With a mob of messy curls, rotund cheeks and an easy laughter, Datuk Mohamad Nor Bin Khalid, or better known as Lat, is the splitting image of the adorable Mat, the main character in his bestseller – The Kampung Boy.
Born in Kota Bahru, Perak, in 1951, the astute celebrity cartoonist has always been fascinated by cartoons. The first few cartoons he saw were in a Movie News magazine and it made an impact on him because it was funny but “very badly drawn”.
“I was laughing in my sarong [a long cloth worn around the waist by the Malays]. I didn’t know what a vegetarian was. I thought a vegetarian was someone who studies vegetables!” he said of the first cartoon strip he saw.
Lat, who was recently awarded by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak as one of the 6 awardees for the Ikon 1Malaysia Negeri Perak in October, regaled his fans with humorous tales of his childhood and how he took inspiration from his memories as well as the everyday life in Malaysia.
This award was specially gifted to those whose works were believed to unite Malaysians and create a sense of harmony. One of the other awarded was the late Yasmin Ahmad, film director and story-teller extraordinaire.
The artist was in town on Oct 31 for a meet-the-author session during the Singapore Writers Festival 2009.
The Kampung Boy meets the American Boy
Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, was a fan of Lat way before he created the popular cartoon. When UrbanWire asked Lat if there was a chance for Mat, The Kampung Boy to meet Bart Simpson on paper or on screen, he answered in Malay, “That would be near impossible because Mat and Bart serves different audiences and they [the audience] have different tastes.”
Credits: Berita Publishing Sdn Bhd
This however, didn’t stop The Kampung Boy from being translated to English and being launched in America in 2006.
The road to becoming a celebrity cartoonist
At the tender age of 13, Lat published his first works, Tiga Sekawan, a story about 3 friends who came together to catch thieves, with Sinaran, a publishing house that printed textbooks in 1964. He was paid 25 ringgit for it. However, the thought of drawing cartoons as a career never crossed his mind.
He told UrbanWire in Malay, “Although I was earning money, it never crossed my mind to work as a cartoonist because back then, in Ipoh, such a job did not exist. At 13 years old I was too young to decide and people would have labelled me insane if I told them I wanted to draw cartoons for a living. I only knew I wanted to do something related to drawing. I was 17 when I realised that I wanted to do this [for a career].”
Lat continued to draw through his schooling days, encouraged by his parents and his art teacher Ms Moira Hew. He drew for the Malay papers, Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian before being hired as a crime reporter with the New Straits Times when he was 19.
Even with a stable job as a reporter, he didn’t relinquish his hold on his passion and continued drawing for Berita Harian. However, he admitted to faring fairly as a reporter as he lacked the inquisitive nature needed in the job.
“I wasn’t very good at it because I was not nosy enough. I did not ask enough questions or dig around very much,” chuckled the soft-spoken artist.
Having said that, working as a crime reporter for 4 years did help him expand his social circle and allowed him to understand how different Kuala Lumpur really was from his hometown and it made an impression in some of his cartoons.
It also taught him to be less shy and to be more vocal when he’s around people.
In 1974, he was made the editorial cartoonist of the New Straits Times and proceeded to publish his first book, The Kampung Boy in 1979.
In 1994, he was bestowed the honorific title of Datuk and continued to draw cartoons for the New Straits Times.
Lat on family, drawing and childhood memories
A set of drawings sent to the Asia Magazine in Hong Kong depicting the hilarious events during his circumcision ritual and managed to obtain a wide circulation for the set in the region.
He recounted to the room full of laughing fans, “the Tok Molek [which means ‘circumcision specialist’ in Malay] told us that once we are circumcised, we’ll go through life without any problems and we believed him. Then I saw my cousin fainted during the circumcision ceremony and thought to myself, “Oh my God, I am going to die! But in the end it just felt like an ant-bite.”
Lat’s cartoons are quite simply a caricature of his memorable childhood and he said to the audience, “If you want to tell stories that make people laugh, make sure it is true.”
Needless to say, the characters in his books are people who have entered his life and left an indelible impression.
When asked how he keeps his creative juices flowing for over 30 years as a cartoonist, he answered to UrbanWire in Malay.
“I draw everywhere I go. I have this felt pen that I bring with me and draw [with] when I’m sitting in the car waiting for the wife. Everything I see can be my source of inspiration.”
However, this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get an artist-block.
“I wanted to quit [freelance] drawing for the New Straits Times once because I was tired but they [the editors] persuaded me to stay on because I’ve been with them for so long. I decided that I would draw for them as long as there is a following and now submit my drawings every Sunday night.”
The affable artist laughed when asked if any of his 4 children would follow in his footsteps. “They’re not interested in my cartoons and they don’t laugh at it. But this doesn’t mean they can’t draw.”
Tips for the aspiring artist
When UrbanWire asked Lat if he had any tips for the aspiring artists, he replied, “Look out for the thin lines. It’d be better if you can draw with a brush because then the cartoon will “pop” and have interesting dimensions. But if you have too much of them [thin lines], the drawing would be weak.”
The cartoonist also encouraged artists to draw for passion and stressed the need for one to be truthful in their work.
Credits: Photobucket.com
Up to date, the celebrated cartoonist has over 20 books to his name and a cartoon series depicted from his first book The Kampung Boy aired in Malaysia in 1998. The Kampung Boy was translated into over 5 languages and has also decorated the Air Asia Boeing 737 in 2004.
His recent work, entitled “Lat’s Window to the World”, has been staged as visuals alongside the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra performance, which was conducted by Hollywood’s conductor and composer, Carl Davis in May 2009.
