Shock news – Zapiro owes Manto money!

Manto Tshabalala Msimang, Minister of Health, to Zapiro, political cartoonist: “Zapiro, you owe me money. You put me on the cover of your book!”

Mondli Makhanya, editor of the Sunday Times, to Zapiro, the rabble-rouser he's obliged to publish: “Eish, comrade, comrade, comrade!”

Yunus Shaik, Shaik-brother-at-large, to Zapiro, mighty Shaik-slayer: “Someone has given me the cartoon of the ‘Fake Brothers'. [Pause] I love it! I'm putting it in a place of honour and will try to live up to it.”

Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, ex-Deputy Minister of Health, to Zapiro: “Your parody of the Health Minister is, in my view... undeniably funny.”

Spot the false quotation above.

Answer? None! Each of those sentences was recently uttered by each of those people to South Africa's hero-cartoonist, Zapiro (aka Jonathan Shapiro), in his capacity as zapper of the high and mighty in chief.

The last quotation was uttered on the evening of the 13th November, in fact, at the Cape Town launch of Take Two Veg and Call Me in the Morning, Zapiro's latest collection of political cartoons, hosted by friendly local grocer Fruit and Veg City. (The city branch, of course – it's within rotten tomato-throwing distance of Parliament!)

The bosso sounds of the band Trend Latina put everyone in the right mood among the apples and oranges, carrots and peppers, and aisles of sundry heaped produce - not to mention the strategically positioned display of lemons, beetroot, garlic and olive oil near the front of the store:

As shoppers mixed with a sizeable contingent of the greater Cape Metro area's Zapiro Fan Club, publisher Bridget Impey stood on a crate to sound the note of welcome.

“Jonathan Shapiro is the person teaching all of us to swim against the tide. Fortunately, at Jacana we've been doing this for a while,” she said, invoking her imprint's motto: We publish what we like.

She then introduced the guest speaker, the afore-quoted Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, who took to the crate and delivered a speech that was hilarious, touching and sobering by turns.

Renowned cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, aka Zapiro, “scares the living daylights” out of some cabinet ministers, she said. However, that “is not always a bad thing”, says Madlala-Routledge, whose axing by President Thabo Mbeki earlier this year sparked international outrage - and provided Shapiro with some great material. In passing, her slapstick importuning of Zapiro not to target her was a moment that almost brought the house down.

Then it was the guest of honour's turn. Zapiro climbed on to the crate, nearly fell off, steadied himself, and then began his remarks as one would expect of a typical satirist, by comparing apartheid-era cabinet minister and newspaper censor Stoffel Botha with Smuts Ngonyama. Or was that the other way around?

Zapiro pointed out that he is unique among all of the cartoonists in the world. Why? Because he is being sued for the most: a cool R10 million, in a suit brought by one of his favourite targets, Jacob “Shower Head” Zuma. It used to be R15 million, but Zuma dropped one of the cartoons from his complaint - not because he had a sudden conversion, Zapiro doubted, but more likely because the cartoon would be too embarrassing to display in court.

Zapiro stressed the ludicrousness of the situation - after all, “You'd expect worldly-wise politicians to understand satire”. More laughs.

Then a large version of one of his recent cartoons was handed to him: “The ANC ABC”, which he duly held up and read out - all 13 rhyming couplets - to end the formal proceedings. Not that, surrounded by bananas, pineapples, turnips and cabbages, they were that formal in the first place!