Stylogeny in the style of Arab Press Caricature (Rose al-Yusuf to Naji al-Ali)

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Pictorial & machine age · 1925–present · Middle East & North Africa

Arab Press Caricature (Rose al-Yusuf to Naji al-Ali)

Also known as Arab political cartoon, Egyptian press caricature, Karikatir (كاريكاتير), Handala cartoons

The single-panel newspaper cartoon of the Arab press, from Saroukhan's covers for Cairo's Rose al-Yusuf (1928), heir to Abu Naddara (1877) and al-Kashkul (1914), to Naji al-Ali in Kuwait and Beirut and Ali Ferzat in Damascus. One drawn scene carries the joke: a fat official, a dazed citizen, a recurring everyman (Masri Effendi, Handala) in a quick ink line on bare newsprint, with a short hand-lettered Arabic line or no caption. It runs daily in a column of the page, comic, ironic and often mourning; the weekly covers add flat spot colour.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices. Stylogeny doesn’t generate images of this style, out of respect for the people it belongs to.

Use it with care

This is a living and dangerous craft: Naji al-Ali was shot in London in 1987 and Ali Ferzat was beaten in Damascus in 2011, and the cartoons still belong to their makers and estates. Handala is a Palestinian national symbol of refugees and the right of return: do not use him, or any named cartoonist's characters or hand, as a decorative motif or image-model prompt, and never present a generated cartoon as theirs. The tradition also drew enemies as dehumanised types (a review of al-Ali's collected cartoons notes Israelis drawn as 'vampiric goblins'): aim the exaggeration at power, rank and pomposity, never at ethnicity, religion or the bodies of the powerless, and have every Arabic line written or checked by a fluent reader.

01

How it works

  • Make one drawing carry the whole joke: a single panel, one scene, no strip.
  • Draw in black ink on the white of the page, shading with hatching or a grey wash rather than colour.
  • Give the paper a recurring everyman who watches or answers the news, and keep him the same from day to day.
  • Draw types, not portraits: swell the official's belly and shrink the citizen, and let the situation name the target.
  • Hand-letter a short Arabic line in the cartoonist's own hand, or drop the caption and let the picture speak.
  • Leave the ground empty around the figures so the cartoon reads at one column's width on newsprint.

Cairo: the weekly Rose al-Yusuf (first issue 26 October 1925), whose covers Alexander Saroukhan drew from March 1928 to 1934, then Akher Saa, Akhbar el-Yom, Sabah El-Kheir and Al-Ahram; carried on in the dailies of Kuwait, Beirut and Damascus. It took up an existing Cairo satirical press, after the papers Abu Naddara Zarqa (Ya'qub Sanu, 1877, the first Arabic-language magazine with cartoons) and al-Kashkul (Sulayman Fawzi, 1914; Al Kashkul al-Musawwar from 1921, with cartoons by Juan Sintes), which Rose al-Yusuf's Masri Effendi was made to rival

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Gradients, Fluorescent & neon, Blackletter, All caps, Abundant decoration, Horror vacui, Straight photography, Photomontage, Non-representational, Luxurious & glamorous

Palette

  • #f1ead8
  • #161412
  • #8a8580
  • #b8322a
  • #c9a35a

Typefaces

  • Hand-lettered Arabic in the cartoonist's own hand for the caption line and speech balloons, running right to left

  • The cartoonist's hand-written signature drawn into the panel

  • Typeset Arabic newspaper text (headline, column rules and dateline) framing the boxed cartoon on the page

Known for

  • Alexander Saroukhan (1898–1977)

    covers of Rose al-Yusuf from March 1928 (his first, a drawing of Rose al-Yusuf herself) to 1934, then Akher Saa and, from 1946 until his death, Akhbar el-Yom; more than 20,000 political, social and humorous caricatures

  • Masri Effendi (Rose al-Yusuf, 1929 or 1930, by Saroukhan)

    'a short, stout, bespectacled, somewhat dishevelled figure' in Western trousers and jacket, a fez and prayer beads, standing for the ordinary Egyptian effendi (Gershoni 2002, cited on Wikipedia)

  • Rose al-Yusuf, front cover of issue 1021, 7 January 1948

    three male figures wrapped as mummies propped upright in coffins, the middle one crying, watched by two spectators below (Dartmouth Library)

  • Rose al-Yusuf, cover of issue 2008 (1966), designed by Ihab Shaker

    an illustrated, lettered cover in grey and red (Arabic Design Archive)

  • Salah Jahin (1930–1986)

    Rose al-Yusuf from 1955, editor-in-chief of Sabah El-Kheir a year later, then daily cartoons in Al-Ahram from the 1960s until his death, e.g. 'On the Soap Question' (1974)

  • Bahgat Osman (1931–2001)

    Rose al-Yusuf and Sabah El-Kheir; his dictator Bahgatos (also spelled Bagatos), in the book Bahgatos Ra'ees Bahgatia Alozma ('Bahgatos President of Bahgatia The Greatest'), and the book Diktatorya lil Mubtadeen (Dictatorship for Beginners)

  • Naji al-Ali (c. 1938–1987)

    Handala, a barefoot ten-year-old refugee in ragged clothes, first in Al-Seyassah (Kuwait) on 13 July 1969, back turned and hands clasped behind him from 1973; then Al-Safir (from 1974) and Al-Qabas (from 1983); over 40,000 cartoons, collected in A Child in Palestine (Verso, 2009)

  • Ali Ferzat (b. 1951)

    al-Thawra from 1969, daily in Tishreen from the mid-1970s; cartoons 'typically without captions', depicting types rather than individuals; attacked in Damascus on 25 August 2011, Sakharov Prize 2011

03

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

Nothing earlier is recorded: in the atlas it is a starting point.

This style Arab Press Caricature (Rose al-Yusuf to Naji al-Ali) 1925–present · Middle East & North Africa

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

04

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (en): 'Yaqub Sanu' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqub_Sanu: founded the satirical magazine Abu Naddara Zarqa on 21 March 1877, 'the first Arabic-language magazine to feature cartoons')
  2. Wikipedia (en): 'Al Kashkul' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Kashkul: established in 1914 by Sulayman Fawzi; Al Kashkul al-Musawwar ('The Illustrated Notebook') from 1921; cartoons by a Spanish teacher, Juan Sintes)
  3. Wikipedia (en): 'Rose al Yusuf (magazine)' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_al_Yusuf_(magazine): first published 26 October 1925; Saroukhan 'drew the cover page of the magazine from March 1928 to 1934'; Rakha and Zuhdi also contributed)
  4. AUB Libraries Online Exhibits, 'Women Pioneers in Arab Press: Ruz al-Yusuf' (https://online-exhibit.aub.edu.lb/exhibits/show/women-pioneers-in-arab-press/alyusuf-biography/ruz-alyusuf: first published 26 October 1925 in Cairo; issues suspended and confiscated in 1928 and 1929 for their critical content)
  5. Dartmouth Library, 'Rose el Youssef' (https://www.library.dartmouth.edu/rose-el-youssef: front cover of issue 1021, 7 January 1948, three figures wrapped as mummies in coffins)
  6. Arabic Design Archive, 'Rose El Youssef (issue 2008)' (https://arabicdesignarchive.com/collection/6401: magazine cover, 1966, designer Ihab Shaker; tagged gray, red, illustration, lettering)
  7. Wikipedia (en): 'Alexander Saroukhan' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Saroukhan: born 1 October 1898, studied at the Brussels Graphic Art Academy in 1922, came to Egypt in 1924, first Rose al-Yusuf cover March 1928, Akher Saa, Akhbar el-Yom until his death in 1977, more than 20,000 caricatures, El Masri Efendi)
  8. Egyptian Streets, 'Alexander Sarokhan: Legendary Political Cartoonist of the 1900s' (13 November 2020, https://egyptianstreets.com/2020/11/13/alexander-sarokhan-legendary-political-cartoonist-of-the-1900s/: covers March 1928–1934, Akhir Sa'a from 1934, Akhbar El-Yom from 1946)
  9. Wikipedia (en): 'Masri Effendi' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masri_Effendi: created by Saroukhan for Ruz al Yusuf in 1930, or 1929 per Messiri 1978, to rival al-Kashkul; described after Gershoni 2002, Gordon 1992 and Messiri 1978)
  10. Wikipedia (en): 'Salah Jahin' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salah_Jahin: 1930–1986; Rose al-Yusuf 1955, editor-in-chief of Sabah el-Khair, Al-Ahram daily cartoons from the 1960s; 'On the Soap Question', 1974)
  11. Wikipedia (en): 'Bahgat Osman' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahgat_Osman: 1931–2001; Rose al-Yusuf and Sabah El-Kheir; the dictator spelled both 'Bagatos' and 'Bahgatos'; books Bahgatos Ra'ees Bahgatia Alozma, glossed 'Bahgatos President of Bahgatia The Greatest', and Diktatorya lil Mubtadeen, 'Dictatorship for beginners')
  12. Wikipedia (en): 'Naji al-Ali' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naji_al-Ali: Al-Seyassah (spelled Al-Siyasa there) from 1968, Al-Safir from 1974, Al Qabas from 1983; over 40,000 cartoons; Handala a barefoot ten-year-old in ragged clothes, back turned from 1973; shot in London 22 July 1987, died 29 August 1987) and 'Handala' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handala: first in Al-Seyassah on 13 July 1969)
  13. Ethan Heitner, 'Review: A Child in Palestine', The Arabist, 23 July 2009 (https://oldblog.arabist.net/blog/tag/najialali.html: on the Verso collection of 2009; al-Ali's line 'shaky, without variation in weight', with 'cross hatching or grey ink wash'; Arab leaders as 'grotesque slugs, fat and corrupt', Israelis as 'vampiric goblins')
  14. Khalid Mohammad Ahmad Alfaqeah, Political Development in Naji Al-Ali's Cartoons, MA thesis, An-Najah National University, 2009 (https://scholar.najah.edu/node/10755: symbols 'Hanzalah, the kind man, big-bellied men, the black and white colors and the symbolic language')
  15. Wikipedia (en): 'Ali Ferzat' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Ferzat: born 22 June 1951 in Hama; al-Thawra from 1969, Tishreen from the mid-1970s; drawings 'typically without captions', 'depicting types rather than individuals'; attacked 25 August 2011; Sakharov Prize 2011)

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