HARARE – Famed cartoonist Tony Namate has left The Daily News after joining the newspaper at its launch in 1999.
Namate, a master of the political cartoon, confirmed his exit to ZimLive Media which he said was at the instigation of the newspaper’s management.
“They offloaded me. I’m busy planting on my plot right now and also working on my cartoon collection,” Namate said.
In 2011, Namate published a collection of his political cartoons, titled ‘The Emperor’s New Clods’, a tribute to Hans Christian Andersen’s famous cartoon, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’.
Namate, who has won international awards, was praised for his cartoon collection which was described by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists’ Kevin Kallaugher as “…[puncturing] the pomposity of the powerful on behalf of the poor and the powerless.”
Namate has credited his father for igniting the interest in cartoons by bringing British and American comic books home as he was growing up. He found himself more interested in the drawings, than the text – which would later help him to tell a story through drawing and a few words when he joined The Herald as a cartoonist in 1988.
He left The Herald in 1991 as he found himself more drawn to independent political cartoons as the euphoria of independence was dying down, and corruption taking root.
When the privately-owned Daily News was established in 1999, he joined the new publication. His cartoons were a major draw to the new newspaper which was bombed in 2001 before eventually being shut down by the government in 2003 leading to a seven-year hiatus.
Namate returned to the paper when it was relaunched in 2010.
He worked under under five different editors since 1999.
