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(STF) - OOI KOK CHUEN meets up with Malaysia's most famous cartoonist at
THERE he was, minus his mop of curly hair but looking youthful as ever (though a pair of spectacles hinted of his mature age of 52), and just as bu-Lat (chubby).
The "Kampung Boy", Datuk Mohamed Nor Khalid a.k.a. Lat, was there in the flesh at the National Art Gallery, surrounded by his adoring fans.
Shaking hands and taking photographs with friends and admirers - which included entire families from all races, some of whom could have come straight out of his cartoons, he cheerfully signed autographs on his souvenir Lat Retrospective book and special posters.
The VIP tour of his exhibition had to be interrupted countless times because of this adoration.
One girl shrieked in delight after getting his autograph, another got an impromptu sketch, and even several Tan Sris and Datuks unabashedly waited their turn for a piece of Lat - the world-class Made-In-Malaysia cultural hero who has regaled and thrilled generations of Malaysians for four decades!
Like his cartoons, he exuded a great warmth during the opening of the Lat Retrospective exhibition at the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur last Monday.
Lat is the first cartoonist to be thus honoured in a list that has included five visual artists, all of whom are Datuks - Ibrahim Hussein, Chuah Thean Teng, Syed Ahmad Jamal, Hoessein Enas and Tay Hooi Keat.
A genius whose work has touched many a Malaysian, young and old, yet he remains humble - a remarkable ambassador of his nation.
In his cartoons, especially in Scenes of Malaysian Life (now going into...