Zapiro distills the hopes and fears of the nation in his cartoons. Jane Rosenthal visited him in his studio The studio of Jonathan Shapiro, known to the nation as the cartoonist Zapiro, has the feel of a real workplace. It is dominated by an unpretentious “mid-century” architectural drawing table with pulley-operated parallel rule and custom-made lightbox, at which one can picture Zapiro perched in the centre of a nest of information, heaps of newspapers, books and drawings, a “pile it” system clearly in constant use.
A radio sits on a shelf within reach, one wall is all books. This is where a huge amount of energy, intelligence and hard work are put into gathering information and distilling the affairs of the nation, its hopes, fears and concerns. He does six cartoons a week, one each for the Mail &Guardian and Sunday Times, four for the Sowetan, being funny about serious stuff, summarising, encapsulating, needling our complacency. As any good history teacher knows, an accurate summary aids the memory, keeps one mindful, gets to the heart of the matter which Zapiro’s cartoons do in more ways than one.
The Devil Made Me Do It (David Philip) is his fifth book of cartoons. He feels that compared to his earlier collections “there are some more cynical and sceptical drawings”, but makes a distinction: “I don’t mind being seen as a sceptic; I don’t want to be seen as an all-out cynic because there are enough goddamn all-out cynics all over the place, people who just think that everything will fail and who are down in the mouth about the country.”
Yet corruption, greed, deceit, and denial are regular targets. A whole batch of cartoons deals with the cricket match-fixing scandal, starting with one of a huge cassette tape crash-landed on a cricket field, with a groundsman saying, “The pitch may be irreparably damaged.” Cartoonists have to make up their minds quickly on issues and this one was done when the rest of the media were still pussyfooting around saying it was all nonsense. Zapiro comments that Hansie Cronje began to look more and more like his own caricature haunted!
On the portrayal of President Thabo Mbeki he says, “Even when I’m being critical I try to show the dichotomies and the predicaments of the new order,” and cites as an example the cartoon in which Mbeki is opening the Zimbabwean Trade Fair, and being shown by Mugabe an exhibit of “very latest farming implements” petrol and matches, a plank with a nail through it, a spear. Mbeki has his hand to his head, eyes shut, his averted face screwed up in distress. Here Zapiro has shown a degree of empathy, despite being very critical of the official South African stance on the farm invasions and the conduct of the Zimbabwean elections.
He goes on to discuss his style of drawing, which he purposely “toned down”, moving away from the influence of British cartoonists, Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman , whom he describes as “wild, flamboyant, vicious, a bit overblown for everyday editorial cartooning”, to “drawings that people could identify with, that people would see themselves in”.
In addition to his often simultaneous intake of newspapers and channel-hopping on radio, the latter “a big source of information and general debate”, he says, “I often phone people.” He comments on the fact that people he respects, sometimes old friends in the Struggle network, are now often diametrically opposed to each other, whereas before they would have had similar views. “You need to sound them out to help you decide.”
Though he’s no longer a grassroots activist, Zapiro’s passion is clearly still there. His recent call to the Tim Modise Show, on which the Israeli ambassador and the Palestinian representative were guests, created quite a storm. He says now that his intention was to call on South African Jews to show the same humane concern for the situation of the Palestinians that many of them showed in the apartheid days for the oppressed in South Africa. Since then he has had many calls, both for and against his view, including several in support from (non-fundamentalist) Muslims in the community. But no public support from the Jewish community.
His awareness of both sides of this issue is shown in his cartoon in which Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat are shown as surgeons about to separate the Siamese twins of Israel and Palestine. Bill Clinton, the anxious anaesthetist, remarks: “It would be less tricky if they weren’t joined at the heart” clearly labelled “Jerusalem.”
Despite a punishing amount of work, Zapiro appears to thrive on pressure, though he does say six cartoons a week is the limit. We end the interview near 10pm Zapiro still has to go down to the Seven Eleven for Tazos, to fulfil his part of a negotiated settlement about a five-year-old’s bedtime, and then has to watch the recorded Special Assignment on police dogs.
But he says he had a chance to unwind earlier when he took his infant daughter for her first swim.
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