South Africa: Join Jacana Media For Two Book Launches @ Kalk Bay Books
By Own Staff Writer
Kalk Bay Books & Jacana Media invite you to draw the year to a close with a smile on your face (albeit a wry one!)
Join them for launch of two books on Wednesday 15 December & What’s So Funny? by Andy Mason, and Just for Kicks The Year in Cartoons edited by John Curtis & Andy Mason.
Andy Mason embarks on a fascinating journey through the history of South African cartooning, tracing a vigorous lineage of satirical art that begins in the colonial period and continues unabated to this day.
For hundreds of years, democratic societies have set aside a space – the ‘jester’s space’ – where satirists are given licence to taunt and mock the rich and powerful.
This tradition has survived the bitter struggles of South African history, and the ongoing encounter between pen and sword continues to produce powerful, sometimes agonising images of a nation battling to come to terms with its own identity.
Following the success of last year’s inaugural collection, this year’s anthology of South Africa’s best political cartoons, punctuated by a lively Soccer World Cup section, is even more hilarious.
Just For Kicks! narrates the story of South Africa’s epic World Cup year, when our cartooning maestros momentarily swept their criticisms under the rug to blow their vuvuzelas and sing ‘shosholoza’. Corruption scandals, counterfeit currency, dodgy judges, eco-disasters, lifestyle audits, paternity scandals, tenderpreneurs and all the usual gaffes and catastrophes are momentarily sidelined by a month of deafening soccer madness. So infectious was the Ayoba! spirit that even the most vociferous of our political cartoonists allowed their cynicism a month’s break.
But the tournament went by in a flash and we were immediately swamped once again by a tsunami of political skullduggery, to the enormous relief of our visual jesters.
Co-opting vuvuzelas and makarapas as new visual metaphors, they got back to doing what they do best: giving our errant politicians the boot.
When: Wednesday 15 December
Where: Kalk Bay Books, 124 Main Road, Kalk Bay
Time: 6 for 6.30pm
RSVP: by 14 December to
Cartoons at Kalk Bay Books
021 788 2266.
(NB: Please indicate numbers for catering purposes)
