Shujaat Ali, pioneer of the animated news cartoon, dies at 54

Ali died last week after a heart attack while returning home from work, and was buried in Qasimabad in Rawalpindi, the same ground where his parents lie. He was 54. His son-in-law, Waqar Saeed, told the Dawn newspaper that Ali had recently been working with the Pakistan Air Force.

Cartooning was his craft, but the digital era was his opening. Ali is credited with creating the first animated caricatures published online, and he was part of the founding team behind Al Jazeera Arabic's online services, pushing the format to use what the new platform could do. He also drew for a string of outlets in his native Pakistan and abroad, collecting several awards along the way.

Ahmed El Amraoui, an editor at Aljazeera.com, worked alongside him in the site's early days. He called Ali a very talented artist, adding that what set him apart was how far ahead of his time he was.

Awad Joumaa, manager of Digital Programs at Al Jazeera English, said Ali's work looked like nothing a newsroom was used to seeing. He drew everyone from Arafat to George Bush to Osama bin Laden, Joumaa recalled, and took visible pride in the fact that presidents, prime ministers and rebel fighters passing through the newsroom always stopped at the wall where his cartoons hung.

Joumaa placed him in a heavier tradition. He noted that cartoons once made governments and world leaders shake, and pointed to the Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali, who was killed for his work. In that genre, Joumaa said, Shujaat Ali was an incredible voice.

Before digital ink, Ali worked in pencil. He became Pakistan's first court artist, sketching the course of several well-known cases and documenting them in a country where cameras were not always allowed.