Industry news for the professional cartoonist
Two years after being pulled from the South African network line-up, Jonathan Shapiro’s (“Zapiro”) satirical puppet show will finally hit the air tomorrow night. The show was set to air in 2008 and the pilot was partially funded by the SABC, but the network pulled the show before it could debut citing “sensitivity of viewers.”…
South African editorial cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (“Zapiro”) has reinstated the shower head above President Jacob Zuma’s head. In several cartoons, the shower head was present but floating above the presidents head slowly inching closer. Zapiro affixed the plumbing fixture as more criticism is leveled at the president for his sexual behavior. In an interview with…
Prominent South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (“Zapiro”) has launched an internet satirical news show called “ZA News.” The show uses life size puppets of South Africa’s most prominent figures including Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and South African president Jacob Zuma. The show was originally created for television, but the pilot was never aired after the…
Jonathan Shapiro (AKA “Zapiro”), the South African cartoonist who has drawn the ire, as well as law suits, from the new president Jacob Zuma, has decided to remove the shower head from atop Zuma’s cranium as a demonstration of optimism. I thought I will take stock of where we are and give the presidency a…
Jonathan Shapiro (“Zapiro”), one of the leading cartoonist/satirists in South Africa, has been sued twice by Jacob Zuma who will be sworn in this Saturday as the new president. The legal cases are still in the courts. Despite that threat, Zapiro pledges that he’ll continue to draw Zuma with a shower nozzle over Zuma’s head…
Jacob Zuma, the leader of the African National Congress and presumed next president of South Africa, has filed another suit against cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (pen name “Zapiro”) over a series of “unflattering cartoons” that Zuma supporters consider racist. “I’ve been accused of racism many times in the past seven or eight months. In the previous…
African National Congress President Jacob Zuma has filed a libel suit against editorial cartoonist Jonathan “Zapiro” Shapiro for the amount of $712,300 over a controversial cartoon published in September that depicted Lady Justice being held down by four ANC members who urged Zuma to rape her. Zuma had been charged with rape in 2005, but…
The L.A. Times caught up with Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) to talk about his controversial cartoon that ran last Sunday. In the interview, Zapiro is asked what he was trying to say with the cartoon, if he hesitate to publish it (he did) and the reaction from fellow citizens and close friends. When asked what roll…
African National Congress president Jacob Zuma is lawyering up and is looking into taking cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) to court over Sunday’s controversial cartoon depicting Zuma ready to engage in a rape of Lady Justice. Zuma and Zapiro have tangled in court before back in 2006 because of three of Zapiros cartoons during a much…
South African editorial cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, who goes by the pen-name “Zapiro“, has created a growing furor over a cartoon that ran yesterday depicting the members of African National Congress (ANC) of holding down lady justice and telling ruling leader Jacob Zuma to “go for it” as he unbuttons his pants. The Independent Online quotes…
Joel Pett (Tribune) explains it all. We are now engaged in a great civil war, testing whether people are more afraid of scary, foolish nonsense than they are of genuine problems. The answer isn’t entirely clear, which is what makes reality so much fun. Certainly, the “real threats” of ignorance combined with disinformation are a…
Kal Kallaugher offers an antidote of sorts to all the polling and panic, pointing out that party members barely make up half of voters. (Gallup says 27% Democrat, 25% Republican, 45% independent, presumably with some rounding.) He emphasizes his point not just by having the fellow bang on the ceiling, but by referring to “the…
Martyn Turner gets a gold star today, not for the intent of his cartoon, since I know nothing about David Cameron, who has replaced Suella Braverman, but for having correctly cited the old sailors’ myth of rats prophetically leaving a sinking ship. Cartoonists continually draw ships at sea, listing as they begin to sink beneath…
Jimmy Margulies (KFS) opens today’s conversation with the plain truth, in a situation in which truth seems anything but plain. The emergence of bigotry and hate in the wake of this sort of tragedy is predictable: It was obvious as soon as the towers fell on 9/11 not only that Muslims would be targeted by…
Zapiro speaks for a large number of cartoonists as they struggle to find something that is both fair and penetrating to say about the bloodbath going on in Israel and Gaza, with the additional burden of knowing that anything of any substance will — intentionally or not — be misinterpreted by a portion of your…