Ditwits
Ditwits is the leader page cartoon in South Africa’s third largest and fastest growing daily newspaper, The Times, with around 340000 readers.
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A quick history of Ditwits. Current day Ditwits. Early strips, before going professional. Cartoons that were rejected. |
To view the official comic strips, simply use the drop-down menu to the right. (Note that there are no Ditwits strips prior to 5 June 2007.)
The strip itself - a quick history.
Although no longer explicitly called Ditwits, it is a an editorial (or political) cartoon exclusive to the front page of The Times (South Africa). (Because of the cartoon’s somewhat small printed size, it can be argued that it is not strictly an “editorial cartoon” by definition.)
Prior to late October 2007, the strip offbeat and nonsensical in its subject matter. But due to my growing interest in editorial commentary, I changed direction after getting the prod from my editor. Which was daring, since I had never before drawn an editorial cartoon.
Late 2006, I found myself wanting to attempt a second comic strip; perhaps something weekly and non-committal. I played with some ideas, but nothing grabbed me. I then tried a single-panel gag. The name was my sister’s idea, and doesn’t really mean anything; although, it stemmed from a fusion of “ditz” and “dimwits”.
Over a few months, I slowly completed a handful of cartoons which no one really saw (seen below). That is, until I received an email from the deputy editor of the Sunday Times (who is now the editor of The Times), during April 2007. He had received an email from someone, containing a selection of Urban Trash strips to which he took a liking.
Ditwits was published for the first time, on 05 June 2007.
The strip itself - current day.
Ditwits is published in full colour, daily from Monday to Friday, but not over weekends and public holidays.
In June 2008, I decided to remove the logo and border for primarily layout reasons.
Ditwits is also syndicated via the Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonists Index (which is the world’s largest political cartoon website).
There are no Ditwits books available yet.
In September 2008, Ditwits was nominated for a South African Comedy Award. A few weeks later, Ditwits was nominated in the regional finals of the Vodacom Journalist Of The Year.
Early strips - late 2006 to early 2007 (before Ditwits went professional).
Rejected strips - cartoons that my editor pulled.
