Finally, the ministry published a cartoon of a weevil eating a five-pound note. Mass panic in the countryside ensued. Back when Atef Sidki was prime minister, Akhbar Al Yom had a schizophrenic front page. The picture won out in the battle to shape the public opinion of the government. The cartoonist honors the taboo against caricaturing Mubarak, which goes a long way to explain why the president's stature often seems immune to the unpopularity of the government's policies.
Every cartoon has a tag explaining exactly what s going on.
And though Egyptian caricature dates back to Pharaonic tomb-walls, Hussein says, uneducated people are unfamiliar with things like perspective and shading, leading to some bizarre misunderstandings. Once I experimented by drawing the characters with shadows. I had to stop. People thought they had wet themselves. Hussein hopes to expand his work to a new medium.