The pen has often proven most potent in graphic portrayals. Especially is this true in less literate societies where the cartoon can carry an even more telling message. Mastery of this talent and its employment to illuminate public issues, however, is an art possessed only by a very few. Their technical skill must be complemented by a special receptivity to the often unvoiced yearnings of their fellow citizens.
PRAYOON demonstrated his talent early; as a schoolboy he could not resist sketching cartoons and comics. When misfortune impoverished the family, he was compelled to leave school and find employment as a mail clerk weighing parcels in a railway station. Although frustrated by the dull routine, this experience of physical drudgery broadened his insights when he later found an opportunity to illustrate stories and write heads on the newspaper Prachamit.
In 1938, at the age of 23, PRAYOON became a full-fledged cartoonist with a comic series in the likay style of Thai folk musical drama. His professional alter ego Suklek, a diminutive elfin character with a jaunty feather in his headband, whom he first popularized as Chantakorob, an epic hero, in time acquired a public personality.
The mark of PRAYOON's stature is his refusal to be content with simply entertaining the public. Rather, conveying an understanding that is more than verbal, he uses his drawings to educate in the most fundamental sense. The issues that become his concern are those affecting every Thai. Seeking to improve the condition of his time, his subjects range from lampooning those who would employ office to further personal power and wealth to supporting the cause of the poor.
In order to retain his independence as a social and political critic, PRAYOON will not accept regular employment as a cartoonist. Instead, he sells his editorial cartoons and comic strips individually. Such major daily newspapers as Thai Rath, Siam Rath and the Bangkok Post, and Krung Thep a news magazine, are regular purchasers of these well-liked features the help build circulation. He takes an intense interest in municipal government and civic programs involving children and, since 1948, has also edited and served as company consultant for the weekly magazine Siam Samai. But time is always set aside for tending the orchids and rabbits he raise among the durian trees in his two-acre orchard where he finds both inspiration and relaxation.
As as independent thinker with humanitarian views, sometime leavened with delightful humor, PRAYOON has adhered to his code of an absolutely free conscience. Avoiding contact with those institutions and individuals he is persuaded do not serve the community good, he has offered Thais and others encouraging reaffirmation that a gifted pen can defend the cause of truth with decency, courage and artistic sensitivity.
In electing PRAYOON CHANYAVONGS to receive the 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognizes his use of pictorial satire and humor for over three decades in unswerving defense of the public interest.
