Call us nuts, but we just love these stories where an Italian wins an Iranian cartoon contest and so on. It shows the whole friggin’ world is in a CRAZY MAD LOVE AFFAIR with COMICS! This time Turkish cartoonist Mehmet Arslan has won the Grand Prize in the 28th Yomiuri International Cartoon Contest.. It was Arslan’s eighth shot at the brass ring — he just couldn’t give up on his dream!
The 44-year-old Istanbul resident will receive the award, and prize money of 2 million yen, at a ceremony at The Yomiuri Shimbun’s head office in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, on Jan. 31.
Japanese cartoonist Tai Tanabe, 37, of Kyoto, was chosen as the winner of the Hidezo Kondo Prize, with prize money of 1.5 million yen, while another Japanese cartoonist, Toshi Hiko, 60, of Tokyo, won the Gold Prize in the Theme Section, with prize money of 500,000 yen.
The Daily Yomiuri will carry a special section, featuring some of the award-winning cartoons on Jan. 3.
The link has the complete list of winners, which includes ‘tooners from Iran, Myanmar, China and other cartoon mad nations.
Yay for the Turks! Any links/images of his work available?
As distressed as I am to think that I (and my sister) can no longer claim to be the greatest example of Turkish and Japanese culture joining, I also love these kinds of stories. And I’ll have another Turkish cartoonist (other than Tayyar Ozkan) whose work I can look out for…
I am really proud that a TURKISH person has been awarded this prize.
I have waited a long time to see TURKS create original stuff for comics and i hope more TURKS become actice within this industry so well done brother, long live the TuRKS and long live Mehmet Arslan.