Bulgarian Cartoonists Launch New Satirical Newspaper amid Election Campaign

Christo Komarnitski, one of the cartoonists behind Pras-Press. File photo, BGNES

The first edition of Pras-Press, a new satirical newspaper, will be out in Bulgaria on March 01, Wednesday, one of the project's main driving forces has said.

At just BGN 0.99, the newspaper will appear several days into the election campaign that began last week.

Pras-Press will be dominated by cartoons, comic strips, photos and collages, and no punches will be pulled, Christo Komarnitski has told Ploshtad Slaveykov, a website highlighting culture and main issues in public debates in a number of fields.

The new paper, which will first be published every two weeks and will later become a weekly edition, is named after a pun with the name of Delyan Peevski, a controversial lawmaker and media mogul whose appointment to the national security agency of Bulgaria sparked massive protests in 2013, forcing the government to replace him.

Peevski is said to be behind a number of newspapers and websites of dubious credibility, referred to as "Pras-press" in the slang of protesters, who mock his obesity as "prase" is a Bulgarian word for "pig".

"Pras", on the other hand, can also mean an interjection such as Crack! with the idea of attacking politicians through humour.

There will be no censorship in the paper, which will leave no politician spared, Komarnitski, whose cartoons have appeared on the pages of Sega daily for years drawing anger from leaders, has said.

The other mission of Pras-Press will be to "refute the widespread opinion that Bulgarians are becoming increasingly vulgar," he has added, as much space will be dedicated to books, music, movies and theater, even when the language of humour is used.

In addition, the paper will seek to give the term "free speech" the meaning it has lost over the years, Komarnitski has said.

He asserts "no party, foundation, corporation or another organization" has provided funding, the first edition having been sponsored by friends and like-minded people.

Alla Georgieva, Chavdar Georgiev and Chavdar Nikolov are also among the cartoonists who decided to create the paper. Last year, Nikolov got embroiled in a scandal after his video cartoon ridiculing the government's attitude to vigilante migrant hunters sparked controversy.

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