Rebecca Jackman
“YOU’RE only about as good as your last cartoon.”
Tony Grogan estimates he has drawn about 28 000 cartoons for the Cape Times since his first day as staff cartoonist 40 years ago yesterday.
On his first day at the Cape Times, Grogan says, he was just a rookie from the Eastern Cape, but he was thrown in at the deep end and told to produce the goods – which he did and has continued to do.
“I don’t think I was as good as I thought I was,” he laughs, recalling the challenging times he started in during the middle of apartheid with threats to freedom of the press.
Grogan had been teaching fine art in the Eastern Cape, but it had always been his life’s ambition to be a cartoonist.
“It’s not the kind of job you just walk into,” he says.
But he was lucky enough to be offered a job at the Cape Times by
Tony Heard, the editor at the time, who told him: “Don’t feel desk-bound.”
“I’ve always really enjoyed fantastic freedom on the Cape Times.”
He used that freedom and searched for ideas in the halls of Parliament and at the protests outside government buildings in Cape Town.
Grogan worked in the Cape Times office for 30 years and for the past 10 years has continued to file his Crack of Dawn cartoon via correspondence.
On his time at the Cape Times: “It’s been a very privileged position to be in. I’ve had a career that’s been challenging, but it’s been creative.”
When someone tells him they liked a cartoon he feels it’s possible to lift someone’s spirit even in the darkest of times.
With regard to his subject matter, he’s had “a fair amount of unhappiness” from people his cartoons are aimed at, but generally people don’t seem to mind.
“Cartoons are a funny thing. Politicians have a high tolerance level of cartoons because it’s dubious publicity,” said Grogan, explaining that it was bad to be cartooned, but worse not to be.