After almost two years of being grounded in Malaysia, political cartoonist Zunar is now free to travel abroad after he was taken off the Immigration Department's blacklist.

However, the cartoonist, whose real name is Zulkiflee SM Anwar Ulhaque, said he will continue his legal suit against the Immigration Department, and the previous federal government, over his prior ban.

"Although the travel ban on me has been lifted, I will continue to take legal suit against the old government so that this will not happen again to me as well as other political cartoonists in Malaysia in the future," he told Malaysiakini.

Zulkiflee has been barred from travelling outside Malaysia since June 2016 following an exhibition of his cartoons in Geneve, Switzerland. He was accused of tarnishing the country's image by taking part in the exhibit.

He had filed a challenge on the ban with the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, but his application was dismissed on Nov 2017. He has since filed an appeal with the Federal Court.

Meanwhile, Zunar said the news that he was taken off the immigration blacklist this morning caught him by surprise.

"I was surprised by the good news and didn't expect it to be so quick after the new government came in," he said.

However, he has no plans to travel abroad yet, but does want to continue exhibiting his works in Europe and other countries, as well give talks at universities.

When asked about the future of political cartoonists in Malaysia, Zunar hoped that the new government will give more freedom of speech and space to criticise those in power.

"In the past political cartoonists feared the government so not a lot of people drew...I hope the new government will give more freedom of speech and space to political cartoonists to criticize the government.

"By space, I mean space like galleries, because when there is such space, more young people will want to be political cartoonists," he said.

Besides the prior travel ban, Zunar has had various books published by him seized by the government and his local exhibitions disrupted.

He has also been slapped with nine sedition charges over tweets criticising the judiciary over to the conviction of PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim in March 2015.