Belgian, Ukrainian, Serbian artists win cartoon contest

COPENHAGEN – Artists from Belgium, Ukraine and Serbia have won the Niels Bugge Cartoon Award focusing this year on communication.

Jury chairman Lars Refn says Pieter De Jaegher won 3,000 euros ($3,340) on Saturday for his man sitting under an open umbrella while it rains letters, a nod to Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte.

Ukraine’s Germany-born runner-up Alexandr Pshenyanikov won 2,000 euros for a drawing of a suicide bomber holding a city map and asking for directions on a street corner. Vladan Nikolic from Serbia placed third.

Refn says cartoons are “close to a universal way of communication.”