“I found as I grew up that there were things I did not like which were beyond my power to put right. I developed a dislike for governments. The only solution for me, I decided, was to draw”.
So began the career of Tan Oral, one of Turkey’s most consistently popular cartoonists who this week received the Istanbul Journalists’ Association Award for his word.
Although cartoonists in Turkey have faced restrictions, their work, by its nature is harder than writing for the authorities to pin down.
“After the military coup on March 12 1971, two of my cartoons which appeared in a magazine “friends of the people” were indicted because they presented oppression. Those who conducted the investigation delivered the report saying because there was no writing it was impossible to establish a meaning and no legal proceedings were opened,” said Oral.
After the subsequent coup in September 1980, Oral and his friends were conscious of the political atmosphere and were discreet in what they drew.
“But I tried not to be disinterested or insensitive to the unpleasant things that were happening and not to compromise my own political views. I continued to draw with the idea that I was contributing to the democracy we hoped would return,” said Oral.
“Humor is used for a reason. It has to be critical and must aim to change the world. Laughter comes from the pleasure of this undertaking. In the West comedy of the kind found in comics is just intended to make people laugh. Such publications are sold all around the world. There comics like this in Turkey, too. But cartoon magazines are published for defined reasons. Once such a magazine achieves its aim, it either changes its style, stops publication or is destroyed by the powers it wants to change.
“When you look at the comics, they all resemble each other. They are the Indian’s bed of nails. When he sits on it, the nails, all the same size, do not stick into him. They do him no harm, but they sight still amazes the onlooker. Real humor is like one thumbtack placed on the chair of a despot or an unpopular teacher. When the person sits down the person gets it where it hurts and serves as a warning. Everyone laughs. In humor, there must always be someone who is exposed to attack,” explains Oral.
Oral was born in Merzifon in 1937. He went to school in several different cities before graduating from Istanbul Fine Arts Academy with a degree in architecture.
After three years as an assistant in the same faculty he turns his back on architecture. Since then he has been actively involved in the world of cartoonists. He also branched out into cinema he won a prize for a short film he made in 1969 called “Saturday-Sunday” and another for his animated film “The censor”.
