THE PUNGENT ILLUSTRATORS

"Letter from South Africa" is Omoseye Bolaji's regular weekly column published in the Nigerian newspaper, True National News. The column comes out every Monday. True National News is circulated all over Nigeria on a weekly basis.

February 15 2010 edition

Letter from South Africa

With Omoseye Bolaji

The Pungent Illustrators

I was relaxing at an eatery the other day when a slender gentleman came sidling up to me. Slender, wiry actually - almost with a cadaverous expression! He stared at me almost disconcertingly as if disappointed that I was not being friendlier towards him.

Then I remembered him and grinned. “Ah, the great illustrator; cartoonist” I said to him. “Long time no see”. A few years ago he had contributed a number of striking, imaginative, cartoons and illustrations to a South African newspaper I was editing. But the gentleman had just vanished. I reminded him of this fact.

“Ag,” he acknowledged. “Sorry about that. Greener pastures. Now I work for a government department. Regular pay check,” We both smiled. We reminisced on some of his outstanding cartoons; one rather berating Uncle Bob (Robert Mugabe); and the other one, a sarcastic illustration of the infamous episode in South Africa when some white students had mixed their urine with food offered to some elderly black lady cleaners!

“It was a great time eh?” he said. “All those cartoons I produced for your paper; a main highlight of my life. I have them all filed away for ever. The good thing about you is that you gave me my head. Leeway...you trusted me. You never forced me to do the illustrations in a particular way,”

My mind went back to the old days in Nigeria when I was a young columnist and had a complementary cartoon to go with my write-ups then. At that time, I was in no way as broadminded and “soft” as I am now! I used to tell my cartoonists exactly what I wanted and how it should be done. That was when I was at the Sunday Sketch newspaper!

Looking back on it now, I rather feel bad about it as the best cartoonists should be left alone to do their thing instinctively, drawing on their own idiosyncratic talents, since they are the experts in this field! Indeed Nigeria in particular has produced many excellent and long running cartoonists – since decades ago.

Hence early Nigerian cartoonists include Dele Jegede, Jossy Ajiboye, Cliff Ogiugo, Kola Fayemi, Bayo Odulana, Obe Ess, Dada Adekola, Nath Ngerem, Kenny Adamson, Lawrence Akapa (of Vanguard fame). More recently, the likes of Femi Arowolo, Kalu Mba and Kaycee have been strutting their stuff with panache.

In South Africa, of course there are a number of distinguished cartoonists too who are doing very well for the national publications like Daily Sun, Sowetan, Times among many others. But many would agree that the Morena (King) of them is Zapiro!

Jonathan Shapiro is Zapiro's real name, a very famous cartoonist indeed whose work appears in numerous South African publications and has been exhibited internationally on many occasions. He has been the editorial cartoonist for the Mail and Guardian since 1994, the Sunday Times since 1998 and since September 2005 he has appeared three times a week in the Cape Times, The Star, The Mercury and the Pretoria News.

Zapiro's work appears daily on the website of South African independent news publication, Mail and Guardian, and weekly on the site of the Sunday Times. Zapiro has published fourteen cartoon collections (books)!

Highly talented illustrators might be thin on the ground in many societies, but they pull off everlasting masterstrokes, for decades sometimes. Now I am thinking of book illustrators, especially the cover of books. I have always loved the rather old African classic The Voice by Gabriel Okara and my fascination for the book is partly because of the superb imaginative cover illustration (the African Writers Series edition) by Pedro Guedes; the illustration clearly shows the confused state of mind of the protagonist Okolo; and at the same time shows the anger, indignation and intolerance of the leaders like Chief Izongo!

My own book, Tebogo and the haka is liked by many, and a large number of readers have confessed that it is the imaginative illustration on the cover that they are enamoured with. “I love the book and I treasure it in my personal library mainly because of the book cover drawing - even if the book was rubbish I’d still have loved it!” a reader told me

Long live the imaginative, rib-cracking, even leg-pulling illustrators and cartoonists!