All Aboard for the Gravy Train

Madam & Eve Annual's #3

by S. Francis, Stephen Francis, Rico (Illustrator)

Genres: Comics

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Pen name of Stephen Francis
Stephen Francis, an award-winning writer and a radio and TV personality, was born in the US in 1949, and moved to South Africa in 1988 with his then wife, Wendy, whom he met at the South African consulate in New York City.
In addition to being the creator of South Africa's most popular cartoon strip, Madam & Eve, he has also written more than 28 episodes of the Madam & Eve TV series; dramas (Soul City and Zero Tolerance); and Soap operas such as Scandal!,

Stephen Francis, also does a great deal of corporate theatre work, combining education with comedy.
He is currently developing several horror movie scripts.

Reviews

[Gijs Grob · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 'All Aboard for the Gravy Train' newspaper comic Madam & Eve covers the first years of post-apartheid Africa, and thus deals not only with typical South African topics like Tokoloshes and rugby, but also with Nelson Mandela's presidency, the positive discrimination of black employees (a.o. p. 38-40 & 52-57), the founding of new province Gauteng (p. 47), Mandela's book 'The long walk to Freedom' (p. 48-51, especially the Hollywood version as imagined by Francis, Dugmore & Rico is hilarious), as well as topics recognizable to a wider audience, like the spread of cellphones (p. 14-15), the hole in the ozone layer (p. 22-23), and the coming of the Rolling Stones to South Africa (p.71-73).

The great thing about 'Madam & Eve' is that although it's clear South African news inspired most of the panels, one doesn't have to be South African to enjoy the comics. The artists even fool around with the medium of comics itself (p. 148-149 & 158-159).

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

By 1995, when this comic strip collection was published, the post-apartheid honeymoon period was over. The new government of South Africa, the first fully democratic government, was really corrupt. Madam and Eve are here to make fun of it!

I first learned about the phrase “gravy train” reading this compilation as a young un. Probably around the same age that I discovered politics as a whole. These satirical comics may have inspired a distaste of the government. Thankfully, unlike the relatives who showed me these comics, Madam and Eve don’t go as far as to say life was better during apartheid in some ways. This newspaper comic is too funny to be hateful.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent as ever.