Zapiro: South Africa’s best satirist

Master cartoonist Zapiro is no stranger to Leadership magazine. We have had the pleasure of his involvement in many articles, from our Madiba tribute birthday editions to cartooning features. He is, by a long stretch, South Africa’s finest cartoonist and satirist. Robbie Stammers met with him in his studio – where it all happens – to discuss life, the Zen of drawing, and Zuma!

You are an old Cape Town/Rondebosch boy, not so?

I grew up in Newlands initially, on Paradise Road. I loved the old Newlands area, and my hangouts were Kirstenbosch and Newlands Forest.

I went to school at Rondebosch Prep, where I had my first cartoons published. I had a fantastic teacher called Alan Kenyon. He was my Standard 3 (Grade 5) teacher and it was in 1969, so the era was very much the kind of ‘60s counterculture and bucking authority. Here was a teacher who was bucking the trend of conservatively dressed, conservatively minded government school teachers. He managed to get kids to do what they were most talented at, and he realised that drawing and writing were things that I could do well.

I edited the school newspaper and the class magazine, and for the school newspaper I cam up with this little character called Prepp, who had a big kuif. And he used to comment on what was going on at the school. That was my first regularly published little cartoon.

I used to win the Christmas card competition that the Argus used to have for kids.

My sisters also entered the competition and did pretty well in it, and eventually someone wrote to the Argus, asking: “Who is this Jewish family dominating the Christmas card competition?”

Was your mother a big influence on your life?

My mother was a huge influence on me. She helped me to understand how unjust society was at the time, but she was also a very creative person. Once, when the art classes that we attended came to an end, she started some art classes on the lawn of our house, and there were 20 to 30 kids at a time doing all kinds of things.

We all found a political home in 1983 when the United Democratic Front formed. It was a non-racial grouping and one we could identify with.

My sister, Yvonne, was detained by the security police in 1985 for six weeks, and my mom was detained in 1986 for seven weeks. Then I was detained in 1988 for 11 days, so I had the least amount of time behind bars – but I had five days in solitary for not answering questions.

After you realised architecture was not for you, you went overseas to study cartooning.

Yes. It was during the final year of my degree – the practical year. I was trying to figure out what I really wanted to do, and realised that architecture wasn’t exactly my thing. I’d always known that cartooning was my passion, but I just didn’t know how to make it my livelihood. So I went travelling and visited some famous cartoonists, starting with the Asterix artist (Albert) Uderzo in Paris.

He is absolutely fantastic, but an even greater influence for me was Hergé, the creator of Tintin. When I got to New York, I was absolutely aghast that even the comic fundi’s didn’t know who Hergé was. I actually pulled out of one class because the teacher didn’t know Tintin – I’m not kidding. I just didn’t think that he was the kind of teacher I needed.

However, I then got to study under some comic masters in the States, such as Art Spiegelman, Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman.

Following years of success with your cartoons, you became involved in ZANews, bringing your characters to life with puppets. Why has ZANews never been shown on local television?

We were influenced by the television shows from the ‘80s,such as the French Les Guignols de l’info and British shows such as Spitting Image, which were phenomenal and had a massive impact in their countries.

I was approached by a Frech producer,Thierry Cassuto from Les Guignols. When he came to South Africa, he got the impression that we were ripe for something similar here, and I thought he was right. In 1998, he approached me and I thought it was a fantastic idea.

We were working on the Mandela puppet between ’98 and ’99. We used the puppet in a three-minute pilot and I actually presented it to Mandela at a garden party. I walked up to him, completely unannounced. I stuck the puppet’s hand out and Madiba said to his puppet, “Ah! I believe I’ve met this gentleman before!”

Then we talked with the SABC and e.tv, trying to get this programme made, and they were both interested. n the end, the SABC didn’t have the guts and e.tv didn’t have the money.

Eventually, after plenty of trying, we had to concentrate on other things, and then for years nothing happened. Then, within the space of one week, I was contacted by both the SABC and e.tv again. Both raised issues around ancillary rights and things like that because the SABC and e.tv want to have both hands around your throat while you’re doing your thing. They want greater editorial control and they want to own everything; and neither Thierry nor I were prepared to give them that.

e.tv has made some spectacularly sour comments about the project since. There have been some very funny comments coming right from the top at e.tv, and it’s quite obvious that they missed out. The SABC finally paid a million rand for a half hour pilot -- that’s common knowledge now. No one got rich on that, I can tell you.

ZANews utilises a very expensive process, and we had to balance this with our enormous production costs: doing the puppets from scratch, and paying a large team of people. So it was fantastic that we got that pilot made! At that stage, I was much more involved than I am now.

Then we started hearing the old mantra that we had been hearing for years, that South Africans are not ready for this sort of thing; and they just sat on the pilot for months. Eventually, some of it got onto the Internet, and before long Special Assignment was doing a programme on satire, which included some parts of ZANews.

Then the SABC’s lawyers threatened to sue Special Assignment -- itself an SABC programme -- for airing parts of ZANews! That was how complicated and weird it all became. The pilot was uploaded on to the Mail & Guardian website and ZANews developed its own website, which has developed quite a cult following.

Not getting a proper TV contract is rather sad. In mainstream South African newspapers, I’ve been able to publish cartoons that some America and European cartoonists wouldn’t be able to get into their mainstream papers, but the same can’t be said for our television media.

Earlier this year, the defamation claim against you had the South African Human Rights Commission ruling in your favour. Do you think it set a precedent for future satirists and cartoonists?

I would hope so. I thought so when the ruling came out, but then I’ve seen some very disturbing things happening that are infringing on the print and electronic media. They are just generally odd rulings that are coming out of the courts, even the Constitutional Court.

We’ve also seen the introduction of a new Press Code. I see the Press Council as being on the back foot on certain issues because of the Protection of State Information Bill and the proposed media tribunal.

The new Press Code doesn’t include a specific provision that deals with satire. There should be one because some people may take things literally, even though they are clearly written in a satirical form. Something may appear to be quite transgressive when, in fact, it is meant to be ironic.

In any democracy, provision should be made for satirical expression. Some of the Press Code’s clauses should talk about how satire can be pretty wild and woolly, and you have to give the readers some credit for understanding the concept of satire.

The direction in which the Constitutional Court is going worries me. Look at the Judicial Service Commission hearings that were public, and led to the fact that we now having an evangelical conservative in charge of the court.

Dikgang Moseneke should definitely be the chief justice, but he has been overlooked twice. The process is similar to what Ronald Reagan did in the United States: he packed the American Supreme Court, which is equivalent to our Constitutional Court, with people who matched his outlook. It seems that is what Jacob Zuma is trying to do; and in the case of Mogoeng Mogoeng, it is more than simply his political persuasions. I think Zuma is looking for a yes-man.

Speaking of President Zuma, what has happened with your ongoing saga there?

Just under a year ago, I got a summons for the second of two court cases. There are two court cases against me.

There’s the 2006 case, which was for cartoons I drew during his rape trial. There were three cartoons in that court case. One of those was the first cartoon that showed him with a shower on his head. He sued a whole lot of people at the same time. The court case against me was R15 million, which has subsequently been reduced. That court case is still active, but nothing’s really happening in it.

In 2008, he sued me again in a separate case for the Lady Justice cartoon. That one is a much more serious case because that cartoon created such an enormous outcry and drew a lot of support. I believe that cartoon goes to the core of how he came to power. Did he abuse and threaten the judiciary in order to get the corruption case against him removed? My answer is an emphatic “yes”. The eventual outcome of that case was a political solution dressed up as a judicial one.

I thought he would leave it alone after he became president, but in December 2010 – two years after he initially sued me – a sheriff pitched up on my doorstep with an actual summons! Then another sheriff arrived with another summons a few months later. My lawyers are working in overdrive and have been given a court date in August 2012. Unless Zuma’s team is trying to intimidate us into a settlement, it is serious about going ahead and suing. If it is the latter, we are equally serious about showing exactly how the judiciary has been abused in order to get Zuma elected as president -- that’s how serious this whole case is going to become!

Every day, before creating your next cartoon, you have to analyse our political scenario. What do you think the year ahead has in store for people such as Julius Malema and Jacob Zuma?

I’m not a scenario planner like Clem Sunter, nor do I have a crystal ball. However, as a commentator and a satirist, I do try to comment preemptively, though maybe not that far ahead. Cartoons are about exaggeration and hypothetical situations -- the what-ifs. So a lot of the time, I am taking a situation and extrapolating it and posing an extreme scenario in order to make people second-guess themselves.

We’ve seen Malema on the cusp of something. I don’t know which way it’s going to go, but I’m interested in the dynamics. Malema has become a sort of populist Mini-Me version of Zuma. We previously had an aloof, intellectual president in (Thabo) Mbeki, but Zuma appealed to the masses and managed to become president in 2009. He’s a rank populist, and so is Malema.

We are now seeing large cracks appearing in the coalition that brought Zuma to power, and people are starting to question certain things. Malema has such strong support from some people that he really is a force to be reckoned with; but if the ANC old guard isolates him, they could start draining him of his power.

I don’t know if Zuma has the stomach for it because of the different factions that he’s dealing with, so I’m not a very effective crystal ball on this one at the moment.

Is the pen mightier than the sword?

It can be. Cartoons come to me quickly. You shoot from the hip and you sometimes have to take what comes afterward. You sometimes land up with chop marks from sticking your neck out, but that’s the nature of cartooning.

It’s one of the things that I’m really thrilled about in this country. Cartoonists are lucky to have the kind of voice that we do, and to be seen as commentators who are making valid comments about what’s going, even if those comments are highly contested.

Describe a day in the life of Zapiro.

My friend Andy Mason describes it best when he says I take my news intravenously. After I wake up, I stay in bed and surf channels on a tiny Sony radio. Radio is my favourite way to gather information, then newspapers. Everything else comes a poor second or third, including the Internet. I listen to the radio a hell of a lot.

I get the kids together, make their lunches and take them to school; and while I’m doing that, I’m listening to stuff and starting to scan the papers.

When I get into my studio, I have a million admin things I need to do. Then I let things gestate a bit, then I scan the net for a while.

I sometimes review TV shows that I’ve taped the previous evening. I like to tape the news while I’m busy doing something else, just to see what the main stories were, but I really prefer radio. By then, I will take down the odd sketch in my little sketch book. Gradually, something starts developing; and by some time in the afternoon, I have something that is close to the final version.

A lot of stuff starts out very verbally. I’m very conceptual in the way I start out. I don’t start out trying to find a laugh. I start out trying to say something that speaks out. 

Robbie Stammers