Zulkiflee Anwar Haque

Zulkiflee Anwar Haque (born May 15, 1962), better known as Zunar to Malaysians, is a cartoonist for Malaysiakini.

Background

Zunar was born on May 15, 1962 at Bukit Junun, Gurun, Kedah. He previously worked as a laboratory technician and during his pastime delve in drawing cartoons. He became involved as a secretary to the Association of Selangor and Federal Territory cartoonists. Quite often he holds workshops for individuals who want to venture into the fields of the cartoon business.

Zunar often likes to bring along a pen and notebook inside his travel bag during his drawing excursions. From there, he will record the good ideas from all walks of life, to be translated into caricatures or cartoons of any works.

His favorite foods is seafood and glass of warm water.

Career as a cartoonist

Zunar produced his first works in the cartoon field as early as 1973 which was published in the magazine Bambino. Upon the encouragement of family and friends, his drawings were shown in weekly newspapers and magazine stories such as the magazine Kisah Cinta and issues of Gila-Gila published by Creative Enterprise Sdn Bhd.

At Gila-Gila, his cartoons from time to time began to attract the attention of readers and publishers as well as due to their cynical and political nature. This gave him an advantage that allowing his work to be shown inside Chili Padi (part of the Gila-Gila magazine) on every issue under the title Gebang-Gebang.

Zunar began showing his work in a daily news cartoon strip called Papa. Zunar's name become well known when he was involved with the Reformasi movement following the sacking of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister in 1998. Involvement in the movement led to his detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA) along with several other activists.

After his release, he concentrated on a political cartoon which bears his name. He has also produced several books of cartoons touching on many reform movements that he had participated in the past.

To date he continues to draw cartoons, especially for newspapers owned by political parties, including Harakah.

Technical work

Zunar uses a lot of pen and brush work with an adventurous line techniques. He uses a simple stroke technique which is quite economical lines. Stroke awal beliau dan yang terkini memang jauh berbeza. His initial drawing strokes in comparison to his last one is much different. This is in line with the maturity of his drawings.

His lines and hatching techniques in cartoon form is seen tilted to the style of editorial cartooning, similar to the works of Mike Peters and Frank Cammuso. In fact, his drawing style can uses a bit of both these cartoonists' techniques as seen in their drawings.

Description of his work

Zunar is a cartoonist who always employs sharp satirical humor in his drawings.

• One of his work entitled Ofis Korner is sharp satire on office staff who slack a lot rather than spending their time in completing their work.
• Liza: Deals with a character called Kadok, a dumb person who tries to win over a girl called Liza.
• Papa, which appeared in the newspaper Berita Harian, featuring the life and fates of two siblings right in the middle of the fast pace city and sky rise buildings. It represents groups from all walks of life, including groups like squatters.

Issues and controversies

Book bans

In June 24, 2010 a book of his published works in the Malaysiakini website, about political and recent issues in Malaysia and Perak 1Funny Datul published cartoons by his company Sepakat Efektif Sdn Bhd - are prohibited by the Malaysian Home Ministry from being exhibited and sale.

There were further bans on his books entitled 1Funny Malaysia and Perak Darul. He stated that the charges were illegal and contrary to the rights of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution. On July 27, 2010, he and Malaysiakini filed two separate suits in the Kuala Lumpur High Court to challenge the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs in the bans.