Kari Suomalainen

A film, Kari ja hänen 9 presidenttiään, was made by documentary filmmaker Juho Gartz in 1994.

Suomalainen and the newspapers editor-in-chief Janne Virkkunen had an quarrel in 1991, after Helsingin Sanomat refused to publish Kari's cartoons criticizing Somali refugees, because they were considered to be too racist. He kept on drawing even after that and his cartoons were published in several minor Finnish newspapers on a more irregular basis.

One cartoon, based on Ilya Repin's painting Barge Haulers on the Volga, created an international hubbub in 1958: Nikita Khrushchev, on the barge pulled by Eastern bloc countries, is shouting "Imperialists!" to the US and UK on the shore.

One of Suomalainen's most favourite characters was Urho Kekkonen, whom he drew as a bald man with an angular chin and huge eyeglasses. When Kekkonen became president in 1956, Suomalainen stopped, for a while, using the character, due to an "unwritten law" forbidding caricaturing the president. Suomalainen published a cartoon of himself weeping at Kekkonen's portrait, saying he "felt like a man who has just lost a gold mine". Later, Suomalainen continued using the Kekkonen character.

In 1950, he gave a proposal to the chief editor of Helsingin Sanomat that he would start drawing daily political cartoons, according to the example of foreign newspapers. Suomalainen's first cartoon appeared in the start of the year 1950, showing an infant boy (the symbol of the New Year) contemplating two toys: a tank and a dove carrying an olive branch. The boy is saying: "Tank... or dove? I want them both!". Suomalainen started drawing daily political cartoons in Helsingin Sanomat in the year 1951, during Juho Kusti Paasikivi's presidency.

Kari Yrjänä Suomalainen (15 October 1920, in Helsinki – 10 August 1999, in Valkeakoski) was Finland's most famous political cartoonist, known as Kari. His cartoons appeared daily in Helsingin Sanomat from 1951 to 1991 and they became popular throughout the nation. While most of them comment on current politics, some are based on everyday life. Suomalainen received many awards for his work, including the National Cartoonist Society (US) award in 1959, Puupäähattu in 1984 and Pro Finlandia in 1989. He was also appointed honorary professor in 1977.