"One of the most surprising features of the South African cultural landscape since the early 1990s has been the appearance of a series of satirical underground comics created by Conrad Botes and Anton Kannemeyer, two lecturers in graphic design at the University of Stellenbosch. First published in 1992, "Bitterkomix" quickly drew national interest. While its detractors protested against the publication's flirtation with pornography (Kannemeyer, or so a colleague declared, "flings the repellent results of his filthy ...
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"One of the most surprising features of the South African cultural landscape since the early 1990s has been the appearance of a series of satirical underground comics created by Conrad Botes and Anton Kannemeyer, two lecturers in graphic design at the University of Stellenbosch. First published in 1992, "Bitterkomix" quickly drew national interest. While its detractors protested against the publication's flirtation with pornography (Kannemeyer, or so a colleague declared, "flings the repellent results of his filthy preoccupation with sex in the face of the public"), appreciative critics declared "Bitterkomix" to be "undeniably part of our 'national culture'" and insisted that it "belongs in the Africana section of every library." Although Botes and Kannemeyer's work has been ignored by the National Gallery's arbiters and has on one occasion been vandalized, it has received surprisingly broad public exposure. The South African advertising industry, for instance, never slow to register a new trend, has been fascinated by their ironic reappropriation of old commercial images and has put a high premium on their graphic skills.
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