Zapiro

Although it was published three months ago there is still time to buy a copy of the Zapiro 2005/2006 cartoon collection: as a quick précis of the issues and concerns that vexed South Africans during the last year, Zapiro is far more cogent and precise than any academic commentator.

He may be accused of many things; subtlety is not one of them –and you can also strike sensitivity, good taste and impartiality from his list of attributes. The wiliness to abuse sacred cows, to offend everyone show more and to tred on finer feelings is probably part of what makes him the genius he is.

He has tackled the Catholic Church, Christianity and Mad Bob Mugabe on many occasions; although in this collection he gives them a break, turning his barbed pen instead to the South African Aids policy, Minister Manto, and George ‘Axis of Evil Bush’. The sharpest of his ire though is reserved for the wooings and doings of one Jacob Zuma, deputy president of the ANC.

Over 40 of the 155 cartoons deal with some or other aspect of the Zuma saga, as can be expected considering the number of column inches devoted to his alleged misdeeds.

The late Brett Kebble also comes in for his fair share of lambasting – even months after his murder; PW Botha, Alec Erwin and rolling blackouts, Beaufort West city manager and ANC stalwart Truman Prince, Israel, the SABC, and Deputy President Mlambo –Ngcuka with her luxury state-funded holidays all provide excellent fodder.

It was also the time of Islamic outrage over a Danish newspaper competition challenging cartoonists to depict the prophet Mohammed: the only South African newspaper daring to publish the surprisingly inoffensive results was The Mail & Guardian, which is edited by a Muslim.

If Zapiro had entered the competition the fundamentalists would have a genuine cause for complaint – since inoffensive is not part of his vocabulary: as it was, he used the incident to draw attention to the religious minefield cartoonists have to navigate.

He gives us a dissipated Sir Bob and the Live 8 concert, former Springbok captain Corne Krige baring all in his autobiography and being grilled on Kamp Staaldraad, US Vice president Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, the Proteas’ phenomenal world record ODI score against Australia, and censorship within the SABC.

And then there’s Manic Mel, who gave the lie to his own assertion there was no anti-Semitic agenda in The Passion of the Christ by indulging in a drunken Nazi rant about Jews when stopped by police for driving under the influence…

‘Stories that make headline news’ are all very well, but nothing engages mankind like an image, and just one of Zapiro’s biting cartoons brings back more memories and says more than half a dozen written pages.

As any student of history knows, even academic historians are now recognising the intrinsic value of the cartoon, many of which – such as Crossing the Bar, depicting Bismarck’s fall from power under Kaiser Wilhelm the second- have become universally recognised and were regarded in their own day much as we regarded Zapiro’s award-winning 2001cartoon,The Devil Made Me Do It.

Bernard Partridge was the chief cartoonist for Punch and the most respected political cartoonist of his day: his beautifully etched, exquisitely partisan and impressively allegorical drawings were as much a reflection of early 20th Century sentiment as Hogarth and Rowlandson’s work of a century earlier, and Zapiro’s a century later.

He continues in a noble tradition, but with one all-important distinction: his predecessors succeeded in making people think, but Zapiro makes us laugh as well. show less

Zapiro is consistently good and there is no better way of reminding yourself of the events that have bedeviled or – in very rare cases – enlightened the past year than by buying his cartoon annual, showing the work that appeared in The Sunday Times, the Times and the Mail & Guardian.

When Jacob Zuma became president of South Africa Zapiro, one of his most vociferous critics, did not tone back as so many others did: his only concession was that Zuma’s trademark cranial shower attachment show more – in homage to the infamous shower he took to avoid contacting Aids after allegedly raping an HIV positive woman who was a guest in his house – was detached.

It became a barometer of Zapiro’s – and by extension the public’s – opinion of Zuma performance and reaction to certain situations. If he behaved in a presidential fashion, the shower rose some way above his head, if his behaviour was dodgy it sank until it hovered, like a sword of Damocles, just above his shiny bald pate.

Although Zapiro is still being sued by Zuma over last year’s rape of Justice Cartoon, none of this year’s batch has been – as far as I am aware – offensive enough to result in legal action, but that is not to say they are not offensive. Many of them are, in the extreme.

Africa will be protected from Aids only when Pope Benedict is himself encased in a condom, the Israeli’s continue to bomb schools and hospitals in Gaza, Julius Malema – while not depicted as a tantrumming toddler in a nappy – is a male chavenist pig [literally] in a leather jacket and Helen Zille is mocked mercilessly for having had Botox injections during the run-up to the elections.

Swine ‘flu, the soccer Confederations Cup, the death of Michael Jackson, the formation of Cope, Cholera, the first post-apartheid white South African to be granted status as a political refugee plus the old faithfuls, crime and corruption, this album has it all and more. An essential addition to your library…

For a nation with such deeply joyless Calvinist roots, South Africans have a surprisingly Catholic sense of humour.

Recent international incidents, not to mention events in the personal and political life of our President, an ordained man of the cloth himself, have rendered this hat trick of humour a little out of date but no less amusing.

We can chart Jacob Zuma’s popularity by the height at which Zapiro makes the dripping shower rosette [now firmly re-attached] hover irresolutely over the Presidential dome, while poor Lady Justice still has a hard time of it.

If political satire is a little too caustic for your taste, stick to Madam and Eve: Strike while the Iron is hot presents the usual gently hilarious view of our society, featuring everyone from the prawns of District 9 to Tokyo Sexwale to old favourites like the Mielie Lady and the tokoloshes.

Finally, Sarah Britten’s third collection of South African insults: far from being a nation renowned for having honed the art of the insult until it is rapier sharp, we tend to rely on bludgeons.

But those blunt instruments have been put together by one of the funniest writers in the country, with the help of quotes by noted wits such as Andrew Donaldson, David Bullard, Barry Ronge and many others.

So if you need cheering up in the face of the ever increasing petrol price, crime rates, and brood of presidential progeny inflicted on the long-suffering tax payer, look no further. show less

Imagine how much poorer life would be if Jonathan Shapiro had confined his love of sport to table tennis - a game at which he excelled – or if hockey and netball were what really floated his boat?

Luckily, Zapiro is an avid follower of soccer, rugby and cricket, and the politics and personalities branding them uniquely South African. For nearly 20 years he has produced witty and acerbic cartoons for most sporting victories, defeats and scandals, proving indisputably that a picture is worth show more a 1000 words.

Vuvuzelanation is an incisive and colourful sporting history of South Africa and the world since 1995, containing Zapiro’s best cartoons, including the one that won him the CNN African journalist of the year for 2001.

Louis Luyt, Caster Semenya, Hansie Cronje, they’re all here, the heroes and the villains, plus the smiling figure of their number one fan, Nelson Mandela. A perfect 10 for Zapiro! show less

Gone are the days when South African were forced to buy Giles annuals for Christmas presents: multi-award winning political cartoonist Zapiro’s annuals have become a local institution – and collectors items – over the past 11 years.

This year’s book is no exception, and he shows neither fear nor favour in challenging the issues of the day, satirizing everything from religious hypocrisy to the faults and foibles of our leaders.

Zapiro does not confine himself to our borders and often show more comments scathingly on the wider world – Bush, Blair, Mugabe, Israel and Iran come in for regular drubbings.

Mbeki, Zuma, Manto, Selebi, McBride, Yengeni and the SABC are excoriated: Mandela, Tutu, the Sunday Times and Gay Rights are treated sympathetically and sport – from the man who won the CNN African Sports Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 – is roundly mocked.

The most common theme, which underlies most of the 150 cartons, is spiritual corruption, whether it be crime, racism, sexism, graft, bigotry, jealousy or willful indifference.

Proudly South African, Zapiro turns both the magnifying glass and the spotlight on the wooings and doings of our country over the past year. Brilliant, bitter and biting, it will make South Africans laugh – but it won’t win any converts to the Homecoming Campaign. show less