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presentation in our newspapers. The editors of newspapers have come to understand
the demand for cartoons and their ability to give new dimension to news. Presently,
almost all the newspapers publish cartoons regularly. One can often see a cartoon in
four-color on the front page of a newspaper with the lead news. Cartoonists who are
doing regular cartoons now include Quddus, Bipul, Shahriar, Huda and others. Some
of the dailies now come up with a weekly satire magazine. These include Alpin of
Prothom Alo and Bichchhu of Jugantor. Cartoon is a must for these publications. On
the other hand, these publications also create opportunities for new cartoonists.
The technology of the cartoon has changed with the technological evolution of the
printing press. Zinc block came after wood block. The first generation cartoonists of
our country preferred to work in line drawing so that the print quality would be good.
Because, a solid drawing may be ruined if the half tone block was not of good quality.
The printing press graduated from the age of the letterpress and entered into the off-set
printing era. The facilities of making positives and doing color separation by scanning
became available at one stage. After that came the computer. Now not all the artists are
doing their works on paper using ink, brush, nib etc. Some are drawn directly in the
computer, some are corrected using different software while some are edited, added
and deducted using the computer. Now color is used in cartoons published in
newspapers. Software is used to bring in changes in the photographs to be used in
cartoons. The visual presentations of printed matters have been mostly benefitted by
the introduction of digital technology in the publication industry. Obviously, as a visual
medium cartoon is one of the major beneficiaries of this technology.
Cartoon is supposed to criticize while being a source of pleasure. This happens on the
page of the newspaper which is part of the mass media. Naturally, the issue of
censorship comes into consideration. We have already stated in this article that our
culture of democracy is neither very strong nor very old. For a major part of the last
half century in which cartoons have been published in papers and periodicals we did
not have a democratic system of governance in place. In our social and family
environments tolerance is not a very easily available virtue. In the eighties journalist
Mohammad Jahangir comments, ‘… We have not yet been able to create such a
democratic society or independent newspaper where a cartoonist can use full
creativity in doing cartoons.’ [Trans.] At the same time cartoonist Ranabi has written,
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‘The political arena of Bangladesh is not well organized. The democratic process is
often missing which leads to drawing a line in presenting issues in publications. As it
is difficult to define the boundary line, one cannot do whenever, whatever one wishes
to do in cartoons. … It has been seen that although there is no direct government
restriction yet the newspapers themselves impose some sort of censorship according
to habit or to avoid taking risk in many matters.’ [Trans.] Needless to say that these
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statements were made two decades back. Currently, with the democratic system
prevailing for one and a half decades, the situation has improved to an extent. The
proof of this may be seen in the cartoons published daily in newspapers. But the
cartoonists of this generation also agree that the cartoonists themselves draw a line for