South African cartoonist Zapiro is being sued by former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma for 2.1 million dollars for embarrassing him in Zapiro’s cartoons according to Tom Spurgeon’s The Comics Reporter. I am emboldened by Zuma’s just, brave and classy move and myself am suing Zapiro for 4.2 million.

A Zapiro anti-Zuma cartoon.

When I told my wife about my lawsuit this morning I showed her the below photo of Zapiro. She breathlessly sighed, “Wow-he’s handsome!” This adds insult to the injury Zapiro cause me back in 1999. Let me explain…

I was in South Africa promoting this issue of YOE! Mag, the largest circulated South African kid’s magazine. I had done the first ever interview with Britney Spears in a magazine YOE! Studio produced in the U.S. and a grateful young Britney also gave us an interview in our South African magazine and I was touring South Africa to tout that.

In the course of the promotion I met up with Zapiro and spent the afternoon with him and a handful of other South African cartoonists telling them about our work. Here’s the horrible part and why I’m suing: Zapiro, IN FRONT OF MY PEERS, viciously took a pen in hand and proceeded to draw this horrible caricature of me and showed it to everyone including the sweet young impressionable Britney. I can’t tell you of the hurt it caused me (and the public is well aware of the change this has caused poor, sweet Britney).

I am in no way swayed by the obviously sarcastic “in awe” part. The drawing itself makes me look like a fool with an overbite, a scraggly beard and a ridiculous haircut. This so-called drawing is pure slander, libelous, and has caused me great emotional distress and irrepairable harm. And like Danny Hellman’s pranks against fellow cartoonist Ted Rall this has caused me diverted business. So, sue I must, to the tune of 4.2 million (plus attorney fees).