Khalil Bendib is the minesweeper of political cartooning in America. Potentially explosive issues avoided by other cartoonists, such as racial injustice, labor and class struggles, U.S. imperialism, environmental degradation, the scapegoating of Muslims and Arabs, and the complicity of our Orwellian media are all grist to his mill. Where others see sacred cows, Bendib sees the potential for SHISH KEBAB!
Bendib was born under colonial rule during Algeria’s war of independence against France. Today, he is the only widely read political cartoonist in North America who brings a Muslim/Arab, progressive, non-Eurocentric perspective to our media. His award-winning cartoons are featured in over 1,700 small and mid-size newspapers across the country, including many Muslim, African American, Arab, and other progressive publications and websites.
Bendib’s cartoons have been featured in
USA Today, the
New York Times,
Los Angeles Times,
San Francisco Chronicle and numerous other major newspapers. He has published several books of political cartoons, including his most recent,
Mission Accomplished: Wicked Cartoons by America’s Most Wanted Political Cartoonist (August 2007).
Bendib is also co-host, co-producer, and commentator for the KPFA weekly one-hour radio show “Voices of the Middle East and North Africa” and is frequently on the road giving talks and presentations on matters of Islamophobia, media censorship, and free speech.
Bendib believes that humor is the key to opening minds as demonstrated by his tongue-in-cheek presidential campaign (“Prez-in-the-Fez: America’s first-ever Muslim presidential candidate”), which took him to over 50 campuses and communities across the country.
Bendib is also a sculptor and ceramic artist. His public monuments are the "Alex Odeh Memorial Statue," an over-life size bronze statue in Santa Ana honoring martyred Palestinian-American ADC leader Alex Odeh, the "Deir Yassin Remembered" memorial sculpture at the Hobart and William Smith colleges in Geneva, New York, the Edwin H. Lennette Memorial Monument in Richmond, California, and the GAIA bronzes in downtown Berkeley.
