As George W Bush angled for an excuse to invade Iraq in 2003, JOHN CURTIS was sufficiently moved to provide leading SA cartoonist ZAPIRO with cartoon ideas in protest. And so began a collaboration which would result in many award winning cartoons over the years.

In return, Zapiro mentored and encouraged Curtis to follow his own path, and that resulted in the prodigy being selected amongst five emerging talents to visit the UK in 2004 to meet leading cartoonists there, under the mentorship of ZAPIRO and the UK's STEVE BELL.

A years' stint as daily cartoonist at the Cape Argus followed in 2005/6 (while their cartoonist CHIP was on sabbatical), and after that Curtis freelanced for various national and international publications, while focusing on the establishment of his design studio, digitalJUNGLE with his wife and partner, Michelle.

On July 18th 2008, they launched africartoons.com with a tribute to Nelson Mandela on his 90th birthday, featuring cartoons about the statesman by South Africa's top cartoonists.

The project's success resulted in the expanding of africartoons.com to incorporate political cartoons on every subject, and the publication with ANDY MASON of two annuals (in 2009 and 2010) featuring the years' best cartoons.

These ventures introduced Curtis to South Africa's leading editorial cartoonists, many of whom he would collaborate with, and in 2009 he began working regularly with Dr Jack.

In 2011, Curtis & Dr Jack formalised their collaboration by signing their work 'DR JACK & CURTIS' in a partnership that would earn them national and international awards and accolades and contracts to draw for the websites of South Africa's leading independent radio and TV News broadcasters (EWN and eNCA), as well as City Press, a national Sunday broadsheet.

In 2018, Curtis was invited in his capacity as Director of Africartoons to attend the inaugural meeting of the Cartoonists Global Forum at Unesco in Paris, and again in 2019 as a member of its International Committee.

See DR JACK & CURTIS' collaborations HERE

See Curtis' collaborations with fellow cartoonists HERE

eNCA interview with Curtis, April 2017 HERE