Biography
Alan Schikkerling was born in Johannesburg in 1939 and obtained a diploma in commercial art in 1959 from Witwatersrand Technical College. During his time at Witwatersrand, he started compiling a book of picture stories and jokes, but the manuscript was stolen, and he abandoned the project. His first newspaper cartoon appeared in Car in 1968, and his famous strip "Vrystaat" began in the Rand Daily Mail in 1969. Afterwards, the strip, featuring a flat-headed, rotund little man with large ears, appeared in The Citizen from 1976-1977. He died in 1983.