Where can you catch the taxi?
After more than four years on the road, Mama Taxi now appears in six daily South African papers : Citizen, Cape Argus, Daily News, Beeld, Volksblad and Die Burger, as well as across the border in The Namibian. The strip is weekly in People Magazine, and monthly in S.A.Promo (UK). It also rides online at IOL, Arrive Alive, Think Bike and Homecoming Revolution, and is regularly used in text books by the Department of Education. Last year the girls also moved sideways into the corporate world, to grace the pages of an inhouse magazine. Zandi has a lot to say about that. And what about 2010? Well just wait and see - the girls are full of surprises.
BACK SEAT DRIVERS
Deni Brown, a former professional rock ‘n roll musician, is the first South African woman to break into the male-dominated world of the daily comic strip. When not reporting taxi rank humour she is the ghost writer of a collection of illustrated autobiographies by cats with interesting lifestyles. She lives on the beautiful False Bay coast.
Gavin Thomson studied advertising in Cape Town, then worked as a colourist and inker in London, with clients such as Disney and Warner Bros. He now lives in Noordhoek with his wife and children. When he’s not drawing Mama Taxi he produces a weekly editorial strip and illustrates childrens’ books as well as the comic strips Trek Net, Ripples and Terminal.
The story of Mavis
Mavis used to run a little spaza shop from home but was inspired by BEE and determined to make more of a success of her life. One day while washing the dishes she looked out the kitchen window at the irritating sight of her brother-in-law's old mini-bus, which he had abandoned in the backyard when he went back home to the east coast. Long grass almost dwarfed the vehicle and she was tired of nagging her husband Vusi to clear it up. Suddenly she had an Oprah light-bulb moment! A taxi! She could turn that wreck into a taxi and make a million!
Vusi was of course aghast and threw negative-speak at her, like : a woman taxi driver? You must be crazy! It'll never work! and so on and so on. But just then her sister Zandi walked in to pick up the laundry Mavis had done for her and Mavis sat her down at the table with a cup of Frisco and shared her idea. Always an ideas-person herself, Zandi was captivated. I can fix it up! she cried. Remember that beautician course I did? I've got the eyelash glue and curlers, concealer, touch-up paint, the works. What could be simpler?
Mavis banged her teaspoon against her mug and reminded her that the thing had no tyres and that probably it wouldn't start, but Zandi wasn't having it. I've got boyfriends, remember, she reminded Mavis. I've got connections! There's that mechanic, that guy from the shebeen who knows about a chop-shop, and and....
Well you don't want too much information, but within a couple of weeks the minibus was ready for the road (as ready as any taxi is!) Mavis put in some time down at the licensing office, the backyard sported a big bald patch, Vusi went off to his job on the road shaking his head, and as Zandi climbed into the taxi as first assistant, Mavis let in the clutch....
There have been many adventures since the first day the little pink taxi crashed onto the roads, terrifying taxi drivers, pedestrians and potential passengers everywhere. The girls have built up some relationships along the way and bonded with a cop, would you believe! Officer Frikkie Blignaut has a soft spot which he would never admit to, and hides it behind the waving of lots of pink tickets and exclamations of shock and horror as Mavis persists in pushing the red light envelope.
Zandi smiles sweetly at everyone and comes up with ever more outrageous brainstorms, which don't always work out, but do produce many giggles. There are a couple of regulars hanging in and around the taxi - Janet, a white corporate climber who only uses her s.u.v. for the shops, granny and her magic stick, an occasional mechanic, Vusi and the gang leaning on their spades at the side of the road, as well as cops, muggers, the odd sangoma, and waiting on the outskirts, a white boy taxi driver!
The story continues in daily extracts in your closest newspaper. Keep up....
Vusi was of course aghast and threw negative-speak at her, like : a woman taxi driver? You must be crazy! It'll never work! and so on and so on. But just then her sister Zandi walked in to pick up the laundry Mavis had done for her and Mavis sat her down at the table with a cup of Frisco and shared her idea. Always an ideas-person herself, Zandi was captivated. I can fix it up! she cried. Remember that beautician course I did? I've got the eyelash glue and curlers, concealer, touch-up paint, the works. What could be simpler?
Mavis banged her teaspoon against her mug and reminded her that the thing had no tyres and that probably it wouldn't start, but Zandi wasn't having it. I've got boyfriends, remember, she reminded Mavis. I've got connections! There's that mechanic, that guy from the shebeen who knows about a chop-shop, and and....
Well you don't want too much information, but within a couple of weeks the minibus was ready for the road (as ready as any taxi is!) Mavis put in some time down at the licensing office, the backyard sported a big bald patch, Vusi went off to his job on the road shaking his head, and as Zandi climbed into the taxi as first assistant, Mavis let in the clutch....
There have been many adventures since the first day the little pink taxi crashed onto the roads, terrifying taxi drivers, pedestrians and potential passengers everywhere. The girls have built up some relationships along the way and bonded with a cop, would you believe! Officer Frikkie Blignaut has a soft spot which he would never admit to, and hides it behind the waving of lots of pink tickets and exclamations of shock and horror as Mavis persists in pushing the red light envelope.
Zandi smiles sweetly at everyone and comes up with ever more outrageous brainstorms, which don't always work out, but do produce many giggles. There are a couple of regulars hanging in and around the taxi - Janet, a white corporate climber who only uses her s.u.v. for the shops, granny and her magic stick, an occasional mechanic, Vusi and the gang leaning on their spades at the side of the road, as well as cops, muggers, the odd sangoma, and waiting on the outskirts, a white boy taxi driver!
The story continues in daily extracts in your closest newspaper. Keep up....
