The artist Marec won the Press Cartoon Belgium (PCB) 2015 on Thursday, for a drawing about Sharia4Belgium published on the 30th of September in the Het Nieuwsblad. The event has awarded the best caricatures in the Belgian press since 1999. For its 16th year, people from the world of media, notably Yves Thiran for RTBF and Thomas Van Hamme for RTL-TVI, had the task of choosing the three best drawings out of the 103 preselected.
After 2 hours of deliberation under police surveillance, the Jury president Chistophe Deborsu called Marc De Cloedt, alias Marec, to congratulate him. He won 6,000 euros. Second place was given to Canary Pete for a drawing about the Gaza conflict, published in the Gazet van Antwerpen on the 14th of July. This year, third place was shared between Karl, for a Trends drawing published on the 21st of August, and Kanar, for a drawing of Conchita Wurst, the bearded winner of Eurovision. That drawing appeared in Moustique on the 14th of May. They each won 800 euros.
A European jury, made up of Belgian, German and English journalists, also named Kevin Kallaugher winner of Press Cartoon Europe (PCE) 2015. He won thanks to a drawing of Pope Francis, printed in the British paper The Economist on the 18th of October. The Dutch artist Jean Gouders came second with a jihad caricature, published in De Stern. Finally, the winner of Press Cartoon Belgium 2014, Quirit, won third place with his drawing of Greece dated the 30th of December (Het Gazet van Antwerpen). For the seventh PCE, 151 artists from 26 European countries sent in 403 drawings.
The prizes will be given out on Saturday the 4th of July during the opening of the 54th “International Cartoon Festival” at Knokke-Heist. It will also be the opening of an exhibition that will show all the press drawings nominated for the PCB and PCE in 2015.
(Source: Belga)
