Jo Palmer (Togo)
Who is Jo Palmer ? "I was born in Lomé (Togo) on the 29th May 1967. Nonetheless, as in Africa, for studying reasons, age cheating is tolerated, you can read in my passport: born in 1973, which is not correct. It’s Africa!”.
University degree in Sociology, a master in Visual Communication, Joseph Palmer Akligo quit his career as a sociologist and became a cartoonist. Currently he lives in Cotonou, Bénin, where he works for the Agricultural Ministry as an illustrator. He started publishing his comic strips in Togo’s Magazine in 1989, and then in some magazines in Cotonou. He illustrated La Biche (satirical supplement of La Gazette du Golfe) which was very successful. In 1998, Jo Palmer had his album Soukrou ou les méfaits des sacs plastiques published by “Les Flamboyants" in Cotonou. As an artist and a sociologist he travels through all the little villages with a television, aiming at informing the people.
In Europe, he contributed to the album A l’ombre du baobab with his comic strip Amina ne sera pas excisée. In 2003, he took part in the Africa e Mediterraneo Award gaining a Mention of Honour.
His comic strip : On a fumé Malrobo
An airplane makes a shipment of cigarettes fall in the forest, meaning opposition to the tobacco war. Some monkeys find it and start smoking. In the nearby Pigamous village, a sentry reports what he thinks he heard from the monkeys: they want to attack the village that very evening. He is sent to clarify the situation and gets immediately captured by the monkeys. After hanging him on a tree, the monkeys tell him that, thanks to cigarettes, they found the secret to power and longevity. That means that the Pygamous will become monkeys slaves. Unfortunately the monkeys miscalculated nicotinism’s effects…
Technical information
Genre: Caricature
Pages: 30
Colour