Ramón Nse Esono Ebalé (born November 22, 1977) is an Equatorial Guinean illustrator and comics artist. He draws under the pseudonym Jamón y Queso ("Ham and Cheese" in Spanish). Ebalé was born in Micomeseng in northern Equatorial Guinea. Mostly self-taught, he also received drawing instruction at Centro cultural de España en Malabo. He has received awards such as the ''Regarde 9'' at the

Angoulême International Comics Festival The Angoulême International Comics Festival (french: Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême) is the second largest comics festival in Europe after the Lucca Comics & Games in Italy, and the third biggest in the world after ...

and from magazine ''Africa and Mediterranean'' at

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

. On the internet, Ebalé worked for the

webzine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer maga ...

''Las Locuras de Jamón y Queso''. He worked on the movie '' Un día vi 10.000 elefantes'' and has been exhibited in Paraguay and El Salvador. In addition to a career as a commercial artist, Ebalé focuses on the deep inequality of Equatorial Guinea and on

Teodoro Obiang Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (; born 5 June 1942) is an Equatoguinean politician and former military officer who has served as the second president of Equatorial Guinea since August 1979. He is the longest-serving president of any country ev ...

, dictator since 1979. Ebalé relocated to Paraguay in 2011. Though his crass style alienated many of his collaborators, he continued to work with a small group of dissidents opposing the government and Obiang. In 2014, with dialogue written by an anonymous collaborator in Malabo, Ebalé drew the graphic novel ''La pesadilla de Obi'' (''Obi's Nightmare''). It was funded by the

Non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...

EGJustice. The book is described as "a satirical day-in-the-life that imagines what it would be like for Obiang himself, accustomed to unbridled control of his country’s economy, to wake up as an unemployed, witless husband in one of Malabo’s dreary slums." Lacking opportunities for legal distribution within Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish edition of book was distributed

sub rosa ''Sub rosa'' (New Latin for "under the rose") denotes secrecy or confidentiality. The rose has an ancient history as a symbol of secrecy. History In Hellenistic and later Roman mythology, roses were associated with secrecy because Cupid ga ...

by individuals. In September 2017, Ebalé was arrested in Malabo and imprisoned at the notorious

Black Beach Black Beach ( es, Playa Negra), located on the island of Bioko, in the capital city of Malabo in Equatorial Guinea, is one of Africa's most notorious prisons. History The prison was built in the 1940s during the time of the Spanish colonial r ...

prison. He was released in March 2018 after a police officer admitted to falsely accusing him based on orders from his superiors. In November 2017,

Cartoonists Rights Network, International Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) is a non-profit organisation created in 1999 in the United States by Dr. Robert "Bro" Russell. It looks to protect the human rights and creative freedom of social and editorial cartoonists An edi ...

gave Ebalé its ''Courage in Editorial Cartooning'' annual award, to draw attention to his imprisonment.

References

{{Authority control 1977 births Living people Equatoguinean activists Equatoguinean artists Comics artists People from Kié-Ntem