D6FuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT39 |language=en |quote=Under the pen name of 'A. Wyatt Mann,' artist Nick Bougas has drawn many explicitly racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic cartoons where there isn't even a pretense of humor.}}

Career

Bougas directed the mondo film Death Scenes, hosted by Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey.{{cite web|title=Death Scenes (1989)|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/161561/Death-Scenes/overview|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307101941/https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/161561/Death-Scenes/overview|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=The New York Times|author=Robert Firsching|date=2016|archive-date=March 7, 2016}} The film was followed by Death Scenes 2 in 1992,{{cite web|title=Death Scenes 2 (1992)|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/161562/Death-Scenes-2/overview|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309222532/https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/161562/Death-Scenes-2/overview|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=The New York Times|author=Robert Firsching|date=2016|archive-date=March 9, 2016}} and Death Scenes 3 in 1993.{{cite web|title=Death Scenes 3 (1993)|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/death_scenes_3_1982|publisher=Rotten Tomatoes}}

In 1993, he directed the documentary Speak of the Devil: The Canon of Anton LaVey, a profile of LaVey.{{cite book|last=Barton|first=Blanche|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sEIxCgAAQBAJ&q=nick+bougas+church+of+satan&pg=PA253|title=The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton Szandor LaVey|publisher=Feral House|year=2014|isbn=978-1-62731-002-4|edition=Revised|pages=253|chapter=Dance Macabre|author-link=Blanche Barton|orig-year=1990}}{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=James R.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LxCwyChmJrAC&q=nick+bougas+church+of+satan&pg=PA147|title=Satanism Today: An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore, and Popular Culture|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2001|isbn=978-1-57607-292-9|pages=147|lccn=2001005141}}{{cite web|title=Slap Shots|url=https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/slap-shots/Content?oid=2134760|last=Boulware|first=Jack|date=November 19, 1997|work=SF Weekly|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170915024055/https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/slap-shots/Content?oid=2134760|archive-date=September 15, 2017}}

Bougas has directed several other films, such as the 1994 documentary The Goddess Bunny, about disabled transgenders tap dancing artist Sandie Crisp.{{cite web|title=The Goddess Bunny|url=https://vhscollector.com/movie/goddess-bunny|via=VHS Collector|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170510141145/https://vhscollector.com/movie/goddess-bunny|archive-date=May 10, 2017}}{{cite web|title=The Goddess Bunny|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/198261/The-Goddess-Bunny/overview|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325034144/https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/198261/The-Goddess-Bunny/overview|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=The New York Times|date=2016|archive-date=March 25, 2016}}

In 1998, Bougas released the album Celebrities... At Their Worst!, a collection of comedic audio blunders by such celebrities as Elvis Presley, Casey Kasem, Paul Anka, and John Wayne.{{cite magazine|date=September 1998|title=Weird Record of the Month|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ykEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA13|magazine=CMJ New Music Monthly|page=13|access-date=May 5, 2020}}{{cite web|title=Celebrities... At Their Worst!|url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/celebritiesat-their-worst!-mw0001070193|last=Pearson|first=Paul|publisher=AllMusic|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160312141705/https://www.allmusic.com/album/celebritiesat-their-worst!-mw0001070193|archive-date=March 12, 2016}}

As an illustrator, Bougas has worked with writer and publisher Jim Goad on such publications as Answer Me!{{cite magazine|last=Pafrey|first=Adam|author-link=Adam Parfrey|date=1994|title=Fucking Andrea Dworkin|url=https://jimgoad.net/pdf/parfrey.pdf|url-status=live|magazine=Answer Me!|issue=4|pages=50–53|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180619110645/https://jimgoad.net/pdf/parfrey.pdf|archive-date=June 19, 2018|via=JimGoad.net}}{{Cite news|last=O'Brien|first=Luke|date=May 30, 2019|title=Twitter Still Has A White Nationalist Problem|work=HuffPost|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twitter-white-nationalist-problem_n_5cec4d28e4b00e036573311d|url-status=live|access-date=May 5, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190822222218/https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twitter-white-nationalist-problem_n_5cec4d28e4b00e036573311d|archive-date=August 22, 2019|quote=Jim Goad is the former editor of Answer Me!, a magazine that ran from 1991 to 1994 and often featured the artwork of racist cartoonist Nick Bougas (Bougas published elsewhere under the pseudonym A. Wyatt Mann).}}

A. Wyatt Mann

According to a 2015 BuzzFeed News report, Bougas used the pseudonym "A. Wyatt Mann" (phonetically: 'a white man') to produce overtly racist and antisemitic cartoons in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Besides black people and Jews, his cartoons occasionally targeted other minorities and groups, including gay people and feminists. Many of them were published at the time by white supremacist Tom Metzger and Feral House publisher Adam Parfrey. Bougas has never publicly confirmed his authorship; however, his identity as Mann was confirmed by multiple people who worked with him at the time, and in captions of photos taken at various events.

The Mann cartoons have been widely reused as hateful memes by white supremacists, various internet trolls, and later, the alt-right. One cartoon in particular, a stereotypical caricature of a Jewish person referred to as the "Happy Merchant", became one of the most popular antisemitic images on the internet. It has been reused, modified and parodied multiple times, eventually becoming part of the visual language of websites such as 4chan.{{cite news|last1=Bernstein|first1=Joseph|date=February 5, 2015|title=The Surprisingly Mainstream History Of The Internet's Favorite Anti-Semitic Image|work=BuzzFeed News|url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/the-surprisingly-mainstream-history-of-the-internets-favorit|url-status=live|accessdate=December 4, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190228063743/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/the-surprisingly-mainstream-history-of-the-internets-favorit|archive-date=February 28, 2019|quote=So. You could stop right there and say that Nick Bougas is the most widely disseminated anti-Semitic cartoonist of all time and not be wrong.}}{{cite news|last1=Ward|first1=Justin|date=April 19, 2018|title=Day of the trope: White nationalist memes thrive on Reddit's r/The_Donald|work=Hatewatch|publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center|url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/19/day-trope-white-nationalist-memes-thrive-reddits-rthedonald|url-status=dead|accessdate=February 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200219202302/https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/19/day-trope-white-nationalist-memes-thrive-reddits-rthedonald|archive-date=February 19, 2020}}{{cite news|title=General Hate Symbols : The Happy Merchant |publisher=Anti-Defamation League|url=https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/the-happy-merchant|accessdate=June 30, 2020}}

Bougas' work as Mann has frequently been combined by Internet trolls with cartoons by political cartoonist Ben Garrison, which Garrison has said generates confusion between the two artists.{{cite book|last1=Malice|first1=Michael|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D6FuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT44|title=The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics|publisher=St. Martin's Publishing Group|year=2019|isbn=978-1-250-15467-5|lccn=2018056038|author-link1=Michael Malice|accessdate=February 18, 2020}}