Their 
ring of cartooning in Nigeria is still in a state 
of flux, which makes it really presumptuous 
to want to speak of some supposedly 
rock-solid traditions that are 
'paradigmatic' But I will do some labelling 
and categorisation nonetheless, 
for there is no such thing as a flux 
without form or pattern, if only we look 
with care. The challenge here is not to 
invest emerging patterns and practices 
with the solidity and finality they obviously 
do not possess. 
Tejumola 
Olaniyan 
From a list of several possible 
areas of examination and comparison, 
I have chosen four from which to study 
the cartoons: the degree of iconicity, 
combination of words and pictures, 
the use of perspectives and finally the 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA ™»... 
use of panels. These four areas would 
form the basis from which I will make 
some clear distinctions and outline 
apparent traditions. 
Nigerian car- 
Scale of Iconicity 
The scale of iconicity measures the 
degree of likeness or non-likeness of a 
cartoonist's images to actuality Although 
cartooning is defined precisely by some distance 
to actuality, which is achieved mostly by 
amplification through simplification, 
cartooning cannotdisregard actuality entirely 
because it is highly dependent on viewer 
identification, more so than the other graphic 
arts. Embodied in cartooning is thus simultaneously 
a prescriptive and proscriptive challenge 
in which to be more iconic, i.e. 'realistic,' 
is to lose its cartoonish, i.e. caricaturist, 
essence, while to turn the other way round 
and be less iconic, i.e 'abstract,' is to lose its 
referential power and thus its audience and 
function. A cartoon, strictly speaking, cannot 
exist at either end of the spectrum. This sounds 
quite circumscriptive but cartoonists have created 
virtually endless and exciting possibilities 
inbetween the two 
poles This is why it is 
possible to construct a 
scale, not between the 
absolutes of iconic and 
indexical or abstract, 
but of degrees of 
iconicity inbetween the 
two. 
toonists operate mainly 
within one of three levels 
of iconicity, expressed 
comparatively 
(or in relative terms) as 
iconic, less iconic, and 
least iconic. 
The iconic cartoons 
privilegea resemblance 
to reality — as 
far as cartoons can do 
that and still be cartoons 
and not photographs
—and are usually 
marked by a wealth
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Plate2 
of visual details. Most often, the human subjects of the cartoons 
are easily recognisable public officials or stereotypes (the poor 
'common' man or woman, the super-rich man or'cash-madam,' 
the farmer, the army officer, etc). Because the cartoons grant the 
viewer such an express visual access without much intellectual 
challenge, the iconic cartoons are generally the most viewerfriendly 
and, given the cartoonist's artistry, generally the most 
popular. 
A ma|ority of Nigerian cartoonists operate at the iconic 
level. This group includes such notable figures as pioneer 
Akinola Lasekan, JosyAjiboye, AdeOgundero, BayoorOdulana, 
Mooyiwa Original, cartoonists from National Concord newspapers, 
and practically all the cartoonists that have ever 
published in The Punch newspapers. The Punch cartoonists, 
which include such popular figures as Kenny Adamson, Mooyiwa 
Collins, Chris Nworjih, Sanmi Abejide, Femi Jolaoso, Tayo 
Fatunla, Leke Moses, and others, so consistently and with great 
artistic refinement deployed the visual possibilities of this level 
of iconicity that they best define it. If there is ever such a 
designation as a Punch 'school' or 'tradition' of cartooning in 
Nigeria— 
which is one of my propositions here—the cartoonists' 
comparatively more iconic images would be one of its foremost 
distinguishing features, [plates 1,2,3] 
The cartoons of the second, less iconic, level care little for 
the canon of resemblance to reality. They are generally stingy 
in providing visual details, at least of the type that would make 
their human subjects recognisable. On the contrary, most of the 
cartoonists in this group deal with conceptual stock characters 
etched out in plain lines with very little adornment. Cliff 
Ogiugo's 'little joe' series published in Sunday Times in the 
early 1 970s, is one of the earliest examples [plates 4,5]. dele 
jegede's 'Kole the Menace' series, published in the same 
Plate3 
newspaper in the second half of the 1 970s, appears stylistically 
and conceptually similar to Ogiugo's [6]. If this is a case of 
artistic influence, then it is certainly a productive one, for 
jegede's bare lines are infinitely more self-assured, and his 
cartoon panels more sparkling clean than Ogiugo's often 
needlessly cluttered spaces and images. One could often see a 
vacillation in Ogiugo between the iconic and the less iconic even 
in the same cartoon, but jegede seems the more confident 
craftsman, certain about his aesthetic preferences. 
Jegede's iconic frugality is matched only by the perpetually 
pint-sized children that populate the world of the rascally little 
boy, Kole [plates 8,9]. More than we can say of Ogiugo, there 
seems to be quite close connections among legede's iconic 
miserliness, the small size of his characters, and the general 
economic austerity that began to grip the country during the last 
half of the 1970s—the period the series was created—a 
beginning austere period deeply inscribed in popular consciousness 
by the Head of State General Olusegun Obasanjo's famous 
visually resonant call for 'belt-tightening'; 'visually resonant' 
because of the General's own generously endowed stomach 
which often protrudes out of his military uniform. 
Apart from Ogiugo and jegede, other cartoonists operating 
atthe second, less iconic level include Ronke Adesanya [10], 
and most of the cartoonists of The Guardian newspapers. Infact, 
the Guardian cartoonists so decisively and brilliantly continue to 
exploit the resources of this iconic level that if we could talk of a 
Guardian 'school' or 'tradition' of cartooning—which is one of 
my propositions here—the cartoonists' comparatively meagre 
iconic images would be one of its foremost distinguishing 
features. Such cartoonists include Ebun Aleshinloye, Obi Azuru, 
Bassey Nnimo, Cheche Egbune, Sidenee Boe, Ake Didi Onu, 
ObeEss, and BisiOgunbadejo. Their cartoons are characterised 
by thin angular lines deployed to support a spartan economy of 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No 2 GLENDORA . ..
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African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vo/. 2^Vo. 2
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visual expressivity, an economy that could barely support such 
visible emotions as laughter, fear surprise, etc, much less 
convey resemblance to actual individuals. It is for this reason 
that the cartoonists have perfected the art of generic 
characterisation: the characters created by each cartoonist 
look exactly the same frorn cartoon to cartoon, though as new 
characters in each cartoon rather than as individualised 'stars' 
in an on-going series, such as we have little joe in Ogiugo's 
'little joe,' or Kole in jegede's 'Kole the Menace.' Most of these 
generic characters, for reasons to be speculated in a moment, 
are largely male. 
The acknowledged flag-bearer of the Guardian group 
of cartoonists is Bisi Ogunbadejo who appeared on the 
Nigerian cartooning scene with the establishment of that paper 
in the early 1980s [plates 11,12], His trade-mark character, 
with the conical hat, bulging eyes, and round-neck long-sleeve 
shirt, ushered in an era of pictorial minimalism that unleashed 
the cartoonist's creative imagination to soar beyond the earth- 
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bound demands of resemblance and topicality to explore 
wholly conceptual matters in profoundly illuminating ways. His 
generic characters are differentiated only by such features as 
patterns on the dress and character size; the only other 
concession he makes is for the police or military characters who 
are usually drawn in their (abstracted) professional outfits. 
Otherwise, the pictorial repertoire of Ogunbadejo and his 
colleagues is a democratic interaction of apparently equal and 
look-alike characters. It is not difficult at all to sympathise with 
their cultivated indifference to differentiation as a critique of 
class and social status in a society that is status-crazy (cf. the 
'Simply Mister' episode). But as in much of Nigerian, nay, 
African, radical discourse of the 1970s and 1980s, a campaign 
against class oppression is often waged with complete 
inattention to gender inequality. It should not even mildly shock 
us then that the supposedly democratic world is populated only 
by men. 
The least iconic is our third and final stop on the scale of 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLEN DOR A
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Plate 10 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2
iconicity. As far as I know, there is only one Nigerian cartoonist 
that has set up shop at this extreme. He is Sanya Ojikutu who, 
most ironically, first published his works—before collecting 
them in two volumes—in a popular low—brow magazine 
called Fame, the kind of photo-filled, 'fashionable society' 
magazine whose readership Is generally thought to be able to 
digest little outside of mainstream realism or the hyperrealism of 
pop culture. Like those of the Guardian cartoonists, Ojikutu's 
characters are also generic and unnamed, though he has 
sometimes responded to the needs of referentiality often demanded 
by political cartooning by distilling resemblances into 
one or two features such as General Ibrahim Babangida's 
famous gap in his teeth [plate 1 3], and General Sani Abacha's 
equally notorious dark sunglasses [plate 1 4]. However, the thin 
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Plate 13 
but very solid and dynamic lines of Ogunbadejo and the other 
Guardian cartoonists become extremely flimsy, curvy and 
fragile in the hands of Ojikutu. If the lines of the Guardian 
cartoonists shun expressivity, those of Ojikutu all but into the 
expressionistic. [plate 15] In place of the proportionate build of 
the characters of the Guardian cartoonists, we now have with 
Ojikutu asymmetrically and fragmentarily drawn characters, 
with one hand or leg smaller or bigger than the other, or even 
a heavy upper arm or thigh resting on a disproportionately puny 
lower arm or leg, respectively. 
To enter the world of Ojikutu's characters is to experience 
a slight disorientation and crave futilely for balance or equilibrium, 
that most important psychological as well as physical 
influence on human perception (Dondis 22). The characters 
always seem to be cracking or falling apart or dissolving into the 
background. Ojikutu's lines seem to be in perpetual motion and 
as a result, are extremely stressed, unstable and unpredictable. 
You could literally see the lines twist and turn as if just passed 
through a kiln at a monstrous temperature. Although the panels 
of his cartoons are filled with images to be seen, what really 
defines his style is a withdrawal of visual access, a disavowal 
of visual opulence. The characters many times look freakish and 
sometimes downright macabre. 
If the Guardian cartoonists—with their economical iconicity 
though vigorous lines indicative of some reserve of energy and 
self-confidence—symbolise a buffeted but still resilient preWorld 
Bank-sponsored heinous SAP (Structural Adjustment Programme) 
Nigeria, Ojikutu—with his thoroughly decrepit and weatherbeaten 
characters drawn with strained, brittle lines indicative of 
both physical disintegration and psychological trauma—is the 
Plate 14 
post-SAP Nigerian cartoonist par excellence. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Combination of Words and Pictures 
I have been talking so far exclusively of drawing styles, 
but most cartoons are a combination of pictorial images and 
words, and an examination of the specific ways in which the two 
languages are combined by cartoonists could yield instructive 
insights about aesthetic preferences and often their ideological 
underpinnings. 
There are cartoonists who use less words, like dele 
jegede, Tayo Fatunla, Kenny Adamson, Bayoor Odulana, 
Mooyiwa Collins, and Mooyiwa Original. In general, most of 
the cartoonists of The Punch, National Concord, Nigerian 
Tribune, and The Vanguard newspapers belong to this group. 
Their cartoons are largely picture-driven, that is, they depend 
on the picture to convey most of the message, and so words are 
used only sparingly. Words here 'do little more than add a 
Vol. 2/No. 2 OLENPORA
soundtrack to a visually told sequence' (McCloud 153). Sometimes, 
many of the cartoons do not contain any words at all. 
Almost always, these picture-driven cartoons are also 'action 
cartoons,' that is, the images suggest, and are in, some degree 
of motion or drama [plates 1,2,16,1 7]. The less emphasis on 
words frees the picture to be more daring and exploratory in 
especially one major way: to aim for completeness and independence 
from words, which is always a great technical 
challenge. Also, virtually all the humour or wit—an important 
though by no means essential component of cartoons—flows 
from the pictures. 
Picture-driven cartoons are fully keeping in line with the 
popular conception of the cartoon as primarily a visual art; and 
to give primacy to the visual over the verbal is to privilege the 
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Plate 15a 
Plate 15c 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol 2/No 2 
more mass-oriented and easily accessible of the two languages 
There is a clear ideological implication here, though it need not 
be consciously chosen; but it is always there, embedded in the 
aesthetic choices. 
On the other hand, there are those cartoonists who 
privilege words over pictures. This is a distinctive feature of the 
works of Cliff Ogiugo and the Guardian cartoonists led by Bisi 
Ogunbadejo. Their cartoons are largely word-driven, that is, 
they depend on words to convey most of the message. In other 
words, in these word-driven cartoons, 'pictures illustrate, but 
don't significantly add to a largely complete text' (McCloud 
153). What I discuss earlier as the iconic conservativism— 
meaning less emphasis on pictures—of the Guardian cartoonists 
frees them to be more discursive, exploring complicated 
Plate 15b 
ideas such as only words can do. The source of the wit or humour 
is almost exclusively the words, since the pictures are more often 
than not, generic. The cartoons are generally more contemplative, 
more dialectical, more narrative, than action-oriented. It is 
for this reason that most of the cartoonists often need more than 
one panel for a cartoon session. In other words, they need a 
sequence of cartoons to tell a story picture-driven cartoonists 
might tell in a single panel. Word-driven cartoonists violate the 
common idea of visuality as the essence of cartoons; their 
privileging of words over pictures often makes their works overly 
cerebral, high-brow and elitist. It is not a coincidence at all that 
the newspaper where this form of cartooning was sown and 
nurtured to an established tradition, is the Guardian, the most 
high-brow of Nigerian newspapers. 
As a coda here, dele jegede's work retains the distinction 
of being picture-driven and at the sometime being narrative like 
the word-driven cartoonists, in his resort to the use of multi-
Cartoon. Punch 
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Plate 16 
panels. The difference here is that jegede narrates mainly with 
pictures, while the other group narrates mainly with words. 
There is a third'type of combination of words and pictures 
which we could call 'inter-dependent,' a combination in which 
'words and pictures go hand in hand to convey an idea that 
neither could convey alone' (McCloud 1 55). The humour or wit 
in these cartoons usually depends on such inter-dependence for 
effectivity, but sometimes, it could rely more on one than the 
other. The cartoons of Akinola Lasekan and Josy Ajiboye fall 
squarely into this category. One major challenge posed by this 
type is that there be an appropriate volume of each language— 
words and pictures—in the combination, otherwise we have a 
shortage or superfluity of either. The cartoons of Lasekan and 
Ajiboye do not always achieve the necessary balance; very 
often, there is a superfluity of words [1 8,1 9].Some commentators 
have criticised the works-of the two as more of illustrations 
than cartoons, though without advancing convincing explanation 
of the basis for the judgement (Udechukwu, Nnimo). I 
suspect the reason is the often superfluous relationship of the 
words to the pictures in their cartoons. 
The final category of word-picture union I found in 
Nigerian cartoons is the 'parallel' combination (McCloud 
154), which is about the exact opposite of the 'inter-dependent.' 
In the parallel word-picture combination cartoons, the 
words and pictures appear to be mutually independent, following 
different paths with very little intersection. The words are 
often firmly separated from and placed above or below the 
pictures, unlike the practice with other cartoonists in which the 
placement of the words, whether to the side, slightly above or 
even occasionally below the pictures, always suggests an 
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Plate 17 
intimacy between the two. But the mutual independence is not 
to be mistaken for a superfluous relationship, because the 
integrity of each language—wordsand pictures—is maintained 
and the one does not necessarily pretend to directly complement 
the other, though the reader's mind often makes such a 
connection. As with the least iconic example, the chief practitioner 
here also is Sanya Ojikutu. 
Ojikutu does not use word-balloons—in this, he is like 
most Nigerian cartoonists, who do not use them but simply write 
into a boundless space within the panel, with a short line linking 
the words with the speaker; only Ogiugo and jegede use wordballoons 
more regularly. However Ojikutu is unlike any other 
Nigerian cartoonist in his use of typefaces, regular or italic, for 
his words, rather than hand-lettering. Whatthisdoes is to further 
reinforce the observed parallelism, to further set up a disjunction, 
a sort of 'alienation effect,' between the hand-drawn 
pictures and the typewritten words. Like the word-driven cartoonists 
however, the source of wit or humour in Ojikutu's 
cartoons are the words because, of course, the pictures do not 
'show' much. The serious demands Ojikutu's pictorial style 
places on the viewer is complemented by his equally challenging 
word-picture combination. But there is a small and delicious 
contradiction here: the implacable process of decay and 
decomposition suggested by Ojikutu's fragile characters and 
flimsy pictorial lines is opposed—in fact, subverted—by his 
•typeface lettering style, which, like every typeface, gives the 
impressions of hardiness, resilience and solidity. 
Use of Perspective 
Virtually all Nigerian cartoonists have been quite conser- 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA .y.v.
Plate 18b 
i., EvenysoPv is A 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No 2 
JOSY AJIBOYE ON SUNDAY 
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Plate 21 
Plate 22 & 23 
THE CARTOONIST 
JULY 1992 
vative in experimentation with perspective. Perspective, 
which indicates the presence of a point of view 
from a distinctive location, and refers 'specifically to 
the distance taken by the perceiver in relation to [an] 
object' (Saint-Martin 109), has enormous resources 
and possibilities in manipulating the reader's orientation 
and involvement. The established perspective 
with the cartoonists seem to be the conventional fiat 
eye-level, even with the quite experimental Ojikutu. 
From time to time, however, some of the cartoonists do 
tap into more striking perspectives such as bird's eye 
view or worm's eye view. This cartoon byjose Ajiboye 
deploys the worm's eye view to quite dramatic effect 
[plate 20]. The perspective makes the subject tower 
menacingly over the reader, a technique particularly 
appropriate both to the physical build as well as the 
public image of Idi Amin as a bulky bully and tyrant. 
Another fine example is this cartoon by Ebun 
Aleshinloye [plate 21 ], which beautifully sums up the 
hypocrisy and injustice of the giant, imperialist West 
in intimidating and preaching cleaner earth to nations 
of the south, though it had been, and still is, the prime 
destroyer of the global environment. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol 2/No 2 GLEN DORA
Plate 24 
Plate 25 
[plate 17, 21]. 
Like the photograph, the single panel cartoon simply 
slices a moment for our viewing, and depends a lot on the 
viewer to transform that dead static moment into a living, 
dynamic one by constructing a story around it, that is, by 
interpreting it It demands that the cartoonist be accomplished 
in such techniques—applicable both to words and pictures—as 
The Use of Panels 
Finally, we should consider that very 
important though often overlooked aspect of 
cartoons: the cartoon panel. The panel, 
which frame the images and words, usually 
seems so naturally a part of the landscape of 
cartooning that it is rarely considered as a 
technical device in the hands of the cartoonist, 
much as literary critics rarely consider the 
size or shape of the page in their interpretations. 
The number, shape, size, and integrity 
of cartoon panels often affect the message in 
significant ways. 
This is why the panel is, properly 
speaking, a disciplinary device, a medium 
of control [Eisner 38]. 
The majority of Nigerian cartoonists 
use the single panel. This means that the 
action, event, or individual cartooned must 
be arrested in a moment and frozen in time 
and space, for the single panel can only 
represent one moment and one space. Any 
other time or space can be represented in the 
single panel only as, and through the, thoughts 
or dreams of the character(s) in the cartoon. 
Thus the conception of time and space that 
governs the single panel cartoon is essentially presentational 
and static. Please note that this is not the same as saying that 
motion is absent in the single panel cartoon. Indeed, cartoonists 
have perfected many techniques of depicting motion, such as 
streaking, blurring, or use of multiple images, within the single 
panel. In fact, most drawings of action—although the action 
had to be frozen to be drawn-often give the illusion of motion 
African Quarterlv 
on the Arts 
Vol 2<No 2
Multi-panel cartooning, which Americans call 'comics,' is 
not yet a widespread practice in Nigeria outside of low-brow' 
imports and fitful local imitations, and outside of comics magazines 
like Ikebe and its clones! The two first significant practitioners 
are Ogiugo and jegede in the 1 970s. After that, the form 
next appeared in the early 1980s in The Guardian. This 
newspaper made multi-panel cartooning one of its distinctive 
hallmarks, as virtually all the cartoonists that have published on 
its pages worked mainly in that form. Although this, more than 
a decade later, has become an entrenched tradition with the 
newspaper, generally speaking, the practice is still an emerging 
one, as very few cartoonists in other newspaper houses have 
been eager to follow suit. With multi-panels, the cartoons begin 
to tell 'stories,' conventionally conceived as narratives, moving 
from one scene or segment of the story to another, unlike the 
single panel cartoon that must present everything it has to say 
in one panel. 
As I said earlier, the cartoon panel is a demarcator of time 
and space; in multi-panel cartoons, the panel is the most 
significant way of representing the movement and passage of 
time. The number and size of panels affect the rhythm of the 
story; the larger and fewer the panels, the slower the tempo, 
while the smaller and more numerous the panels, the faster the 
beat (Eisner 30) [plate 22, 23]. However, the panels of the 
Nigerian practitioners of the form are only occasionally more 
than three, probably due to space limitations, and so rhythm 
and its artistic and symbolic resources are not often deployed 
with much dramatic intentions or results. This is a general 
observation which dele jegede's cartoon sometimes deny in 
managing to call attention to the speed of time even with the 
limited number of panels [plate 22, 23]. An additional way he 
does this is to vary the size of the panels in order to indicate what 
action or segment lasts how long [plate 22, 23]. 
The Guardian cartoonists appear to be interested in the 
multi-panel form not so much for its potential in enabling 
dramatic uses of time and space as for its inherent narrative and 
discursive possibilities. Here are my reasons for advancing this 
point: in the first place, their cartoons are word-driven, meaning 
that time passage could be conveyed easily by words without 
the need of a succession of panels, which is exactly what the 
picture-driven cartoonist would have to do. In this cartoon by Bisi 
Ogunbadejo [plate 1 2] it is in the very first panel that a 
character very easily gives the impression of much passage of 
time simply by saying 'I hope I may not have to repeat myself 
for the fourth time... I have things to do.'Thus, the panels in this 
cartoon serve not so much to indicate time passage as provide 
spatial moments to dialectically exhibit the vulgar illiteracy of 
the Nigerian police, which may soon cost the life of a citizen. 
In the second place, the rectangular panels of the Guardian 
cartoonists are long, horizontal bars that seem to give a 
panoramic view, an arrangement that seems to be interested 
more in capturing space, like a human form sleeping, in repose, 
than in measuring time. This is very much unlike the conventional 
panel, a vertical rectangle, as we have in dele jegede 
and indeed most cartoonists, which mimics the walking human 
form and is quite amenable to the conveyance of time. 
In the third place, the horizontal panels of the Guardian 
cartoonists are not placed side by side so they can be read from 
left to right as is the convention, a convention and cultural 
practice 'we' have come to associate with movement simultaneously 
in space and time. On the contrary, the horizontal bars 
are placed one on top the other like building blocks, and one 
is supposed to read from the top down, an exercise that gives 
the impression of movement more in space than in time. 
In the fourth place, the type of transition from panel to 
panel employed by the Guardian cartoonists is the moment-tomoment, 
a type of transition that requires only very minimal 
action out of our sight inbetween panels (McCloud 70). 
Because of the minimal action, time slows down considerably 
and space practically stands still so it can be scrutinized [plate 
1 2]. This is unlike, for instance, the practice of dele jegede in 
which the action-to-action type of transition predominates. This 
type emphasises distinct progressions in action, and therefore, 
as a consequence, time passage is underscored. 
What these four instances point to is the comparative 
emphasis of the Guardian cartoonists—in their resort to the use 
of multi-panels—on the need more for space, than time, to 
narrate a story. In other words, they are interested more in the 
spatialisation rather than then temporalisation of narrative. 
A narrative could only occur in both space and time, as 
I said, so, what does the privileging of one over the other, 
(space over time, in this case), mean in a narrative enterprise? 
To emphasise space is to arrest time for a while to focus 
attention on space and what occupies it—its composition, 
structure, meaning, relations. This appears well-suited to the 
word-driven discursive and dialectical style of the Guardian 
cartoonists in picking an idea and subjecting it to scrutiny from 
various logical positions. What is important in this act is not 
how slow or fast time passes but well a particular entity or idea 
has been explained and understood. And in so far as the main 
focus of our cartoonists is our failings as a social entity, the 
Guardian cartoonists appear to be engaged in a foundationalist 
project, that is, to explain, through focusing on key ideas, the 
foundations of social relations, how society works, more than 
to exhibit several societal traits for criticism or praise, as is the 
ruling norm with other cartoonists. 
Spatialisation of narrative thus becomes a potent pedagogical 
tool. Ogunbadejo's 'Why Some Nigerians don't go to 
the Police' ran up to twelve discontinuous episodes, with the 
focus on the police as the main link. 
It must be said, after all this disquisition on panels, that 
a cartoon need not have a panel, and that although all 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA .v.~
Nigerian cartoonists use the panel even if not all the time, the 
degree of their respect for the integrity of the panel varies. A 
majority appear to have the utmost regard for the boundaries 
of the panel, never letting words or pictures spill outside them 
[SanyaOjikutu]; even titles are contained within the panel [Josy 
Ajiboye], or special boxes created for them [Bisi Ogunbadejo]. 
In the case of many Punch and 
Tribune cartoonists, the panel is further securely encased 
in a frame, with the space between the panel and the frame used 
for titles or commentaries. 
Such is the degree of regard of many of the cartoonists for 
the integrity of the panel, though it is actually in the breach of 
panel boundaries that there are prizes to be had. Take for 
instance the energy, drama and excitement added to these dele 
jegede pieces simply by the bursting of panel boundaries [plate 
22, 24]. Sometimes, Ade Ogundero dispenses with panels 
entirely, renouncing their circumscriptive and disciplinary function 
to convey a boundless space and a limitless time or 
perpetual present. One of his most famous of such cartoons is 
this one on implacable class hierarchy and insensitive leadership 
published in the front page of the now defunct Sunday 
Renaissance on January 19, 1975 [plate 25]. The cartoon 
caused so much discomfort in official circles that the paper had 
to issue an equally front-page apology two weeks later on 
February 5. Although the pictures and words of the cartoon are 
graphic enough and alone to warrant official displeasure, it is 
not impossible at all that the cartoon's unpaneled, unbounded 
presentation, simply drawn there as if it were part of the news, 
contributed to its effect. GR 
Works cited 
Bassey, Nnimo. Are Cartoonists People?1 The Guardian (Lagos, Nigeria). Nov. 11,1984, p.7. 
Dondis, Donis A. A Primer ol Visual Literacy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973. 
Eisner, Will. Comics and Sequential Art. Exp. Edition. Tamarac, FL: Poorhouse Press, 1993. 
Gombrich, Ernst Hans. The Cartoonist's Armoury,1 in Meditations on a Hobby Horse & Other 
Essays on the Theory olArt, 127 -142. London: Phai 
ton, 1963. 
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink 
Press, 1993. 
Mitchell, W.J.T. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: U ol 
Chicago Press, 1994. 
Morris, Ray. 'Visual Rhetoric in Political Cartoons: A Structuralist Approach.1 Metaphor and 
Symbolic Activity 8.3(1993): 195-210. 
Nwangwu, Chidozie. 'Nigeria's Graphic Warriors.1 The Guardian (Lagos, Nigeria), November 
11,1984, pp6 & 9. 
Oyeleye, Lekan & Ayo Ayodele. 'Aspects ol Discourse Structure in Newspaper Cartoons: A 
Semantic-Pragmatic Analysis.1 African Notes: Journal ol the Institute ol African Studies (U ot 
Ibadan, Nig.) XIV 1&2 (1990): 81-89. 
Press, Charles. 77?e Political Cartoon. Rutherford: Farleigh Dickinson UP, 1981 
Saint-Martin, Fernande. Semiotics of Visual Language. Bloominglon: Indiana UP, 1990 
Udechukwu, Obiora. 'Nigerian Political Cartoonists in the 1970s' New Culture (Ibadan, 
Nigeria) 1.10 (Sept. 1979): 13-20. 
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