Stefan Popa Popa's,
humour is a serious matter

    Stefan Popa (also called Popa's, i.e. "halt" - because a cartoonist who pays respect to himself should be called like that as well as otherwise) belongs to the pleiad of Romanian caricaturists who asserted themselves in the past ten years.Considering the Suality of his humour and the number of national and international prizes awarded to him, in such of time that he hardly had enough time to count them, not to speak of winning prizes, Popa would deserve to be known alongside with Romania's most famous drawers.

    Stefan Popa - Popa's is one of the most brilliant 1980 graduates from the Polytechnical University of Timisoara.He is an exemplary engineer and, if he makes cartoons it is probably because he cannot help doing otherwise.
    "Such people who reach the top of artistry ,because hey cannot help it must be esteemed and protected. Under whose protection and defended against what? Of course, defended against the many perking-ones , those people who, though lacking in humour and talent, come in exhibition and some publications with so many clumsy but haughty produtions.

    Stefan Popa - Popa's is not a "humourist" proper. He sees the world this way, and if the world finds this enterprise comic , then is OK. Or, perhaps it is not as his drawings, deep down, contain uncomfortable and grave truths - a hmourist should be concerned with nowadays.
Let us count his 1983 prizes (from the total number of 35 awarded in only five years of sustained activity) so that we may be conviced that Stefan Popa - Popa's a good hand at turning his name into fame: Grand Prix - F.I.A. awarded by UNESCO, Paris, Grad Prix at the World Art and Folklore Festival - Confolens (France), Laureate of the Interational Cortoon Salon - Moscow, "The Golden Apple" Prize at the Humour Festival, Bistrita (Romania), First Prize at the "Milcoviada" Humour Contest - Focsani, Romania.As for the latest prizes, it is enough to mention the Grand Prix, won at the National Humour Festival Vaslui, Romania, to understand that the name Stefan Popa - Popa's must be uttered with the smile of fellow- feeling on one's lips.

    If the relationship cause-effect, there are a lot of exceptions. In many situations the effect precedes the cause, and if we are not aware of that, it is because we have got habit of looking for the thing only in keeping with cause. In Popa's graphic art, there are lots of important and terrible matters which have become what they are because the artist has considered them as such. Our impresion - that something extremly significant is going on in the world of Popa's drawings - is precisely the cause of the fact that in his drawings everything we see is meaningful. In other words, when accustomed to see so many caricaturists, wasting their talent on trifles, our response is excessively appreciative in comingacross the irony present in the graphic art concerned with major matters.

    Such additional regard must determine the artist himself very seriously. And so on and so forth, that nobody knows anymore where exactly the cause came to a stop to make room for the effects. The which is a joke for an ordinary caricaturist, for Popa is a parable.

    A parable is, in fact, a way of bringing in cannons for the sparrows and we have learned that it is no advisable to fire the cannon at sparrows. As there is a great number of people who have regard for this pice of advice, the citizen who fires the cannon when nobody expects that to happen, is finaly taken for one who really knows what he is doing.

    This, in an unbelivably short period of time, making use of the obvious truths at hand, Stefan Popa has become a star in a domain where it is nearly dangerous to be a star. And that holds true as the public has always demanded notable feat from the champions. When Stefan Popa becomes tributary to a style, as all artits do, we shall have got used to love him so much that we shall be tolerant for his repeating himself, and for that his fame would prevent him from renewing his means. When, finally, he gets the last prizes possible - the ones he has not got yet - and when the effect, i.e. fame, comes to perfectly resemble a cause - we shall severly criticize Stefan Popa Popa's.

    As Stefan Popa is so young and his asent as a cartoonist is paved with ideals, we should lay stress on that, owing to him , we discover ideas where we should have never expected to. And we discover them through his eye, slightly tired with the small light, with his imperative and heavy thoughts.

    Let us wish that Stefan Popa (who like Stanescu, is held in respect by many writers) should consolidate his youth and classicize his humour.