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Life has never been smooth for those who mock authority, but today they face a new threat. When a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad in 2005, the public disorder and loss of life which followed were a warning of the tumultuous reactions they can now provoke.

For cartoonists, the event has proved to be a double-edged sword. "People are much more aware of political cartoons now," says Robert Russell, director of the Cartoonists Rights Network International. "But there has been a backlash right up to the level of the United Nations and even the Council of Europe."

There has always been creative tension between cartoonists and those in power, says Russell. "Sometimes we like to say that cartoonists are the canary in the coalmine. We may be the first to feel the little tinglings of repression and censorship in a government that is beginning to fail."

Despite recent events, Russell is an optimist. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, he says: "You can threaten all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't threaten all the people all of the time". Unless, he adds wrily, with the image of another recent Zapiro cartoon in mind, you are Robert Mugabe.