VREME (means TIME) is the top political magazine in Serbia. It is difficult to imagine a bigger honor for a cartoonist-illustrator in Serbia than doing a cover for VREME! Specially in this difficult times with the absolutely worst president and government one can imagine! Having the opportunity to show their real nature of the prezident and people in power is a rare opportunity, because great majority of media in Serbia is controlled by THEM.
Here is the explanation. The opposition is boycotting the parliament because of the system of political war and the attacks of the media controlled by the president and his circles. This boycott does hurt the ruling bunch because it does turns the attention to the situation. This illustration shows the nature of the president's call to opposition to return to the parliament for a dialogue. As soon as anybody opposes the president in any way, he is to be put through the unbelievable mud from the media controlled by him.
I am very aware how extreme the visual language of this illustration may seem to somebody who lives in some civilized society, but Serbia with the present president Vucic is not such a country. My close friend called me up to congratulate me for this cover and told me that she is going to be bringing food to me if I get in jail for this work. Hopefully this won't happen, there are many people who do expose the government's nature, but some people who did oppose them were under very evil attacks, one journalist's house was put on fire with him and his wife in it, they were lucky to escape death in the burnt house...
The president is the one holding a stamp with swastika because anybody opposing him is being labeled a fascist, the person on his lap is his pet prime minister, the person on the left is the president of the parliament, the lady who announced the invitation, and the 2 men on the toilet are the owners of tabloid TV station and tabloid newspaper used to spill mud on anybody on president's signal.
Believe it or not, the visual language is appropriate, and it is still softer than the language used by the government and the media controlled by them! I was not assigned by the magazine to do it, I did because I wanted to get part and sound my voice, and I offered it to the magazine I worked for a lifetime ago (27 years), before leaving the country to avoid a call to take part in civil war in Yugoslavia. The president on the illustration was the minister of information at the time, in the government of Slobodan Milosevic...If the magazine was not to use it, I'd offer it to 2 other, and if they were not to use it, I would have uploaded it to social media... They did take it and they used it for the cover!
Here's the sketch without the pet prime minister. I drew her leter on...
When I work on a complex illustration like this one, after making the final composition, I work on the parts on separate papers. Here is the photo of the original watercolor illustrations-parts of the final image with the magazine. The size of each paper is A4.
This is the owner of the tabloid newspaper loyal to the president. There is no lie he would not publish if it serves the purpose. As low as it gets and lower. You cannot imagine how bad it is! No, you can't!
I finished te illustration, and than...
...I realized that SHE was missing. The prime minister who is the loyal pet of the person in power, the president. She is his loudspeaker, that and nothing else but that! The two of them made statements that Serbia's economy is the best in Europe, better than the economy of Germany. Sounds extreme, you do not believe me? Come live in Serbia and you'll believe it!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shiva is the Hindu god of destruction, and his incarnation on earth, Vojislav Sheshelj, the spiritual father of our presidente. He is the leader of the extreme right Serbian Radical Party, convicted by the international tribunal in Hague for war crimes. Despite that, he is a member of parliament who keeps on with his hate talk.
This illustration shows some of his "achievements". The banana skin is for his statement that the journalist beaten by his crew actually fell down slipping on banana skin...3 times in a row! The rusty spoon is the tool he threaten to slaughter the enemies with during the civil war in Yugoslavia. The baseball bat was used on his instructions by his driver hitting a peaceful protester in front of the parliament. The dildo is for his shameful sexist and misogyny talk on women politicians and journalists who talk about him. The SUV with
crawler tracks is for his recent statement that he bought some second hand tank-crawler tracks and that he is about to put it on his SUV and use it to run over the protesters in front of the parliament. Finally the hand puppet is because of his recent call for any of his chetnik followers who did not wash themselves for at least a month to show what a good sex is to the lady who accused him of sexist talk. He repeatedly said this kind of things in the parliament of Serbia! And the only reaction for that is "Thank you, professor!" by the president of the parliament. Unbelievable?, I agree, but it is true!!!!
this is the final penci sketch of Shiva-Sheshelj, the god of destruction, missing the parliament building he stepped on.
scan 1, watercolor on paper....
scan 2, watercolor on paper....
...and the final illustration!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Il, Prezidente was present on the recent meeting of the patriarchs of the church. He bought their affirmative attitude towards him with few generous donations. Not out of his, but out of our pockets... (btw, I use the term il prezidente intentionally, to compare him to his collegue dictators of South America.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our prezidente avoids debates with his opponents. The only public debate he had during his 7 years in power was with his own mother, in a TV show, in which he corrected her on his weight on his birth, he knew it better than her. His talk to his opponents is in front of TV cameras happens ONLY when he is alone, usually we do not see the journalists at all, just his serious face talking back to THEM, the imaginary opponents... He recently said he was going to take on 9 od THEM in a fair fight...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Il Prezidente and his spiritual father in the shameful circus called The Parliament of Serbia....
the watercolor on paper elements and the final illustration in the magazine.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our prime minister and the minister of education, ridiculing and laughing at the protesters. The protests against the huge number of false PhD diplomas. Believe it or not, the majority of the ministers of the present government own a questionable diploma certificates...Many of them make unbelievable and very silly mistakes in their speeches that expose their lack of education!
One more illustration on the subject od false PhD certificate-diplomas. The guy on the left is our minister of police who plagiarized his doctoral dissertation. On the private owned university Megatrend, whose owner, the person on the right, also owns a verz questionable certificate!
Insert a coin - and get your certificate!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every morning our prezidente wakes up and decides on which role he is to play that day and who of his personal heroes he wants to look like that day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Solution to the problem of Kosovo. Il prezidente was talking that his solution for it, but he NEVER revealed it. We all heard, over and over again that he had a fair solution, but his never revealed solution was rejected by his naughty opponents...
I decided to show him as a magician, showing a cheap trick. The solution is under the magic clothes, some people say they know what it probably is...
Sometimes, the illustration influences the article. This time the title was.
So, Serbia is in the election year. And the situation is extremely bad. El Prezidente and his gang OWN most of the media, and they control the system. Poor people come and vote just to get a small reward, something like 12 euro. They have to prove who they voted for with a photo of the election paper form. Or they are being blackmailed with the loss of job. Dead people vote as well, and who knows who else... And still, roughly half of the people with the right to vote do it. And, roughly, half of those who vote, vote for the Gang in power.
Now, lately, the opposition leaders are talking about the boycott of the coming elections. The game is not fair, and in the present circumstances nothing can be done, El Prezidente pretends he does not care if they boycott or not. He said he does not give a damn for what the bunch of people with no weight in politics say or do. And still, the media controlled by the Gang launch savage attacks on that bunch
I decided to show him sitting on a chair, and one of the legs is about to be cut by boycott. He can still sit in his chair, but he has to hang on the holder all the time, and his seat is not very comfortable any more. He knows that, we know that, and finally the rest of the world knows it!
Recently, some policemen coincidentally discovered one big illegal marihuana farm in the middle of the organic vegetable farm, and the owner was a member of the group of businessmen following our president to many international business fairs, his inner circle! Sounds like something that may happen in South America? Yes, yes, yes! El Prezidente Alessandro Vucic and his brother are to be on trial now, guess why? - Because their compadre and the mayor of Novi Sad Vucevic officially accused them for their involvement in drug production and trafficking. El Prezidente announced that he told Vucevic to do so, so he could put an end to all the rumors that his brother and him are involved! The trial is to happen in the court of (sleeping) justice in control by their gang. Like almost everything else in The Republic of Serbihuana, the justice system is in the service of El Prezidente, and the trial is a show with a screenplay. It serves one important benefit - to avoid the future trials because of the double jeopardy! Have you heard a story as crazy as this one? I am sure you did, but those stories are fiction, and this one is just one of the recent true stories from my country that once was nice and boring place to live.
