May 1, 2008

Benny & Mice - Indonesian Cartoonist

I think it is a common thing all over the world that the Sunday paper has comic strips. One of the comics that I look forward to every Sunday in Kompas (one of Indonesia's major newspaper) is a cartoon called "Benny & Mice".

Unlike normal comic strips which is drawn by 1 cartoonist, Benny & Mice is drawn by 2 people : Benny Rachmadi & Muhammad "Mice" Misrad (notice the resemblance between the cartoonists & the comic characters?
Photo courtesy of an article from the Jakarta Post).

Benny & Mice

They have been friends since college (at IKJ "Institut Kesenian Jakarta" = Jakarta Art Institute), where they started drawing together on a wall space allocated by the college.

Before drawing for Kompas, they already published "Lagak Jakarta" (Jakarta Style), a series of 6 books depicting their observations of events & actions of people in Jakarta. These observations extended into the two characters, Benny & Mice, where they first appeared in the fourth Lagak Jakarta book.

Benny & Mice itself first appeared in Kompas in 2003. Since then, they have gain wider popularity. The cartoon portrays what is going on in Jakarta specifically and Indonesia in general. Below is a sample of the Benny & Mice comic strip :

People in Jakarta would remember this scene, when Breadtalk, a bakery franchise, had just opened and people would line-up for hours in order to buy it (when I actually saw this, I thought these people were either mad or real bread fanatics!). They could have simply bought other bread brands (although Breadtalk lovers would claim that the taste is worth the effort), as what Benny & Mice eventually did in the comic. (Notice the last box where Benny asks for bread with Abon, presumably Breadtalk's most hot selling variant....so funny!)

This is another example which I could relate to since I have old relatives back in my village who claim they are healthy even though they have been smoking since young. *Note: I am actually against smoking*


Since then, Benny & Mice have also published another book called "100 Tokoh yang mewarnai Jakarta" (100 characters who color Jakarta) and also a compilation book of their drawings in Kompas, called "Jakarta Luar Dalem".

10 comments:

Crey said...

awalnya ga begitu merhatiin siy tp lama2 disuruh co gw buat baca karna lucu dan emang beneer! :D
dia malah beli bukunya juga tuh dan lucunya ditulis juga di blognya hehehe :p

Fitri - saya turis... said...

gue juga akhirnya beli bukunya yang Jakarta Luar Dalem, tapi pas setelah gue beli, gue baru kepikiran mendingan gue kliping dari Kompas aja hehehe

Junior Planner said...

Hehehehe, sama gini blog nya... Iya nih gw suka banget komiknya benny & Mice. Selain lucu, gambar mereka juga bener2 merhatiin detail latar belakangnya. Ga cuma fokus ke tokoh utama doang. Gw dah beli tuh buku yg 100 tokoh, tp blom sempet kebaca sampe abis... Btw gw juga suka ama Sukribo. Bisa banget bikin kritikan dengan gaya humor yg nyantai...

Fitri - saya turis... said...

tapi cartoonistnya sukribo kurang exposure kayaknya...gue google gak begitu banyak infonya...

Bram Adimas said...

kalo bisa gw bilang, ini kartun paling menghibur soalnya v=ceritanya mengambil background kehidupan org indo pada asalnya

Anonymous said...

Benny n Mice?

Paling ngakak kalo liat yg ini

http://imageupload.com/out.php/i78186_Indosiar.jpg

Fitri - saya turis... said...

ember...bisa banget ya mereka parodi-in kehidupan sehari2 indonesia!

markozzzzzay said...

benny and mice emang top dahh.

gyaaa...

lucu bangeut..

tapi tapi tapi y!

ada acara TV yg ngejiplak kartun ini tau! Abdel dan Temon... ih dasar kekurangan ide!

Fitri - saya turis... said...

dah pernah denger sih abdel & temon, tapi belum pernah nonton..cuman mungkin masih lebih ok daripada kualitas sinetron kita kali ya hehe

Krista M said...

Thank yyou for writing this

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