Charles Apple

I received a care package via my overnight e-mail: A collection of World Cup pages from the South African papers I worked with last year, courtesy of my good friend Arlene Prinsloo, who is design director of die Burger in Cape Town and oversees design for the entire newspaper group.

The big national Afrikaans-language Sunday paper is Rapport — it’s the one that Peter Ong redesigned last October. Our first three pages ran in Rapport’s sports section this weekend.

The first two contain profiles of the host South African team, Bafana Bafana. A South African cartoonist — Mynderd Vosloo, who’s often illustrated sports figures for Media24 papers — did the honors (click any page today for a larger look):

The headline says:

Yes, Bafana can!

Yes, well, we’ll see about that. In fact, the South African team is not projected to move out of the opening rounds. But odder things have happened.

The next page shows players for England (left), Argentina (right) and France (bottom):

Page eight consisted of a look at the schedule (left) and the various stadiums around the country where matches will be held (right):

That one was built by Rapport artist Anton Vermeulen, who is moving over to the Sunday English-language paper, I’m told.

This next one ran in the business section of the Sunday paper and, I suppose, addresses the economic impact of the World Cup being in Africa this year. That rail to the right is an ad.

The artist on this one was Elsolet Joubert. Both Anton and Elsolet worked with me last year during my time in Africa.

Speaking of the English-language Sunday paper — City Press — it, too, was redesigned by Peter Ong just a few weeks ago.

Its front-page story Sunday focused on the huge amount of money the Fédération Internationale de Football Association has made already off of the event, even before the opening kickoff first pitch tipoff whatever.

Arlene tells us it was a

Damn good front page lead, too!

Find the story here.

Papers often print newsprint posters and distribute them around town in order to promote that day’s paper. Here is the one City Press used this past weekend:

Here’s a graphic that ran in the Sunday City Press in which the paper’s three soccer writers predicted who’d be in the starting lineup for the South African team for Friday’s opening match against Mexico:

The graphic isn’t credited, so I can’t tell who drew it. Anton hasn’t moved over quite yet. This doesn’t look like his handiwork anyway — his soccer figures look like little Lego men. Perhaps we’ll see one soon.

And finally, Arlene sent me a big batch of section fronts that feature a popular comic strip called Mama Taxi.

The strip is about two sisters who who operate a pink taxi van in Cape Town. Normally, the strip is about the size of a typical comic strip and runs daily. Here is today’s strip:

I should probably point out that Mama Taxi isn’t always about soccer. But the Cup is very much on everyone’s minds over there. So it’s not surprising it’s found its way into comic strips.

This week only — the opening week of the Cup — die Burger is using larger, Sunday-type Mama Taxi strips on its features fronts.

Arlene tells us:

Christa Smuts, head of arts and entertainment, is the brainchild of these pages. Mama Taxi is used as a regular cartoon in our supplement. The creators of the cartoon created special cartoons to link it with the theme of each supplement.

Naweek means Weekend. This was the Saturday section front:

If you’re like me, of course, you can’t read Afrikaans. Luckily for us, Arlene also sent us an English version:

The joke here is a reference to a famous incident from the championship match of the World Cup of Rugby, which was held in South Africa in 1995. An enormous South African Airways jet flew directly over the stadium, with “Go Boks” stenciled on the wings, large enough to read from the ground. If you saw the movie Invictus with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, then you might remember the scene.

So yes, this is a bit of an “inside joke.” Visitors to South Africa won’t “get it.” But then again, not many visitors to South Africa can speak Afrikaans, which is an offshoot of Dutch. So these strips aren’t particularly aimed at visitors.

This one ran in Monday in die Burger, on the front of Jip — a section aimed at teens:

Again, here is the English version:

The idea here is that Mavis and Zandi are running a day camp for kids. But in fact, they’re dropping them off at a fan park — where you can watch the matches for free on huge TV screens. Most South Africans, unable to afford tickets, will be watching the Cup at fan parks.

There are lots of nice touches here that only locals would catch. In the background of that final, L-shaped panel are the Cape Town city hall (the clock tower with the little dome on it) and Table Mountain.

Today’s strip ran on the front of Buite, which means “outside” or “outdoors.”

Here is the English version:

The joke here is that the long plastic horns that South Africans blow during soccer matches — vuvuzelas — can be mistaken by tourists for the call of elephants. Perhaps.

Those things are so loud and so annoying — and so pervasive, reportedly — that the nation’s government today urged fans to not blow their vuvuzelas during the national anthems.

Said a government spokesman:

Government urges audiences not to move around, hold conversations or blow vuvuzelas during performances of the anthem.

Respect for the anthem is part of the total experience of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

Heh. Find the story here.

I’m a little unclear about this last one — I suspect it may, in fact, be Wednesday’s strip. Given that it’s shortly after 11 p.m. over there as I post this, I’ll include it anyway:

And again, you see fan parks referenced.

This is fun stuff from the folks in Cape Town, South Africa. Find Mama Taxi’s web site here. The first-ever collection of Mama Taxi strips was published a year ago. Order a copy here.

As you’d imagine, the Media24 papers have set up an elaborate web site with which to cover the World Cup and all the activities associated with it. And, thankfully, that site is in English. Find it here — and bookmark it, please, if you have any interest at all in the Cup.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Comic strips, Graphics, Illustration, International newspapers, News design, Sports design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.