Yang Berbahagia Seniman Diraja Dato' Mohammad Nor bin Mohammad Khalid (; born 5 March 1951), more commonly known as Lat, is a Malaysian cartoonist. Winner of the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2002, Lat has published more than 20 volumes of cartoons since he was 13 years old. His works mostly illustrate Malaysia's social and political scenes, portraying them in a comedic light without bias. Lat's best known work is The Kampung Boy (1979), which has been published in several countries across the world. In 1994, the Sultan of Perak bestowed him the honorific title of datuk, in recognition of the cartoonist's work in helping to promote social harmony and understanding through his cartoons. Lat also works for the government to improve the city's social security.
Born in a village, Lat spent his youth in the countryside before moving to the city at the age of 11. While in school, he supplemented his family's income by contributing cartoon strips to newspapers and magazines. He was 13 years old when he achieved his first published comic book, Tiga Sekawan (Three Friends Catch a Thief). After failing to attain the grades that were required to continue education beyond high school, Lat became a newspaper reporter. In 1974, he switched careers to be an editorial cartoonist. His works, reflecting his view about Malaysian life and the world, are staple features in national newspapers such as New Straits Times and Berita Minggu. He adapted his life experiences and published them as his autobiographies, The Kampung Boy and Town Boy, telling stories of rural and urban life with comparisons between the two.
Lat's style has been described as reflective of his early influences, The Beano and The Dandy. He has, however, come into his own way of illustration, drawing the common man on the streets with bold strokes in pen and ink. A trademark of his work is the three-loop noses he uses for Asian characters. Lat paid attention to family life and children because of his idolisation of Raja Hamzah, a senior cartoonist who was also popular in the 1960s with his comics about swashbuckling heroes. Rejabhad, a well-respected cartoonist, was Lat's mentor, and imbued the junior cartoonist with a preference to be sensitive to the subjects of his works. Lat's attention to details gained him popularity, endearing his works to the masses who find them believable and unbiased.
Aside from writing and publishing cartoons, Lat has ventured into the fields of animation, merchandising, and theme parks with his creations. His name and works are recognised internationally; foreign cartoonists, such as Matt Groening and Sergio Aragonés, admire his art, and foreign governments invite Lat to tour their countries, hoping to gain greater exposure for their countries through Lat's cartoons of his experiences in them. After 27 years of living and working in Kuala Lumpur, Lat moved back to Ipoh for a more sedate lifestyle in semi-retirement.
Early life and education
Mohammad Nor Mohd Khalid was born on 5 March 1951 in Kota Bharu, a small settlement located in Gopeng, Perak, Malaysia. His father, Mohd Khalid Mohd Noh was a government clerk with the Malaysian Armed Forces and his mother, Nor Azian Said, a housewife. Khalid was a stocky boy with a cherubic face, which led his family to nickname him bulat (round). His friends shortened it to "Lat"; it became the name by which he was more commonly known in his kampung and later in the world. Lat was the eldest child in his family, and he often played in the jungles, plantations, and tin mines with his friends. Their toys were usually improvised from everyday sundries and items of nature. Lat liked to doodle with materials provided by his parents, and his other forms of recreation were reading comics and watching television; Lat idolised local cartoonist Raja Hamzah, who was popular with his tales of swashbuckling Malay heroes. Malaysian art critic and historian Redza Piyadasa believes Lat's early years in the kampung ingrained the cartoonist with pride in his kampung roots and a "peculiarly Malay" outlook—"full of ... gentleness and refinement".
Lat's formal education began at a local Malay-medium kampung (village) school (one of the two precursors of today's national government predominantly Malay-medium schools, the other being the English-medium vernacular school, before both schools merged due to educational reforms in 1970-75 owing to post-independence decolonisation); these institutions often taught in the vernacular and did not aspire to any such academic attainment. The boy changed schools several times; the nature of his father's job moved the family from one military base to another across the country, until they settled back at his birthplace in 1960. A year later, Lat passed the Special Malay Class Examination, qualifying him to attend an English-medium boarding feeder primary school, then known as the GES Pasir Puteh, or its current name, Cator Road National Primary School (SK Cator Avenue) in the state's capital, Ipoh. His achievement helped his father make the decision to sell their kampung estate and move the family to the town; society in those days considered education at an English-medium school a springboard to a good future. Lat then continued his secondary education at Anderson School, Perak's "premier non-missionary English-medium school". Redza highlights Lat's move to Ipoh for higher schooling as a significant point in the cartoonist's development; the multi-racial environment helped establish his diverse friendships, which in turn broadened his cultural perspectives.
At the age of nine, Lat began to supplement his family's income through his artistic skills by drawing comics and selling them to his friends. Four years later, in 1964, the young cartoonist achieved his first published work: a local movie magazine—Majalah Filem—printed his comic strips, paying him with movie tickets. Lat's first comic book publication, Tiga Sekawan Menangkap Penchuri (Three Friends Catch a Thief), was published by Sinaran Brothers that year. The company had accepted Lat's submission, mistaking him for an adult and paying him 25 Malaysian ringgits (RM) for a story about three friends who band together to catch thieves. In 1968, at the age of 17, Lat started penning Keluarga Si Mamat (Mamats Family), a comic strip for Berita Minggu (the Sunday edition of Berita Harian). The series ran in the paper every week for 26 years. Although still a schoolboy, Lat was earning a monthly income of RM100, a large sum in those days, from his cartoons. His education finished two years later at the end of Form 5; his Third Grade in the Senior Cambridge examinations was not enough for him to advance to Form 6. Graduating with an education equivalent to that of high school, Lat started looking for a job and had his sights set on becoming an illustrator.
Reporter to cartoonist
Moving to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, Lat applied for a cartoonist's position at Berita Harian. He was told there was no vacancy, but the paper's editor, Abdul Samad Ismail, offered him the post of a crime reporter. Lat accepted, a decision he explained was borne from necessity rather than choice: "It was a question of survival. I had to earn money to help support the family." At that time, Lat's father had fallen seriously ill and could not work which led to his premature death at the age of 52 in 1975, when Lat was 24 years old; Lat had to become the breadwinner of his family. Aside from taking the job, he continued contributing cartoons to other publications. Lat was later transferred to Berita Harians parent publication, New Straits Times. Moving throughout the city to report on crimes gave Lat opportunities to observe and interact with the myriads of lives in the urban landscape, enabling him to gather material for his cartoons and increasing his understanding of the world. Nevertheless, he felt he lacked the persistently inquisitive nature needed to succeed as a crime reporter. Furthermore, his "breathtakingly detailed, lurid and graphically gory descriptions" of the aftermaths of crimes had to be frequently toned down by his seniors. Lat became convinced that he was a failure at his job, and his despondency led him to tender his resignation. Samad, believing Lat had a bright future with the press, furiously rejected the letter.
Lat's career took a turn for the better on 10 February 1974; Asia Magazine, a periodical based in Hong Kong, published his cartoons about Bersunat—a circumcision ceremony which all Malaysian boys of the Islamic faith have to undergo (primarily from the Malay, Orang Asli, Kadazan-Dusun, Bisaya, Malaysian Indians, Melanau, Rungus, Tidung, Bajau, Murut, Suluk and Orang Sungai communities; for the minority remainder of Malaysia's majority Muslim population originate from the Dayak, Orang Ulu and Malaysian Chinese ethnicities). The cartoons impressed Tan Sri Lee Siew Yee, editor-in-chief of the New Straits Times. Lee found Lat's portrayal of the important ceremony humorous yet sensitive, and grumbled that the newspaper should have hired the artist. He was surprised to be told that Lat was already working within his organisation. Lat was called to Lee's office to have a talk, which raised the reporter's profile in the company. He became the paper's column cartoonist, taking up a position created for him by Samad, now deputy editor of the New Straits Times. His first duty was to document Malaysian culture in a series of cartoons titled Scenes of Malaysian Life. The newspaper also sent him to pursue his study for four months at St Martin's School of Art in London, where he was introduced to English editorial cartoons and newspapers. Returning to Malaysia full of fascination with his experience, Lat transformed Scenes of Malaysian Life into a series of editorial cartoons. His approach proved popular, and at the end of 1975 he was appointed full-time cartoonist with total freedom in his work.
Lat produced a steady stream of editorial cartoons that entertained Malaysian society. By 1978, two collections of his works (Lots of Lat and Lat's Lot) had been compiled and sold to the public. Although Malaysians knew of Lat through Scenes of Malaysian Life, it was his next work that propelled him into national consciousness and international recognition. In 1979, Berita Publishing Sdn. Bhd.–the then-print publication subsidiary of the New Straits Times Press–published Lat's The Kampung Boy, an autobiographical cartoon account of his youth. The book was a commercial hit; according to Lat, the first printing—60,000 to 70,000 copies—sold out within four months of the book's release. Readers of the book were captivated by his "heart-warming" portrayal of Malaysian rural life, rendered with "scribbly black-and-white sketches" and accompanied by "simple but eloquent prose". By 2012, the book has been reprinted 18 times and published in several other countries in various languages, including Portuguese, French, and Japanese. The success of The Kampung Boy established Lat as the "most renowned cartoonist in Malaysia."
After The Kampung Boy