Moses Balagadde – a wonderful cartoonist and a wonderful man
What you need to know:
Moses and I also interacted on the cartoons for my two books – Ugandan Society Observed (2007); Insights into Uganda (2016). Every chapter in each book has one of his cartoons – 28 cartoons in all, including two front covers, the cartoons having originally appeared with a Roving Eye article
I was greatly saddened to learn of the death of cartoonist Moses Balagadde (aka Mozeh) in Monday’s Daily Monitor.
I always found Moses easy to deal with. He was pleasant and unassuming. I think that the observation of fellow cartoonist Chrisogon Atukwasize (aka Ogon) that Moses was “exceedingly humble” was spot on. My wife, Sue, and I never noticed one iota of arrogance in Moses, which is notable given that he was an undoubted master of his profession.
Varied ways of working
Over many years we collaborated on individual cartoons for my Roving Eye column. Virtually every column included one of his cartoons. Moses showed he could work successfully under different modes of operation. Often he would draw the cartoon alone. Sometimes he would build on an idea that I sent him. Occasionally, Sue (who can draw better than me!) would send him a rough sketch on which to base his cartoon.
It is worth pointing out that with the last two modes, Moses never reacted as if we were trespassing on his territory. He was pleased to work closely with us to produce the best possible cartoon.
Mozeh and my books
Moses and I also interacted on the cartoons for my two books – Ugandan Society Observed (2007); Insights into Uganda (2016). Every chapter in each book has one of his cartoons – 28 cartoons in all, including two front covers, the cartoons having originally appeared with a Roving Eye article
I will focus on Insights into Uganda, as the recent nature of its publication means that my contact with Moses is fresh in my mind.
We faced a major challenge with this book’s cartoons, as it proved difficult to retrieve the 14 cartoons from the Daily Monitor’s IT system. Therefore, Moses had to redraw most of them from scratch, which he did patiently and with good grace.
The front cover
The front cover of Insights into Uganda provides a superb example of his work, and it increases my pride in the book, every time I see this cartoon:
What readers will be unaware of is that Moses sent me 4 or 5 versions of the front cover, incorporating modifications, so we ended up with a final version that I was happy with.
The book has 13 subject chapters, and Moses’s work is striking in all of them.
Sport
Thus the cartoon below (from the Sport chapter), shows Uganda’s socio-economic culture pushing athlete Dorcus Inzikuru towards having a baby, rather than competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where she would have had a reasonable chance of winning a medal.
Religion
And moving on to the very serious and intellectual, his cartoon below (from the Religion chapter) demonstrates how different religions around the World indoctrinate / socialise young kids into their particular religion.
A brilliant cartoonist
And what is my favourite cartoon within the book? It is the one below which I think captures the partnership between my British “poking fun at yourself” satirical humour, and a brilliant Ugandan cartoonist.
If Insights into Uganda should prove a success, then it will be in large part due to the contribution of Moses Balagadde. We will miss you Mozeh.
Kevin O’Connor is a freelance journalist and volunteer athletics coach based in Kampala
