Terry Hirst
Kenya needed a cadre of professionally trained art teachers for its expanding secondary schools and the five-year British model seemed like a "farce" in such a situation.
[2] Hirst was also a part-time lecturer at the University of Nairobi and working with Gregory Maloba, one of the few fully trained artists in Kenya at the time, he spearheaded the introduction of a three-year B.Ed Art Course.
The new system proved to be a success with the first generation of students to graduate producing outstanding work that was featured in the internationally distributed African Arts magazine.
[2] Hirst had already started to draw as a freelance cartoonist for the Daily Nation newspaper, when Hillary Ng’weno invited him to illustrate his regular Monday satirical column "With a Light Touch."
Hirst and Ng'weno envisioned Joe as a magazine that would feature illustrated jokes, comic strips and short stories by local writers.
"[3] To help make Joe a reality, Jonathan Kariara of Oxford University Press gave Hirst and Ng'weno "a room, a table and two chairs" so they could start work on the magazine.
Joe meanwhile continued to grow more successful thanks to the popularity of comic strips such as Edward Gitau's "City Life" and Hirst's "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugali."
Short stories by writers like David Maillu, Meja Mwangi, Leonard Kibera and even Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, who were well known in Kenya, also contributed to the popularity of the magazine.
And that was how, one morning, while working at the Joe offices, Hirst looked up to see a young Frank Odoi, freshly arrived from Ghana, beaming down at him with the words, "I'm here.
"[3] Hirst and his wife, Nereas N'gendo (who left Oxford University Press to work at Joe), were to run the magazine for the next ten years.
Joe closed its doors, Hirst was forced out of his job as an editorial cartoonist at the Daily Nation and his appointment as a lecturer at Kenyatta University College was not renewed.
Popular titles included Kenyatta's Prophecy, The Greedy Hyena, Wanjiru the Sacrifice, The Amazing Abu Nuwasi, Lwanda Magere, The Ogre’s Daughter, The Wisdom of Koomenjoe, Terror in Ngachi Village, and Simbi the Hunchback.
But then, according to Hirst, the "marketers" took over, looking for cheaper artists, dictating editorially, and relaxing the graphic art quality standards, "and the series went down-hill.
[2] Titles that Hirst worked on include The Kenya Pocket Directory of Trees and Shrubs (a "bestseller" for Kengo), Agroforestry for Dryland Africa for ICRAF, and The Struggle for Nairobi, which is the story of the creation of an urban environment from scratch.
