Cartoonists Pay Tribute to Cartoonists Rights Founder Robert “Bro” Russell
Obituary · Cartoonists Rights
Cartoonists Pay Tribute to Cartoonists Rights Founder Robert “Bro” Russell
Musa Kart, Zunar, Nikahang Kowsar, Kianoush Ramezani and Pedro X. Molina are among the cartoonists remembering Russell, who spent decades helping artists facing prosecution, censorship and threats because of their work.
Robert “Bro” Russell
Founder of Cartoonists Rights and its executive director for two decades after the organisation was formally incorporated in 1999.
Robert “Bro” Russell.
Cartoonists around the world are paying tribute to Dr. Robert “Bro” Russell, the founder of Cartoonists Rights, following his death on September 13, 2026.
In the days since announcing his death, Cartoonists Rights has begun publishing memories from former recipients of its Courage in Cartooning Award and from cartoonists Russell assisted during his years as executive director. The first collection, published on September 15, includes messages from Nikahang Kowsar, Kianoush Ramezani, Musa Kart, Zunar, Tony Namate and Pedro X. Molina.
Their accounts add a personal record to the history of the organisation: phone calls, letters, introductions, public statements and practical help offered to cartoonists when their work had brought them into conflict with governments or other authorities.
“I also owe my life to people like Robert Russell”
Iranian cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar was among those who responded to Russell’s death. Kowsar received the Courage in Cartooning Award in 2001 after facing prosecution and imprisonment in Iran over his cartoons. He later joined Cartoonists Rights and is now the organisation’s vice-president.
In his remembrance, Kowsar recalls that his relationship with Russell began with long telephone conversations before the two eventually met in Canada. Russell took him to a gathering of Canadian editorial cartoonists in Quebec City, and in later years they worked together on cases involving other cartoonists at risk.
“I also owe my life to people like Robert Russell.”
Nikahang Kowsar
Kianoush Ramezani, another Iranian cartoonist who later went into exile, also remembers lengthy conversations with Russell while he was still living in Tehran. Russell subsequently supported Ramezani’s participation in international meetings, including gatherings in China and Budapest concerned with cartoons and freedom of expression.
A connection with Türkiye
Among the tributes is one from Turkish cartoonist Musa Kart.
Kart received the organisation’s Courage in Cartooning Award in 2005 amid legal action brought against him by then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over his cartoons. Cartoonists Rights continued to follow Kart’s case in later years, including the imprisonment of Kart and colleagues from Cumhuriyet.
“We have lost Dr. Robert Russell,” Kart wrote in his remembrance, describing Russell as someone he would remember with gratitude and affection for his defence of freedom of expression.
Kart’s connection with Russell goes back more than two decades. Terry Anderson, who succeeded Russell as executive director of Cartoonists Rights, also mentions the organisation’s campaigning on Kart’s case when recalling the work that first brought him into contact with the group.
Support that continued after the award
Malaysian political cartoonist Zunar remembers Russell from one of the most difficult periods of his career.
After Zunar was arrested in 2010 in connection with his book Cartoon-O-Phobia under Malaysia’s Sedition Act, Russell contacted him and asked for a detailed account of the pressure he was facing, including book bans, raids and his arrest. Months later, Russell informed him that he had been selected for the 2011 Courage in Cartooning Award.
According to Zunar’s account, the relationship did not end with the award. Russell continued to contact him, issue statements and write to Malaysian authorities about his treatment.
Nicaraguan cartoonist Pedro X. Molina, recipient of the Courage in Cartooning Award in 2018, also remembered the support he received from Russell and Cartoonists Rights.
“He literally saved the lives of some of us cartoonists.”
Pedro X. Molina
Molina eventually left Nicaragua after escalating threats and a police raid on the offices of Confidencial, where he worked.
How Cartoonists Rights began
Russell was not a professional cartoonist.
In an interview conducted by comics scholar John Lent in the winter of 2017 and published in the International Journal of Comic Art in 2018, Russell explained that his professional background was in international community development. He had worked with nongovernmental organisations and development programmes in Africa, the Middle East, India and Sri Lanka.
While working abroad, he developed a habit of seeking out local political cartoonists. He would meet them, look through their work and ask about their place within newspapers and their communities.
Russell recalled telling a secretary in Nairobi that he was going to lunch with Kenyan cartoonist Gado. Her reaction stayed with him: she told Russell that everyone read Gado because he said things other people were afraid to say.
An encounter in Sri Lanka
One encounter proved particularly important. In 1989, Russell met Sri Lankan cartoonist Jiffry Yoonus, who, according to Russell’s account, had been beaten and stabbed after drawing cartoons about political and financial corruption.
Russell found him at his newspaper with his head bandaged and his arm in a sling. When Russell asked what help he wanted from the international community, Yoonus spoke not about political intervention but about what would happen to his family if he were killed or hospitalised again.
Russell later identified that encounter as the beginning of what he and Yoonus called the Cartoonists Relief Network, a name used during the initiative’s early years from around 1990.
Cartoonists Rights The initiative developed during the 1990s. At the end of 1999, Cartoonists Rights Network International was formally incorporated as a nonprofit organisation in Virginia. Russell went on to lead the organisation for two decades.
From the kitchen table in Virginia
By the time Terry Anderson became involved with Cartoonists Rights in 2015, Russell’s health had deteriorated. Anderson recalls Russell undergoing regular dialysis and losing his sight, while colleagues told him about Russell’s earlier years campaigning for cartoonists and freedom of expression.
Several years later, Anderson sat with Russell and his wife Malie at their kitchen table in Burke, Virginia. Anderson remembers it as the same table where many cartoonists had previously sought Russell’s advice or received support.
It was there, Anderson writes, that Russell asked him to take over his work.
Russell stepped down as executive director in 2019, with Anderson succeeding him. The organisation renamed its Courage in Cartooning Award in Russell’s honour that year.
The Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award
Russell’s name remains attached to the organisation through the Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award.
Since 2022, Cartoonists Rights and the Geneva-based Freedom Cartoonists Foundation have operated an alternating programme of international awards. Cartoonists Rights presents the Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award in odd-numbered years, while Freedom Cartoonists presents the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award in even-numbered years.
The latest Robert Russell Award was presented in 2025 to Turkish cartoonist Zehra Ömeroğlu. The next is scheduled for 2027.
That gives Russell’s story another connection with cartooning in Türkiye. Musa Kart was among the cartoonists whose cases Russell and the organisation supported during his years as executive director; two decades after Kart received the Courage in Cartooning Award, an award bearing Russell’s name went to Ömeroğlu.
The remembrances now being published by Cartoonists Rights record that history through the cartoonists who knew Russell and, in many cases, received his help.
