Tony Namate is a Zimbabwean cartoonist who has gained international recognition for his scathing cartoon commentary on socio-political issues in Zimbabwe and beyond.
[1][2] His 2011 collection of political cartoons, whose title -- "The Emperor's New Clods" -- alludes to Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes", has been 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.”[3] Growing up on American comics and British funnies his father would bring home from work, Tony was more fond of the drawings than he was of the text.
Tony started his career as an editorial cartoonist in 1988 with the Zimbabwean state-controlled The Herald newspaper, where he worked till 1991 when he left to do independent political cartoons.
[6] The Daily News, the independent paper he worked for in the late 90s, suffered a series of dangerous attacks, including one with a homemade bomb on 22 April 2000.
[7][8] The paper and the cartoonist managed to carry on despite these attacks and the Daily News only shut its doors in 2003, when the government refused to grant it a permit.