Cartooning ructions: when the parallel universe intersects with the real world

CARTOONING RUCTIONS: WHEN THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE INTERSECTS WITH THE REAL WORLD

Zapiro, editorial cartoonist

Thursday 30 January  7.00 pm  COURSE FEES R110; Staff and students R55 Snacks and drinks will be served before the lecture from 6.00 pm.

This lecture is part of the Daily Maverick series of seven lectures.

Satire is about surprise. It’s about portraying people or politics in unexpected ways. Yet the reaction to satire can be just as surprising. Zapiro has been an activist and cartoonist for forty years. In this presentation, he shows cartoons that have elicited unusual responses, sometimes shocking, sometimes hilarious and sometimes downright strange. There have been blow-ups in the glare of the public spotlight and there have been backroom responses that have only come to light years after the drawings appeared. What intrigues him is how the parallel universe that cartoonists create imprints itself in unexpected ways on the real world.

Recommended reading

Zapiro. 2009. The Mandela Files. Cape Town: Double Storey Books. Zapiro and Wills, M. 2014. Democrazy. Cape Town: Jacana Media.

Zapiro and Wills, M. 2018. WTF – Cartooning Zuma: A Cartoonist’s Tale. Cape Town: Jacana Media.

TO BOOK: https://www.webtickets.co.za/v2/performance.aspx?itemid=1554921554

ZAPIRO (aka Jonathan Shapiro) is South Africa’s best-known and most-awarded cartoonist. His career began in the late 1980s and is today recognised nationally and internationally as an influential social commentator through his political cartooning. He works as the editorial cartoonist for Daily Maverick. Previously he was editorial cartoonist for the Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian, The Times, the Sowetan and for Independent Newspapers. He has published 29 best-selling annuals as well as 4 special collections. Resulting from hard-hitting cartoons about President Jacob Zuma, he has twice been sued by Zuma for defamation. At the end of 2012, Zuma dropped one of the lawsuits (a R5 million claim over the 2008 Lady Justice cartoon). In May 2013, Zuma dropped the earlier R10 million lawsuit from 2006.