According to Ajit Ninan, every newspaper cartoonist has to fight for space and the reader’s attention where editorial matter competes with a cartoon. In the black-and-white era, the cartoonists fell into two schools —

• those who arrest the attention by the use of white in contrast to the grey textual matter and
• those who establish the contrast through the use of black.

Abu, for example, used minimal lines to accentuate the white. American cartoonists tend to favour the heavy use of black. Mario could use both black and white in roughly equal proportions in an illustration to create harmony of clutter. In a party scene, he could accommodate a hundred people without it looking overcrowded. He may put a white-suited man in front of a black-gowned woman, who stands against a white door. Each person and element thus stand out in sharp contrast.