This was Friday 4 November 2011

Words don't come easy sometimes. These should have. So it goes.  For the uninitiated this case concerns the nephew of our president who has used his eating disorder as an excuse to avoid appearing in court.
 Here is the rough.

what's my little guy's name. 24 0ct 2011

There was a time when I was asked this question often. The answer  the question is, that he is supposed to remain anonymous. There is no better representative of  'the man in the street' than  the ubiquitous news vendor. When I first affixed him to a cartoon in the early 1970s, his banner sheet just carried an explanation of what the cartoon was about. e.g. Inflation on the rise. Over time he began to reflect wryly on the hard reality of politics and my own opinion, which is a firm belief in the fallibility of everything.  It is a good place to start as a cartoonist.

The appended cartoon is the one that gave birth to my vendor.  The hippie saying " Groovy!" was what brought my little guy out of the shadows.He switched identities with the guy saying "Hau!!" on the far left and  appeared the very next day. Of personal interest is that it was in the days long before the ego demanded that the work be dated so that it could be acknowledged by history.

ja well 2 oct 5 2011

This one is pretty dated in the South African context now.Still, it works.

Ja, well, no man is an island

JA WELL NO FINE is a perculiar South African expression which includes a positive, a negative and is probably the most non committal response to any situation.  Back in 1987 I was given carte blanche by the then editor of the newpaper then called The Sunday Star and was asked to produce a cartoon that was anything but political.  As an exercise for myself, I decided to tackle one of the oldest cliche cartoon ideas - the desert islands gag.  I simply wanted to see how many cartoons I could extract in that limited situation and learnt a lot along the way e.g. if one saw a daily cartoon which featured a desert island on a day where that space was a blank there would be an implication that although there was nothing to look at, a desert island did in fact exist - I finally came up with a caption for this space which was "I've been on this island so long I am beginning to question whether I exist and is there an island?" 

I called my one panel cartoon "Ja,well,no man is an island" and it became quite a hit!

As a little bit of personal history and probably the best story of my career is that I was told that years on a leturer at Wits University asked his student "Who said "No Man is an Island?"".  Once student answered in all seriousness - "Dov Fedler"!  I will be posting these old cartoons as I scan them, clean them up and add some colour - enjoy"   27 September 2011

monday idea vacuum sep. 26 2011

It is going to be morning of scribbling. Winnie Madikizela Mandela's 75th birthday today.  Problem is I need a cartoon for Cape Times Wednesday. Not keen on going after Winnie. Maybe something in birthday resolutions? Matches?
Cele fired this week?  Maybe Robert McBride to take his place? Here's a Winnie oldie.

Hooray - a start!