Daily cartoonist for the newspaper Al-Masry Al-Yom, Amr Selim's cartoons are sometimes thought to have predicted the revolution, writes Osama Kamal Amr Selim is not just an exceptionally talented cartoonist. He is, above all, a man of unwavering convictions. His daily cartoons in Al-Masry Al-Yom are eagerly awaited by thousands. His drawings are as powerful as live ammunition, and he has no qualms firing them off against all those who have tried to harm this country. Many would agree that Selim's cartoons foretold the 25 January Revolution and even paved its way. Meeting him in person, one discovers that he is also a great storyteller. Born in 1962, Selim grew up reading the Cairo magazines Rose El-Youssef and Sabah Al-Kheir, both known for their outstanding pictorial content. Gamal Selim, his father, was an editor at Rose El-Youssef. He would return home bearing copies of the two magazines, and his son would be waiting impatiently for them, including for the cartoons by Salah Jahin, Bahgat Osman, Hegazi, El-Leithi, Mohieddin El-Labbad, Ihab Shaker, Ragaei Wanis and many others that they contained. However, oddly enough Selim never imagined he would have a future as a cartoonist. He studied animation at the Higher Institute of Cinema, a field he chose by happenstance, mostly because his grades in the pre-college national exam were too modest. But already his talent was evident. When he graduated in 1986, Selim's graduation project, a nine-minute film about Palestine, won first prize at the Cairo International Documentary Festival. Selim spent the next two years doing short-term jobs and at one point seriously contemplated leaving the country. But in 1988, his father introduced him to Mohamed Baghdadi, the Rose El-Youssef art director. Baghdadi took one look at Selim's drawings and advised him to study drawings by veteran cartoonists. It was advice that Selim took to heart. For the next few months, he spent six hours every day poring over cartoons by the country's best cartoonists, analysing them and memorising their style. He ended up studying thousands of cartoons published between 1956 and 1978. What he learnt from this experience, Selim says today, is that a great artist should always follow his heart. "I also learned to examine my subjects carefully before drawing them, because the day would come when another promising artist would go to the archives to see what I had done." Nevertheless, setting out was hard. During the first few months of his career, Selim was asked to draw cartoons about an artists' strike. "I drew five cartoons for the cover of Rose El-Youssef about the 1988 artists' strike. I had only read about the subject in Rose El-Youssef, and thus I sided with the government in that particular dispute." Selim's mentor, Mohieddin El-Labbad, then took him aside and chastised him. "How can you call yourself an artist and yet take sides against artists," he asked him. From that day to this, Selim hasn't tackled a topic without first reading extensively about it and examining it from different angles. "In my cartoons, you can see the immense influence of Salah Jahin and Hegazi, and to a lesser extent Bahgat Osman. I have not only been influenced by their art, however. I have also been influenced by their ideals and ways of life." Osman in particular once gave him a piece of advice. "Money is only a means of transportation. Don't let money lead you on, or you'll be lost," Osman said. In Selim's view, Egyptian cartoons have a special flavour, one that is hard for others to emulate. "There is something in the spirit of Egyptians that is unique, profound and light- hearted. Other countries have money: we have humour." Part of the magic of Egyptian humour comes from the local dialect, Selim believes. "The Egyptian dialect is a splendid mix of cultures: Pharaonic, Coptic, Islamic and modern. It is a mix that is hard to imitate." Over the years, Selim has worked for many publications, including Rose El-Youssef, Sabah Al-Kheir, Al-Arabi Al-Nasiri, Al-Dostour and Al-Masri Al-Yom. Has he ever been asked to do something against his will? Not once, he replies. "None of the editors I have worked for has forced me to do anything I didn't want to do. I have only ever drawn what I wanted." Was this also true of Abdallah Kamal, the editor of Rose Al-Youssef, who's known to be a staunch supporter of the government? "Not even Abdallah Kamal," Selim insists. No one I have worked with has ever forced me to do anything against my will, since they know very well that I come from the Rose El-Youssef school of cartooning, which is all about artistic freedom." Selim is associated with the Nasserists politically. How does he react to disputes involving fellow-Nasserists? "My political leanings come from my belief in certain values, and those are bound to appear in my drawings. But when I find flaws in those who share the same politics as I do, I have to express what I see. When the Nasserists quarrelled over the leadership of the Nasserist Party, I did just that." Over the past decade or so, it has sometimes seemed that the majority of Egypt's great cartoonists have either died or have retired. Only Selim has gone on working, stepping on many toes as he has done so. Under the former regime, he was "investigated twice", he says. "The first time was when I was accused of insulting former president Hosni Mubarak. The investigator was a decent and enlightened person, and he let me go without as much as a warning. The second time was when I drew a cartoon about the People's Assembly, and Zakaria Azmi wanted to take me and Al-Masry Al-Yom to court. However, I wasn't going to be bullied. We had only stepped across certain red lines because we had to. Everyone knew the People's Assembly elections were rigged. It was a crime, and it was one of the reasons we had a revolution on 25 January." Selim admires the work of many younger cartoonists, mentioning Hesham Rahma, Walid Taher, Mohamed Qandil, Abdallah and Makhlouf. He also enjoys the cartoons of Doaa El-Adl, Egypt's first woman cartoonist, and Mohamed El-Anwar, who is only 23 and has just started his career. Selim was not at all surprised at the artistic creativity the demonstrators exhibited in Tahrir Square during the revolution. From the couple of times that he has taught the art of cartooning to youngsters, once at Al-Sawy Culture Wheel and once in Syria, he has been aware of the immense amount of talent around that is just waiting to come out. Yet, however much he admires many other cartoonists his idol to this day is the Egyptian cartoonist Salah Jahin (1930- 1986). Years ago, Selim saw Jahin walking in Gameat Al-Duwal Al-Arabiya Street in Cairo. But he didn't say anything to him. He just watched the great poet-cartoonist walk by, and he still relishes the memory.
