Stripkap

A very professional & successful newspaper strip. Harry (businessman), Rico (artist) and Stephen (writer) sell thousands of books, and have their strip published in national newspapers like the Mail and Guardian. Their website gets about 50,000 hits a day, according to Harry. They are translated into French (Vents d'Ouest) and Danish. In a Scott Adams kind of way they can be hired for business seminars about ideal business communication. In my opinion, they reached this popularity level through the classic quality of their strips, through professionality, and through the modern theme. Madam and Eve tells something about the new South Africa, be it in a very innocent kind of way. It is clearly meant to be mainstream entertainment. Rumour has it that some of their strips are clearly reminiscent of Calvin and Hobbes, but hey, most other examples are worse. The strip is about a white woman (madam) and a black servant (Eve). The madam tries to come to terms with the new South Africa, but does not always succeed, and the servant is the more powerful person in the household. The third important character is the madam's mother, who's a difficult old lady.

Samenstelling: Gert Meesters / laatste update: 13-06-2006 .
Deze site ziet er het best uit op een Mac, zoals alles eigenlijk.
Het copyright op gebruikte afbeeldingen uit strips behoort toe aan de vermelde auteurs en uitgeverijen.


	Een webarchief van stripjournalist Gert Meesters thuis<>interviews<>reportages<>over deze site<>contact Comics in South Africa This text tells you all about the comics I was able to find or hear about when I visited South Africa in 1999. 1) Madam and Eve A very professional & successful newspaper strip. Harry (businessman), Rico (artist) and Stephen (writer) sell thousands of books, and have their strip published in national newspapers like the Mail and Guardian. Their website gets about 50,000 hits a day, according to Harry. They are translated into French (Vents d'Ouest) and Danish. In a Scott Adams kind of way they can be hired for business seminars about ideal business communication. In my opinion, they reached this popularity level through the classic quality of their strips, through professionality, and through the modern theme. Madam and Eve tells something about the new South Africa, be it in a very innocent kind of way. It is clearly meant to be mainstream entertainment. Rumour has it that some of their strips are clearly reminiscent of Calvin and Hobbes, but hey, most other examples are worse. The strip is about a white woman (madam) and a black servant (Eve). The madam tries to come to terms with the new South Africa, but does not always succeed, and the servant is the more powerful person in the household. The third important character is the madam's mother, who's a difficult old lady. If you want to know more, check out their website: http://www.madameve.co.za/ 2) Zapiro Jonathan Shapiro (aka Zapiro) is a very interesting political cartoonist. He published in independent newpapers (like the Sowetan) in the 80s and was a political ennemy of the regime in that period because of his critical attitude towards apartheid. He lived abroad for some years (but kept on publishing controversial cartoons) and returned a few years ago. People told me that he took lessons from Spiegelman in the meantime. All in all, Zapiro is South Africa's best known political cartoonist, and that's not because he was 'right' during the apartheid regime, but because he's also damn good. I fondly remember his cartoon of a press conference during the Kosovo war, in which a journalist asked Clinton to explain how exactly the air raids were working. In the following panels you could see Clinton humming and spreading his arms to imitate a plane. In the last panel he straightened his tie and asked for the next question. This example also illustrates that Zapiro has a fondness of comics. Like most cartoon work, Zapiro's relies heavily on national politics, and is therefore not always easy to understand for a foreigner. Book collections of his works are available in every South African book store. Check out his cartoons at: http://www.mg.co.za/zapiro/default.aspx 3) Bitterkomix The underground of the South African comics community. The only established, regular work in Afrikaans, too. Their goal seems to be to destroy the myths of sound Afrikanership. Check out my Bitterkomix introduction for more gratuitous comments on these great authors. 4) Storyteller Group This comics factory creates educational comics on demand, especially for the black population. They work with outside creators and sponsors a lot. They published comics about aids, breast feeding, and similar topics. There was also one real graphic novel project, with comics adaptations of important literature by black South Africans: Deep Cuts. 5) Rest Of course this is not everything there is. But the four items I mentioned are the big structural, national things. There have been one-shots by people like Tinus Horn, Alistair Findlay and Piet Grobler. Some of the people who started in Bitterkomix now have a comic of their own. Unfortunately, they often just copy Bitterkomix, without creating something meaningful themselves. Part of that situation is created by the almost complete absence of a comics culture in South Africa. Everybody knows Tintin and Asterix, Superman, Batman and the X-Men. There are maybe four or five comic shops in the whole country. And that's where it stops. So there's hardly good examples available. And if they're there, people just copy them because nobody'll know the original work and they can get away with it. Reminds me of Dylan Horrocks' Hicksville just a little. Gert Meesters thuis<>interviews<>reportages<>over deze site<>contact Samenstelling: Gert Meesters / laatste update: 13-06-2006 . Deze site ziet er het best uit op een Mac, zoals alles eigenlijk. Het copyright op gebruikte afbeeldingen uit strips behoort toe aan de vermelde auteurs en uitgeverijen.

Comics in South Africa