'Laugh at what's hurting you': Lebanon cartoonists stir debate

On the edges of a protest in Lebanon's capital, 24-year-old cartoonist Mohamad Nohad Alameddine bites through sticky tape and plasters one of his political sketches to a side wall.

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Lebanese cartoonist Bernard Haje works at his studio in Jal el-Dib.

"I haven't been able to work with newspapers, so instead I come down and stick them up in the street," says the unemployed artist, who graduated this year with a master's degree in press cartoons.

Until this autumn, Alameddine had been poking fun at his country's political and economic ills in sketches he posted online.

But from October 17, anti-government protests swept across the country, giving him a broader audience as protesters denounced the very same issues he had been drawing all along.

In public spaces, he and friends stuck up gags about failing electricity and trash management plans, as well as sketches mocking a political class perceived as corrupt.

Lebanese cartoonist Mohamad Alameddine works at his studio in the capital Beirut.

Inspiration everywhere

Last month, Alameddine drew his same long-nosed politician clutching the leg of his throne.

"Don't worry my love, I'd never leave you," says the character he has called President Nazeeh, dressed in a rabbit-themed pyjama onesie.

Alameddine says the fictional leader is his way of criticising the traditional ruling class without naming names.

On the other side of Beirut, 31-year-old Bernard Hage pens away at his digital drawing board, trying out his latest idea for a cartoon.

Local Lebanese cartoonists, regularly poking fun at their country's political and economic ills.

He says he gladly swapped a career in advertising for the arts several years ago, including drawing a stream of jokes under the name The Art of Boo.

In May, months before the anti-graft street movement, he drew a group of men in suits sitting in the lotus position in yoga class.

 Emigrate?

To celebrate one month since the protests began, he drew a vision for the country 10 years from now, featuring "things we'd like to hear in the near future".

On a page spread in French-language newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour, he imagined a world with smooth public transport and no daily electricity cuts.

To avoid offending anyone, Hage says he rarely names political leaders, and depicts them all across the board.

"Daddy, what's a dijoncteur?" one girl asks, using the French word for the circuit breaker that trips before power outages.

A stick figure clings to a pole in a subway, as a voice overhead calls out the next stop in central Beirut.

"Change here for line 1&4. Mind the gap," it says.

To avoid offending anyone, Hage says he rarely names political leaders, and depicts them all across the board as besuited figures with little bellies poking out.

"I discovered there's a big gap between my generation and my parents' generation," he says.

Agence France-Presse