When cartoonist Tony Grogan started work at the Cape Times 30 years ago he felt "a bit daunted".
"I was following in the shadow of David Marais, and it strikes me now that I had a bit of a nerve as a rookie."
But he said that the Cape Times had made it easy for him to take up the challenge. "The paper has always let me follow my own impulse."
Grogan was born in Port Elizabeth and educated at Selborne College and later at Rhodes University. While teaching in Port Elizabeth in the 1960s he freelanced as a cartoonist for the Herald and the Evening Post.
"I wanted to be a cartoonist from a very young age," said Grogan, "but it's not the sort of thing you go into straight after university. If I hadn't been a cartoonist I think I would have become a journalist."
Grogan said he had always felt very fortunate to have moved to Cape Town, and especially to the Cape Times.
He has worked for six editors at the paper, beginning with Tony Heard "who made me very welcome".
"I've drawn cartoons under five presidents," said Grogan.
The past 30 years have seen major changes in South Africa, politically and socially, and Grogan has commented on most of them. "I started out under John Vorster and at a time when the National Party was ripe for satirical comment. The system was falling apart but they kept on thinking of ways to try to make it look like it was working.
"But they were tough times especially during the States of Emergency. The regulations were often very hard to interpret and editors had to make difficult decisions about what to publish."
It was "easy to be impelled by anger and outrage" during these times.
The most difficult time to be a cartoonist was "during the transition to democracy and under the presidency of Nelson Mandela", said Grogan.
"It was very hard to satirise him, he is such a warm person. It's hard to draw cartoons about living saints."
According to Grogan, it's been easier to take a dig at politics since Mandela retired.
"But I prefer to lampoon positions rather than attack personalities," he said.
That said, Grogan finds rich sources for comment in the actions of politicians such as Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
Readers have become accustomed to seeing the minister with a small crowd of ducks around her saying "quack".
"Once I left out the ducks in a cartoon of her, and a reader phoned me to point it out," chuckled Grogan.
Grogan has developed a fondness and something of a "relationship" with Cape Times readers over the years.
"There are people who have read the Cape Times for the entire time that I have been drawing cartoons for it, and they understand my tone," he said.
"They know how you say things."
Grogan is known as an artist and illustrator, as well as a cartoonist, and has published numerous books of his own work and illustrated for other authors and publishers.
Apart from collections of his cartoons he has also had books of his drawings and water colours published, including Vanishing Cape Town, Settler Country, and Between Cape And Cairo.
He is at present working on a book on the Eastern Cape to be published next year.
Figjam and Foxtrot by Lynn Bedford Hall, illustrated by Grogan, was placed first in the world this year by the Gourmand Cookbook awards in the illustrated cookbook category.
"I was very lucky that a publisher came to me and asked me to do my first book. I never had to go out and look for a publisher," said Grogan.
One of his most recent books, Tony Grogan's Cape Town Sketchbook, showed his talents as an artist. The pictures illustrate his passionate interest in people and character.
He doesn't see any difference between drawing cartoons or making pictures: "Both are art."
Grogan said he was very fortunate to have come to Cape Town, as "the local characters are so diverse and rich; as are the political challenges".
Cape Times editor Chris Whitfield said Grogan had documented an important period in South Africa for the Cape Times.
"He is the longest-serving cartoonist in the newspaper's 128-year history, and is part of the tradition of political comment at the Cape Times. As such he has helped forge the present character of the newspaper and is party to its successes."
- Check out Tony Grogan's daily cartoon on the Cape Times website.