Cartoonists Who Kept Kerala Laughing

05 May 2016
FWD Admin
Features

Celebrate May 5th, World Cartoonists Day, with these Malayalee geniuses who wielded their pens for society.

Cartoonists Day celebrates the publication of the first ever colour cartoon - The Yellow Kid, 1895. Cartoons have always made us sit up whether to retrospect or just laugh helplessly. Today we look at cartoonists from Kerala and fondly commemorate the genius that was Toms.

Yesudasan Chackalethu John

Yesudas, popularly known as Yesudasan was born on June 12, 1938 in Kerala. He published his first cartoon in 1955 in a magazine called ‘Asoka’. In 1960, he started drawing political cartoons for the Malayalam daily of the Communist Party. During his days in this daily, he drew a pocket cartoon ‘Kittumman’, after which he joined Shankar's Weekly in Delhi. From 1969, he was the editor for ‘Balayugam’, a Malayalam children's magazine. In 1985 he worked as a staff cartoonist in Malayala Manorama. He is the founder chairman of Kerala Cartoon Academy.

Images: www.orthodoxherald.com, cartoonistyesudasan.blogspot.com

OV Vijayan

Ottupulackal Velukkuty Vijayan better known as O. V. Vijayan was an Indian author and cartoonist. Born in Palakkad in 1930, Vijayan’s first short story was ‘Tell Father Gonsalves’ published in 1953. His first novel ‘Khasakkinte Itihasam’ was published in 1969. It created a great literary revolution and made a benchmark in the history of Malayalam fiction. In 1958 he went to Delhi in order to pursue his interest in cartoon drawing. Initially he joined Shankar’s weekly. Later on, Vijayan became a staff cartoonist in ‘The Patriot.’

Images: greatcartoonists.blogspot.com, kpayal.blogspot.com

Abu Abraham

Attupurathu Mathew Abraham was a cartoonist, journalist and author. His pen name was Abu. Born in Kerala on 11 June, 1924, Abu started drawing cartoons at the age of 3. At 32, he started drawing cartoons for ‘Punch magazine’ and the ‘Daily Sketch’. He contributed material to Everybody’s' London Opinion and Eastern World with the pen name 'Abraham'. In 1969, he started working as the political cartoonist in the Indian Express. From 1981, Abu started doing freelance works for newspapers and also initiated a new strip cartoon, Salt and Pepper.

Images: cartoonexhibition.blogspot.com, www.thehindu.com

Kutty Puthukkody

Kottuthody Sankaran Kutty popularly called in his short form ‘Kutty’ was a political cartoonist. He was born on 4th September, 1921 in Ottapalam, Kerala. Professor M. R. Nair, a Malayalam satirist was the first one to see the cartoonist in Kutty. In 1940, he had his first cartoon published in the Malayalam comic magazine Viswaroopam. The very next year Kutty became a staff cartoonist in the ‘National Herald’. From 1951, Kutty’s cartoons started appearing in many publications such as the English daily ‘Hindustan Standard’, the Bengali language daily ‘Ananda Bazar Patrika’ and a Bengali weekly ‘Desh’.

Images: en.wikipedia.org, www.rediff.com

Toms

V. T. Thomas, born on June 6th, 1929 also known as Toms, was a cartoonist from Kerala. He created the cartoon characters ‘Boban and Molly’. Toms created the characters of Boban and Molly based on two children from his neighbourhood. ‘Boban and Molly’ first appeared in the cartoon columns of ‘Sathyadeepam’. Later, in 1957 the characters gained popularity through Malayala Manorama. He resigned from Manorama in 1987 and started Toms Publications and started publishing ‘Boban and Molly’ independently.

Images: cartoonexhibition.blogspot.com, en.wikipedia.org

Aravindan Govindan

Aravindan, born on 21 January 1935, was popularly known as G. Aravindan. He was a film director, screenwriter, musician, cartoonist and painter from Kerala. Aravindan started his professional life as a cartoonist when he got published in Mathrubhumi. In 1960, he established himself as an amazing cartoonist with his satirical cartoon series ‘Cheriya Manushyarum Valiya Lokavum’ which dealt with Ramu and Guruji, the central characters in the cartoon.