Inkspot #67

President’s Parlay

ACA Board Patron Vane Lindesay (03) 9523 8635 President Jason Chatfield president@cartoonists.org.au Deputy President Jules Faber deputy@cartoonists.org.au Secretary Peter Broelman secretary@cartoonists.org.au Treasurer Grant Brown treasurer@cartoonists.org.au Membership Secretary Grant Brown membership@cartoonists.org.au Vice Presidents: Lindsay Foyle (NSW/ACT) nsw@cartoonists.org.au Luke Watson(Vic/Tas) vic@cartoonists.org.au Gary Clark (Qld) qld@cartoonists.org.au Simon Kneebone (SA/NT) sa@cartoonists.org.au Mick Horne (WA) wa@cartoonists.org.au ABN 19 140 290 841

Inkspot is produced four times a year by the Australian Cartoonists’ Association.

PO Box 318 Strawberry Hills NSW 2012 ACA AFFILIATED ORGANISATIONS National Cartoonists Society President: Tom Richmond Secretary: John Kovaleski www.reuben.org Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain President: Terry Christien Secretary: Richard Tomes www.ccgb.org.uk The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation President: Andy Davey Secretary: Clive Goddard www.procartoonists.org

FECO President-General: Marlene Pohle Secretary-General: Peter Nieuwendijk www.fecoweb.org Australia Post Registration PP 533798/0015

Follow the ACA on twitter: @aucartoonists INKSPOT

Editor: Steve Panozzo Layout/Design: Jason Chatfield Contributors: Christophe Granet, Mick Horne, Rolf Heimann, Jules Faber, Lindsay Foyle, Dave Emerson, George Haddon, Tim McEwen Don Hatcher & Rob Feldman Original Cover drawn by Peter Foster

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ELCOME to the 67th edition of Inkspot! There’s no doubt it’s been a particularly tumultuous time for print, which in turn has meant a tumultuous time for ACA members in the cartooning industry.

Now more than ever, the ACA is the best way to keep in touch with your colleagues in the industry as well as keeping up to date with the rapidly changing climate in which we’re all working. The ACA has grown into an even broader and more valuable resource for artists in Australia over the last decade and continues to thrive with your generous support. Be sure to check with Membership Secretary Grant Brown (left) if you haven’t received your invoice for the 2012/2013 membership year. If you have received it, be sure to get your payments in promptly to ensure you can recieve special member rates at this year’s Stanley Awards in Newcastle on 16th and 17th November.

Another exciting reason to renew your membership is our brand new website, complete with social networking integration, a brand new forum and your own, fully-customisable online portfolio and contact page.

Lee Sheppard and I have put the finishing touches on the site, and I’d like to thank Lee for all his hard work, having volunteered to put the whole site together in his own time. It’s the volunteers that make the ACA strong, and Lee has been working tirelessly on the site which you can all enjoy as of right now. If you didn’t receive your email explaining how to set-up your portfolio/user account, please email secretary@cartoonists.org.au On Friday 6th July, after many months of the committee’s hard work, the members of the ACA unanimously voted in favour of amending the ACA constitution to fit the new model rules and ensure it complies with the law.

More details on the passing of the new constitution are on page 3.

In some exciting news from the US, The ACA’s own Glen LeLievre was nominated for the Newspaper Illustration Category of the 2012 NCS Reuben Awards in Las Vegas, just one year after fellow ACA-er Anton Emdin (you’ve probably never heard of him) was nominated for two categories and walked away with one of them! We Aussies are, as always, punching well

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Flattering Caricature by VIC/TAS Vice President Luke Watson.

Issue #67, Winter 2012 www.cartoonists.org.au ( 1300 658 581

above our weight on the world stage.

You’ll find a full account of the weekend published on pages 8-9.

I would encourage any ACA members interested in the US cartooning industry to get involved with the National Cartoonists’ Society. There is a special discounted membership rate of US$44 p/yr for Australians. Email president@cartoonists.org.au if you’d like to know more.

On a sad note, we learnt in May of the passing of Australian cartooning legend, and a staunch ACA supporter, Monty Wedd.

Editor Steve Panozzo asked the always generous Peter Foster to create a special tribute for the cover of this issue and I think you’ll agree they don’t come much better than this. Thank you Peter.

The Newcastle Stanleys are creeping up fast! Be sure to lock in the weekend of the 16th and 17th of November for one of the best yet.

We have two very special guests coming this year. (over page) Flying in from New York will be MAD Magazine’s Art Director, Sam Viviano and from Melbourne, prolific Australian illustrator, author, writer and animator Alexander Stitt.

The organising committee has just signed off on yet another absolutely unmissable conference line-up!

(Remember, the Stanleys weekend is fully tax deductible!)

As always, a big thanks to the generous team to the bottom left of this page. ‘til next time!

Jason Chatfield

2012 Stanleys Weekend!

The Stanley Awards and Conference are being held in sunny Newcastle on 16th/17th November, and there are plenty of surprises in store!

Be sure to book your accommodation early to avoid disappointment and receive the special Stanleys rate at the Gateway Inn. Call Bookings on (02) 4903 6300 and speak to Jill Rye or Teneale Ryan. To receive the special ACA rates, quote the code:

“Stanley Awards Group.”

NOTE: All rooms are opened back up to the public two weeks out from the event, so don’t leave it to the last minute.

Be sure to book your accommodation now, and save money. See you at the Stanleys!

Book your room now on (02) 4903 6300.

For more info on the Gateway Inn, visit www.gatewayinn.net.au

New Constitution.

The Australian Cartoonists Association has a new constitution as a result of the postal ballot of full members.

One of the tables of attendees at the President’s Night in NSW L-R: Michael Smetham, Emily Blackman, Peter McAdam, Peter Broelman, Mari Fletcher, Jason Chatfield, Roger Fletcher, Jan Andrews, Hazel Daniel, Vane Lindesay and Lindsay Foyle.

Returning Officer Roger Fletcher declared the ballot, which was announced by Chairman Jason Chatfield at the Special Meeting in Sydney on Friday 6th July 2012.

The result was 61 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative.

There were no informal votes.

A big thank you to all those who voted and to those who attended the Special Meeting and subsequent President’s Dinner. A fun night was had by all!

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Cartoon of the “Three of a Kind Night “by Dave ‘Emo’ Emerson

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A TRIPLE-HEADER NSW/ACT

Frendz Community Gallery can contact kerry@kerrythompsonsgallery.com ___________________________________________

GREATEST SHOW IN GALAXY NSW/ACT

How many caricaturists does it take to draw for 8 to 10 hours per day for 14 days straight? The answer is 6.

At least, that’s what Steve Panozzo, Tony Kentuck, Stanley Toohey, Peter Byrne, Daniela Vittz and Graeme Biddle did during April at the Royal Easter

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FRENDZ ON SHOW NSW/ACT

The quiet leafy Sydney suburb of Lindfield woke up on 19th April to the quiet nods of approval, whispered conversations over steaming coffee and the occasional belly-laugh from those attending Cartoonists on Canvas at Frendz Community Gallery. The group show featured a range of works from ACA members Lindsay Foyle, Kerry Millard, Steve Panozzo and Sturt Krygsman. Anyone interested in booking exhibition space at

Lindsay Foyle tries out for the Village People

Kerry Thompson invents a carbon-neutral iPod

The future is here! Steve Panozzo’s digital sketch

The first ACA event on the NSW/ACT calendar kicked off in March, with a Three-of-a-Kind evening at the Terrey Hills Tavern in Sydney. The stalwart and ever-reliable Roger Fletcher spearheaded the get-together, which featured Mark McHugh, the muchrevered Patrick Cook and 2011’s Cartoonist of the Year, Anton Emdin, as guest speakers.

Despite stiff opposition from a raucous birthday celebration nearby and the amplified warbling of the pub’s resident guitarist, each guest bravely chatted about their respective careers. Emdin was generous in his praise for the cartoonists who had influenced him, McHugh navigated the dichotomy between cartooning and pharmacy and Cook revealed some little-known facts about his family’s artistic heritage. This revelation certainly surprised NSW/ACT Vice President Lindsay Foyle, despite knowing the Walkley Award-winner for many years.

Show in Sydney. As part of a rather spectacular launch for the new Galaxy Note (a phone and tablet in one, above), Samsung decided (wisely) that having some cartoonists draw caricatures on the new device might be a great way of demonstrating its abilities.

Attracting incredibly long queues of people, the cartoonists pushed hard to get through the throng whilst grappling with a very new device, drawing A6 caricatures with a stylus pen and working around the occasional technical hitch.

The client required three artists to be “on the floor” at all times, working to a necessarily finely-tuned roster. The gargantuan effort proved worthwhile, however - the stand won the gold award for the Home, Garden and Lifestyle pavilion and also the overall Best In Show! __________________________________________

WATERCOLOUR EVERYWHERE AND NOT A HOOK IN SIGHT! VIC/TAS

After all those years constrained to black and white, Geoff Hook has burst into colour. These days he is a very enthusiastic and exceptional watercolour artist 4

Inkspot #67 | Send your news to inkspot@cartoonists.org.au

George Haddon

and has exhibited widely in regional art shows and galleries in Australia, with several solo exhibitions to his credit.

The Watercolour Society of Australia, of which “Jeff” and George Haddon are both members, recently devoted one of their monthly newsletter’s 16 pages to honour Hook following his recent OAM award. The editor, aware that the two have been colleagues for a very long time, asked Haddon if he would like to contribute to the page. He didn’t have to be asked twice and produced a pretty cool cartoon to boot... and here it is (right). Thanks for sharing, George! __________________________________________

A MOTHER OF A BOOK VIC/TAS

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FREO’S FOLEY FLYING HIGH ON CRYSTAL KITE WA

Jim Woodring and Andrew Weldon

Huge congratulations to James Foley and his literary collaborator, Norman Jorgensen. The dynamic duo have taken out the 2012 Crystal Kite Award for Australia/New Zealand for their pretty damn awesome picture book, The Last Viking, published by Fremantle Press.

The Crystal Kites are a coveted ‘Member-choice’ award, voted on by writer and illustrator colleagues, presented by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Foley will collect the award itself at a ceremony in Sydney at the end of June. Keep an eye out for James’ new book, In The Lion due for release on 1st August this year. Great work all round James!

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WELDON VS WOODRING VIC/TAS

Melbourne’s Andrew Weldon has released a short film of his time at the Melbourne Writers Festival, interviewing US artist Jim Woodring. The video, produced over several sessions during the Festival, is available to view on Youtube. Visit the ACA Blog or Search YouTube.com for “Andrew Weldon Jim Woodring”. It’s well worth a watch! _____________________________________

FOSTERING IN A NEW AGE

not Peter. He’s made full use of the computer’s possibilities by also translating dark areas, where appropriate, into dramatic colour, thus enhancing the chiaroscuro of which he was always a master. The colours are of such clarity and luminosity as could not have been achieved in the old days of dot-etching.

The two books published through Pikitia Press are Ballantyne – Where Hidden Rivers Flow (with James H Kemsley) and The Return of the Night Eagle. He has done an excellent job.

VIC/TAS

For an artist who has spent a lifetime honing his skills of traditional draughtsmanship with pen and ink, Peter Foster has taken to his computer like a duck to water. When faced with the task of colouring his old black and white comics for high quality reprints, a lesser artist may have been satisfied with simply putting some airbrushing into the white areas, but

Peter Foster’s “Ballantyne” in full colour!

Having just stepped off a plane from Bologna (as you do), Judy Horacek went straight into a round of launches for her new book, The Night Before Mother’s Day, which was co-created with author Doug McLeod.

In other news, Horacek has finished all her artwork for her other new book, this time with Mem Fox, Good Night, Sleep Tight. It will be published by Scholastic and released in October.

Visit our new website | www.cartoonists.org.au

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PASSING THE BATTEN TO THE NEXT GENERATION

and Culture award at the inaugural West Australian of the Year Awards at a glittering ceremony at the Burswood Entertainment Complex On 2nd June.

More than 500 people gathered to celebrate the State’s highest honour. __________________________________________

PIDGEON RECOUPS ATTENTION NSW/ACT

It’s a little unbelievable that it took until May this year for the first retrospective exhibition of Bill (WEP) Pidgeon’s oil

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ALSTON BEST IN THE WEST WA

The West Australian’s cartoonist, Stanley Award Winner and social commentator Dean Alston was awarded the Arts 6

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paintings, watercolours and cartoons to be unveiled. Curated by WEP’s son, Peter Pidgeon, the show ran throughout May at Artarmon Galleries in Sydney.

On hand to help launch the show was Tony Rafty, a close friend who served as a fellow war artist. WEP’s comic strip, In and Out of Society, ran in The Australian Women’s Weekly from 1933 until the 1970s. A serial Archibald Prize finalist, he spent some time in his 60s working as a political cartoonist at The Sunday Telegraph as well as being a respected art critic. He passed away in 1981. Below are two examples of his work with his son, Andrew Pidgeon.

WEP’s son, Peter Pidgeon with portraits of his mum and dad.

Theo Batten was a raconteur, frustrated crooner, world traveller and a bon vivant who famously warbled his way through a classic Sinatra tune at the 1985 Stanley Awards whilst collecting Eric Jolliffe’s Single Gag award.

He was also an ace journalist, cartoonist, painter, illustrator, poet, trained at the National Art School and earned himself a Walkley Award in 1972 for “Best Illustration”. Among Theo’s success stories was the comic strip, Lucky Cat, which ran in The Sun Herald for many years.

As well as the ACA, Batten also belonged to various art societies and was an esteeemed member of the Manly Art Gallery & Museum in Sydney. When he passed away in 2003, $720,000 of Batten’s estate was invested to create the Theo Batten Youth Art Award and to further develop the Gallery’s significant collection. In recognition of Batten’s outstanding generosity, the largest of the Gallery’s spaces is named in his honour.

The Theo Batten Youth Art Award is presented annually to an outstanding emerging young artist from Sydney’s northern beaches. The winner is drawn from the Express Yourself exhibition, which was held at the Gallery during March/April. The exhibition features works from over 30 students from 16 secondary schools.

The winner of the 2012 Theo Batten Youth Art Award for a student intending to pursue art education is Arquette Cooke from Killarney Heights High with a mixed media installation entitled For the Fallen. Cooke received a cheque for a cool $5,000. We’re sure Theo would have been proud.

Theo Batten

NSW/ACT

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BUNKER’S BONKERS BIRD

WINDOW ON WORLDLY WOMEN A WINNER NSW/ACT

The Bunker Cartoon Gallery hosted the inaugural Women on the World (WoW) Cartoon Competition in March featuring over 393 entries from 110 cartoonists in 41 countries.

“It was a real good shot in the arm for the Bunker and I think it achieved what I wanted to achieve, which was for the Bunker to be seen to be doing something new and innovative” said The Bunker’s Fran Stephenson.

Among those in attendance on opening night were ACA Deputy President Jules Faber, Dee Texidor, Chris Barr and Jane Harty.

First prize went to Sepideh Anjomrooz from Iran for her cartoon, ‘The Kiss’. The second and third placegetters were both from Australia, Nicola Milan with ‘Glass Ceiling’ and Elena Ventura for ‘Wishing’. Read more on Page 21. >

Many colourful creations with Micador products

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casting Corporation (ABC) and Micador. Its aim was to bring illustrators together to create pictures; to work, play and learn from each other and then auction the art they create to raise funds for the ILF. All artist members of the ASA were invited to each event, which ran in dedicated ABC venues around Australia.

The initiative was designed on the original Micador Make Art Different (MAD) Box challenge, which challenges artists to think differently and work with materials they wouldn’t normally be exposed to. For the ASA it’s about a creative opportunity for illustrators. During the One Word, One Day event, artists are given a single word, a choice of materials and one day to create one or two original works.

Several ACA members around the country including ACA President Jason Chatfield (VIC), Jo Brooker (QLD), Christopher Downes (TAS), James Foley (WA), and more took part in the event, which was a great success.

Academy Award-winning artist Shaun Tan at Melbourne’s ‘One Word One Day’

All this talk of Coffs Harbour’s Sesquicentennial Year in 2011 and we forgot to mention Hec Goodall’s remarkable contribution to the festivities. Namely a papier- maché kookaburra.

We know you’re all scratching your heads thinking ‘Surely Hec would have constructed a giant dolphin?’ But no.

Hec’s contribution was a giant version of ACA member Dee Texidor’s design for the Bunker Cartoon Gallery’s mascot (complete with flapping wings, blinking eyes and an opening and closing beak. operated with a pedal mechanism inside), which featured on the Gallery’s float during the street parade in November.

“While I would have preferred to have built a dolphin, I copped the task of constructing a large, mechanical replica of the comical kookaburra” he says.

Hec Goodall with his creation based on Dee Texidor’s cartoon logo

NSW/ACT

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ONE WORD, ONE DAY, HEAPS OF CARTOONISTS NSW/ACT

Artists all over Australia were invited to take part in One Word, One Day, an exciting art event which is a collaboration between the Australian Society of Authors (ASA), Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF), Australian BroadVisit our new website | www.cartoonists.org.au

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Fear and Le Lievre in Las Vegas Another ACA member nominated at the NCS Reuben Awards

by Jason Chatfield

I

f anyone can do awards ceremonies, it’s the Americans, and boy did they put on an incredible show at the 2012 NCS Reuben Awards Weekend.

If you’ve never heard of the National Cartoonists’ Society (NCS) or the Reubens, it’s simplest to just say, they’re the ACA’s bigger, shinier cousins across the pond. And they love Australians.

The Australian presence at the Reubens was forged in stone for many years

by ACA stalwarts like Jim Russell and James Kemsley, along with semi-regulars like Peter Broelman, Luke Watson, Gary Clark, Steve Panozzo and a similar swag of nefarious reprobates still wanted in several US states for various crimes.

Needless to say, I’ve had some shoes to fill in my last three visits to the Reubens.

This year was no exception.

In 2011, Australia saw its first Reuben Division winner in Anton Emdin, who pipped his US counterparts in taking out the very competitive Magazine Feature/

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Magazine Illustration Reuben Category.

That was after being nominated for a second category in Advertising Illustration. The yanks promptly sat up and asked “Where the hell did this guy come from?” Little did they know there was plenty more talent coming from Down Under!

For the best part of the last decade, Aussie Glen Le Lievre lived in New York, working for an impressive swag of prestigious publications including the New Yorker, Playboy and MAD Magazine. He moved back to Sydney in 2009 but continued churning out his world-class gag cartoons and a stellar comic strip called Yes Man. His work runs in the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun Herald weekly, and still appears in MAD on a regular basis in the Fundalini pages (don’t worry, I’ll be asking him for an agent’s fee for puffing him up like this).

A matter of weeks before the Reubens were due to kick off in Vegas,

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Glen received the news that he had been nominated for the Newspaper Illustration Reuben category. Not a lot of time to book travel and accommodation, but enough time to get there and back before Qantas reduced its fleet to a bit of wood.

I was already headed to the US for my honeymoon in June, so asked my better half if she’d mind us lassoing the Reubens into the trip. I know, I’m an old romantic.

We arrived in time for day one of the two-day conference at the Green Valley Ranch Resort, which looked more like an Australian city than a hotel. I eventually found my way to the registration desk after asking Burke and Wills for directions. The first session featured cartoonist Mark Simon talking about how he got more than $1 Million in free advertising by chasing news stories and keeping upto-the-minute with cartoon-related media. He’d find a tie-in and call up the paper/TV station/website to pitch a story to

recorded video.

Stan’s talk was followed by Garfield creator Jim Davis talking us through his entire history of the fat orange cat who has an endless penchant for sleeping and lasagne. It was actually a fascinating story, made more interesting by the revelation that Charles “Sparky” Schulz was the one who drew Garfield standing up on two legs, leading to a boom in the strip’s success and appeal.

I spoke with Davis and found out he’s a massive fan of Murray Ball’s Footrot Flats. He insisted it was Australian.

I gulped hard and said “Well... it’s Australian like Russell Crowe’s Australian.”

He didn’t get it. We moved on.

The big night crept up very quickly, and it wasn’t long before it was time to don tux and start praying to the cartoon-

“At one stage I witnessed something I can never un-see, as Cathy Guisewite sang an impromptu duet with an Elvis impersonator...” _____________________

ing gods for Mr Le Lievre. He’d floated a long way over the ocean on a bit of wood to get here, and we were damn well hoping he’d be coming home with a Reubenshaped paddle.

The usual charm and ceremony with all the hallmarks of a Las Vegas show carried the night along at a steady pace.

At one stage I witnessed something I can never un-see, as Cathy Guisewite (Cathy) sang an impromptu duet with an Elvis impersonator to a confused but polite audience.

Then it was time for Glen’s big moment! We all crossed our drawing fingers and gritted our teeth, but alas, the award went to a bloke by the name of Rob Rich.

Glen wished that Rob got Glenned, but alas Glen got Robbed.

A very worthy recipient on the evening was ex-NCS President and good

Jack Davis asks Chatfield if he took the stem off his glass.

them. It was an interesting talk, but Mark has more charisma than Tony Robbins.

Thus, it seemed a skill that would be applicable to a small percentage of studiodwellers, nonetheless, an interesting take on ways to take advantage of new media as a freelancer.

Previous Stanleys guest Michael Jantze (The Norm), along with Dave Kellett (Sheldon) and John Lotshaw (Accidental Centaurs) gave a compelling talk on the future of earning a living as a cartoonist- How to embrace a balanced creative and business life amid new media and new income streams. Invaluable information for any freelance cartoonists making their living in the industry today.

These guys are right on the money more often than any other artists predicting ‘where the industry is going’.

6:30 sped around as Sophie and I rolled groggily downstairs to the Reuben Weekend Welcome Party by the pool.

Due to Sunday’s special event celebrating 60 years of MAD Magazine, every one of the Usual Gang of Idiots (sans Mort Drucker) were down there, just swanning around like regular humans.

I subtly took a moment to step aside and squeal deeply into a pillow before introducing myself to Jack Davis, one of the most influential artists of the last century, and the reason Anton Emdin was back home chewing through his lip for not being at there this year. (I got Jack to draw something and make it out to Anton. Unfortunately he misheard me and made it out to Antony. Anton is in the process of legally changing his name.)

The night finished up with the traditional karaoké finalé with the giants of the industry, and all the usual suspects jumping up to stage what looked like an all-cartoonist special episode of The Voice. I withheld from karaoké, not wanting to make an idiot of myself. There was plenty of time for that.

The next day was Stan Goldberg’s (Archie/Marvel) talk on his career- the one the conference delegates were treated to in 2010 at the Stanleys in Melbourne.

Stan was to be awarded the Gold Key Award (NCS Hall of Fame) at the Reubens that night. A week later I had lunch with him at the Society of Illustrators in New York to learn more about his work with Stan Lee at Marvel, and his experiences working in the golden age of comics in Manhattan. His career is something of legend, and anyone who got the chance to meet him in Melbourne would know what a modest, quietly spoken man he is. As it happened, Stan Lee delivered a surprise speech for him on the night via

friend of many Aussie cartoonists, Steve McGarry. Steve was awarded the silver T-Square for outstanding service and dedication to the NCS. In accepting the heavy steel T-Square from long-time friend Rick Stromoski, McGarry remarked in his unmistakable Manchester accent “As you lot might know, Stromoski and I used to have a comic strip together, so it wouldn’t be any surprise to you that I’m already used to carrying a dead weight.”

The winner of the big ticket award of the night, The Reuben, went to ACA member and NCS President Tom Richmond. Tom accepted the award in his modest, bashful manner before hosting one hell of an after-party at the hotel, then at his presidential suite upstairs until sunrise. Many strong lemonades were consumed.

The Sunday afternoon saw many sore-headed cartoonists attend the 60 Years of MAD talk, hosted by the very charismatic Sam Viviano and Nick Meglin. Sitting alongside them were Sergio Aragones, Jack Davis, Don “Duck” Edwing, Al Jaffee, Ray Alma and Tom Richmond. Sadly Mort Drucker was unable to make the talk, but was mentioned more than a few times as an essential part of MAD’s history.

At one point, Meglin noted “Sergio and I have always been very close. He’s the father of both of my children!” at which point his actual daughter, Diane, jumped up in the crowd and cried in Spanish “Just tell me! Who is my papa?!”

It was an unforgettable, hilarious talk and I can now reveal we’ll be treated to it this November by Sam Viviano at the 2012 Stanleys in Newcastle!

Jason Chatfield is a freelance editorial cartoonist and writer/ artist for Ginger Meggs. He is the current President of the ACA.

Visit our new website | www.cartoonists.org.au

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Zen Pencils: Internet Success In February this year, Melbourne cartoonist Gavin Aung Than took a leap of faith and threw in his job to start a project adapting famous quotes to comic illustrations online. He called the project Zen Pencils.

Within a month the project had gone viral, appearing on the front page of Reddit, a feature by The Washington Post and Twitter endorsements by heavyweight comic writers and artists like Scott McCloud, Lea Woodward, Chris Guillebeau and Hugh Macleod.

ACA President Jason Chatfield asked Gavin about the project’s origins and rapid success online.

______________________ Where would people have seen your work before now?

I have had two comic strips published in the past. Dan and Pete was a weekly strip featured in The Sunday Times (Perth) for over 5 years and Boys Will Be Boys was a strip published in mX (Melb, Syd, Bris) for just over 3 years.

Why did you decide to retire your print comic strips Dan and Pete and Boys Will Be Boys?

I was working a full-time graphic design job while producing those two comics in my spare time. They had become something of a burden and I wasn’t deriving much joy from cartooning anymore. I realised that my dream of becoming the next Bill Watterson wasn’t happening anytime soon so I decided to retire both strips, take a break from cartooning and try to come up with a new idea.

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for Young Melbourne Cartoonist.

Where did the inspiration from this new project come from?

I was miserable at work and I was trying to think of what my dream job would be.

It would somehow combine all of the things I love: cartooning, comic books, design, history, science, literature, pop-culture and blogging.

I spent weeks thinking about it and eventually thought why not adapt historical quotes into comics and make it available as a blog?

I had the lofty goal of trying to make cartoons that inspire others and were aimed at adults instead of thinking of a boob joke every week, which is what I did in my previous strips.

What setup was involved, technically and lifestyle-wise?

Webcomics are great because it’s easy to make your work immediately available to the whole world. I had made both my former comics available free online as webcomics so I already knew how to use WordPress (blogging software) and ComicPress (WordPress theme specifically for publishing webcomics). It’s quite simple to learn the basics and besides web-hosting costs, all of the software is free.

Lifestyle-wise, I quit my full-time job and decided to focus on Zen Pencils for six months.

Why do you think people have resonated so deeply with Zen Pencils?

Everyone loves inspirational quotes and I guess I’m just giving them a unique twist. I don’t think readers have seen quotes or comics presented in this way before and people are always ready to respond to something new.

What advice would you give to anyone wanting to start their own webcomic?

First of all, try to think of something new and original. There are a bazillion webcomics online and 95% of them aren’t very good to be honest. Read some tutorials on how to set up web hosting with WordPress (Google: How to host your own webcomic). Have a good number of strips done in advance before you start publishing because there’s nothing worse than sporadic and unreliable updates -and make sure your site doesn’t look amateurish. Either spend a lot of time on your site’s appearance or hire a designer to help. There’s a devoted webcomic community so there’s plenty of information out there if you get stuck.

Visit the site at: www.zenpencils.com

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CHRISTOPHE’S COLIN WILSON

by Christophe Granet SAUTé It was my great pleasure to speak with New Zealand-born Colin Wilson - an amazing artist whose drawings always captivated me when I was growing up in France reading Bande Dessinees. ________________________

Q: You were born in New Zealand, I believe in Christchurch. Can you tell us a bit about your upbringing in New Zealand and how you got started as a cartoonist/illustrator? Were your parents artistic?

A: Middle class would be an accurate description of my family life in New Zealand. While I didn’t come from an “artistic’ family - my father was an engineer, which maybe explains my ability to draw mechanical stuff! - I was lucky enough to have parents that encouraged me to draw from a very early age. Which is something I’ve always done. After high school, I lasted a couple of years at Ilam before giving up on getting a Dip Arts degree, as I wasn’t really learning anything that I was interested in doing. I was already working part-time at the (then) local TV station CHTV3 as a Graphic Artist, and I figured that I’d have a lot more fun working commercially than goofing off at Art School. Back in those days all on-screen TV graphics were hand done, 12

and so it was a great education in caption cards, illustration, and letraset.

Does anyone even remember Letraset?

At the time I was also very interested in Photography, especially motorsport photography, and eventually worked my way into a couple of years earning my living as a motorsport journalist/ photographer.

Q: In the 1980s, you moved to the UK, then France. Was this move self-imposed to seek work overseas or were you head-hunted by the European publishers?

A: By 1980 I was based in Auckland, and working as a self-employed illustrator. A couple of years earlier I had started my own comics fanzine Strips, and while this had led to several comic-related illustration jobs in NZ, I still had never expected I could possibly earn a living as a comic artist. I was living in a squat in London with about 10 quid to my name, when a comic artist friend dragged me over

Inkspot #67 | Send your news to inkspot@cartoonists.org.au

to the IPC Building and introduced me to 2000AD. I was stunned to learn that maybe I could earn some money drawing comics. It took a while, but the editor at 2000AD eventually asked me to produce a Judge Dredd story as another artist had fallen sick and couldn’t deliver, I could, and the office must have liked what they saw. Regular 2000AD work followed. It was an exciting time, the weekly had a bunch of great artists working for them at that time, the iconoclastic humour of the mag really appealed to me, and I had a ball for the next couple of years drawing Dredd, Rogue Trooper, and a bunch of other stuff.

Q: I have the three volumes of “Dans l’ombre du soleil”. You wrote and illustrated this science fiction story.

Can you tell us a bit about how it came about?

A: While most of the other artists I was working with at 2000AD looked more towards working for the big US Comic

publishers, my interest was in European comics. Back in New Zealand I had discovered some of the amazing material being produced there in the late ‘70’s - Metal Hurlant, Moebius, Hugo Pratt, Hermann, A Suivre etc - and so it was inevitable that I would head across The Channel at some stage. My then girlfriend (now wife) Janet and I lucked into getting the use of a small apartment in Paris, we both went down to Angouleme (the huge annual Comic Festival in the centre of France) that year, and decided to try our luck finding a French Editor to work with. By that time I was interested in more personal, author-owned comic work, and it was a steep learning curve for us dragging ourselves around all the various comic publishers in Paris, but within a year or so I had signed my first contract with Glenat for “Dans l’Ombre du Soleil”.

Q: Are you actually fluent in French and did you write the “Dand l’Ombre du Soleil” in French?

A: These days my French is OK, but back at the time that I wrote the story, there was no way that I could have written the script in French. Just getting it translated was a real nightmare, and I quickly discovered just how complicated the whole translation thing can get. Do you go for a word-for-word translation, or is the feel and intention of the original script more important? Can these two approaches work together? Looking back now, I see just how under-written the script was, and despite the occasional desire to write something again, I’m not really sure if I’ve got the chops for it. Having worked with some of the best comic writers in the business over the last few years, I’ve also come to understand just how important a good script actually is, and just how hard it is to write one...

When I first started drawing comics stories I focused completely on the visual, and only gradually I’ve come to understand that the writing is the core of a good comic story and the art should service the needs of the story.

OK, occasionally this can work the other way around, but a good comic story always starts with a good script, and the art can then augment and build on this central core.

Q: Have you written and illustrated other series’?

A: In France I quickly learned that while I was really interested in writ-

ing my own stories, with all the difficulties of getting these translated, it was probably best to work with professional comics writers and concentrate on what I was best at - the art. And then Blueberry came along, and with the chance of working with my all-time favourite artist Jean Giraud on that series, my own story ideas were quickly put back into the drawer.

Q: You were one of the artists for “Young Blueberry”, a spin-off series based on a character originally created by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud (aka Moebius). Can you tell us how you came to draw Blueberry?

A: A mutual friend had run some of my early “Dans l’Ombre du Soleil” art past Giraud, and quite by chance Charlier and Giraud were looking for an artist to take on and ‘regularise’ their Blueberry spin-off series “La Jeunesse”.

They had produced several short Blueberry stories for the weekly magazine Pilote in the 70’s to bridge the gaps between the publication of the regular series, and with Giraud about to move to live in Tahiti (!), these gaps between books risked becoming longer and longer. Someone had the bright idea of gathering the earlier “La Jeunesse” short stories into books, call it a series, and I was lucky enough to be asked to continue producing full-length “La Jeunesse de Blueberry” books with regular writer Jean-Michel Charlier.

Q: Blueberry and Young Blueberry were very popular when I was growing up. Why did you stop after 6 albums?

A: While I was a big fan of the series, I had no idea of just how huge Blueberry really was in France at the time. It was

a wonderful opportunity for me, with the added benefit that I could finally resolve my work permit problems, something that had dogged me since arriving in the UK in 1980. But when Jean-Michel Charlier suddenly died in ‘89, working on “La Jeunesse” quickly became a lot more complicated. And despite adoring the country, by ‘95 I was unhappy with our whole situation living and working in France. We needed a less-dramatic lifestyle, Australia looked like fun, and so in ‘96 we moved back to this part of the world.

Q: What are your current BD-projects for the different European publishers?

A: At the time of our move to Melbourne, I had a big western book to illustrate for Editore Sergio Bonelli in Italy - “Tex” - but without “La Jeunesse de Blueberry” I figured that my European days were over. Little did I realise that with the growth of the Internet, distance was no longer the problem that it once was, and I can now produce work for publishers anywhere in the world while living here in Melbourne.

In the early ‘90’s, I produced a three book series for Casterman in France (“Du Plomb Dans La Tete” - written by Matz), and last year, I illustrated a oneoff book for Delcourt for series Jour J. Currently I am doing a second book for this same series, to be followed by another book for Dargaud, which I am not supposed to be talking about yet. This book - for a hugely popular French series - will see publication in 2013.

Q: You have been very active for US publishers. Can you let our readers know about the projects you have worked on and are currently working on?

Visit our new website | www.cartoonists.org.au

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A: I had always believed that my biggest problem(s) working for US comic publishers would be (1) I have no interest in Superhero comics, and (2) it is impossible for me to produce work at the speed usually required by their regular monthly publishing schedule. Luckily I’ve been offered work by editors there that are willing to work around these limitations, and over the last few years I’ve been able to work with Wildstorm (“Point Blank”, with Ed Brubaker), Dark Horse (several Star Wars projects, including “Invasion”, written by fellow Melbournite Tom Taylor), DC Comics (“Gears of War”, with Karen Travis) and IDW (a recent “Rocketeer” short story, also written by Tom Taylor).

Q: A traditional BD is typically 44 pages long, sometimes up to 60 pages. How long would one album take you to draw? What size do you draw at?

A: At the time that I was working in France, my page rate was painfully slow. I’d be given a page of original Blueberry art by Giraud when we first met, it was much larger than I had been drawing my own pages, and so I decided to try working at that size myself. Wonderful looking original art, but pages that large take ages to finish, especially as I used to anguish over every little detail. Each book - usually 48-54 page at the time, took me about a year to complete. Well, not strictly accurate, because with the release of each new book I tended to take some time off to recuperate, do some book signing, attend some comic festivals etc, - a wonderful way to see a bit of the rest of France. Also there was often a long break between scripts arriving from Jean-Michel Charlier as well, but as Blueberry was perhaps the biggest selling of the five or six series that he was writing at the time, I was luckier than some of his other stable of artists. But on average in Europe I was only producing one book a year.

Q: Do you still have the page of original Blueberry art by Giraud? If yes, how big is it physically and how much do you think it would be worth?

A: Yes, I still have that original page of Blueberry art. I have no idea what it might be worth, and in a sense, I don’t really care. I’ve managed to build up a small selection of original art over the last few years, but I don’t ‘collect’ art in that sense… I don’t even ‘collect’ comics. But my Blueberry page (455mm x 595mm) and one or two other small Giraud pieces that I have, are very special to me, and I treasure them dearly.

Q: Working concurrently on projects for US and European publishers, do 14

you find differences in the way the publishers negotiate contracts with their artists?

A: European publishers are very well organised compared to their American counterparts, and this comes from the very different ways that comics are published over there. An author usually proposes a project to a European publisher, and if they take on the series, they will expect the author(s) to produce the first three to five books in the contract as soon as possible. A book a year is probably too long between titles these days, but they understand

“Looking back now, I see just how underwritten the script was, and despite the occasional desire to write something again, I’m not really sure if I’ve got the chops for it.” _____________________

that as the authors still actually own the rights to their creations, authors can’t be expected to just churn out the work as fast as possible. Working for the States, most authors discover very quickly that they are just one small cog in a very large operation, which they control. You work for hire, are usually offered a contract for a specific amount of work, and all the advantages are with the publishers. Unless you are very well-known and have leverage in the industry, there’s very little room to negotiate any of the details in each contract. At least this has been my experience dealing with the 4 major US Comic Publishers I have worked with. If you can do the work, you sign.

If not, then the publisher knows that there are plenty of other authors out there that will.

Author-driven projects are becoming increasingly rare in the States, at least with the big four. Most US comic publishers are really only servicing their franchise characters and series anyway, and they retain control of almost everything involved. They own ‘em, they control ‘em. I don’t even bother to read those work-for-hire contracts these days. If an editor is offering me work, they already know my stuff, my speed of delivery, and the fact that I have no interest in working with a separate inker. We talk those types of details over in advance, and if we can work together, they will then send me a contract to sign. Big named authors

Inkspot #67 | Send your news to inkspot@cartoonists.org.au

no doubt are allowed a lot more freedom to work on content of their own choice, but almost invariable the IP ownership of most work published by the big four US comic publishers is retained by the publishers.

Q: What would be an average royalty percentage the artist receives from a book sold? 10% or so?

A: I have no idea, because as I mentioned, I rarely read contracts these days anyway. As authors, we work for a page rate, which officially is now considered an advance on future royalties of your sales. Unless you are working for a title that sees huge numbers - a rarity these days as US comic sales are a shadow of the sales seen even 20 years ago - an author is unlikely to EVER see royalty cheques over and above the repayment of their original pages rate ‘advance’.

Q: How often do you need to have face-to-face meetings with your publishers or the writers of the different stories you are working on?

A: Thanks to the internet, face-to-face contact is never actually a requirement these days, but I still prefer to get to know the people that I am working with. That’s why I usually still try to get over to one of the big Comic Cons like Angouleme in France, or the San Diego Comic Con, once every couple of years. These big events can get pretty exhausting. They are a hell of a lot of work, but an ideal opportunity to meet your editors, talk to the fans, and hustle for more work.

Q: You attend some conferences, festivals and book signings. How many do you attend per year on average and are these events very different in Europe and the US? A: One year back in France I actually did a count-back on just how many book signing days I had done that year, and felt that 38 was probably just a little too many! But this sort of thing is important promotional work over there, and you are promoting yourself as well as your work while signing in bookshops and at comic festivals in Europe. For the last few years I have been working mainly for the States and San Diego is the big one to concentrate on over there, although the NYCC, being more exclusively devoted to comics, has begun to look more and more appealing too. Here in Australia we now also have a huge choice of media events such as Supanova and Armageddon events in all the main cities. I usually try to get to four of five of these each year as well now too.

Q: Do you like the contact with the

public and do you receive a lot of fanmail?

A: These days, not as much as I used to, due mainly to the fact that I now try and keep a very low profile on the internet. I also now have an art agent (Royd Burgoyne roadster@yahoo.com) who looks after all my original art sales and commissions, and the fans usually have the opportunity to chat with me at these various Comic Cons I attend. I’d enjoy having the time for more interaction with our readers, but given my workload over the last few years, I just don’t have the spare time.

Q: The film-rights for one of your BD series, “Du plomb dans la tete” (headshot), is rumoured to have been bought by Hollywood. What are the latest news on this and have film-rights on other projects been purchased?

A: It will be titled “Bullet To The Head” in English, and is now in post-production after shooting started in New Orleans in early July. I’m quite excited

about this one, as the film stars Sylvester Stallone, Jason Momoa and Christian Slater, and is scheduled for release in 2012.

Q: Are many of your BD series available in the English language?

A: Of the 15 or 16 books that I have had published in France, only “Du Plomb Dans la Tete” has so far been published in English. Dynamite Entertainment began publishing “Bullet To The Head” as a six-issue monthly series late last year, and then as a collected trade paperback in 2012.

Q: Over the span of your career, what award(s) have you won?

A: I have no idea! Although I can understand why the comics industry needs awards, I’ve never really followed these “best-of” type of awards.

I’m sure I would be just as delighted to be nominated for this kind of thing as the next person, but I’ve never voted or even followed very closely these types of events. I have my own favourite

books, but I’ve got no desire to judge any one piece of work as being “better” that any other. Better in what sense?

Obviously in any one year there are some really significant comics works published, so why not list “the best of the year”, rather that say any one particular book is the best inked, the best comics adaption, or whatever. And as with the Oscars®, I always suspect that internal industry politics too often influences these types of “Best of” awards... I’m sure that those stickers that appear on the covers have a terrific effect on sales, but I don’t really pay too much attention to the awards that produce them.

Q: Many ACA members have now switched to drawing digitally. Have you made the switch or are you still drawing traditionally?

A: I still prefer to use the traditional materials of paper, pencils and inks.

While more and more of my time is now spent in Photoshop, correcting mistakes, making alterations, and prepping files for uploading to my Visit our new website | www.cartoonists.org.au

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various editors (thankfully my originals never leave the studio these days), nothing beats the simplicity of a pencil and paper. Tools like a WACOM Cintiq tablet are amazing pieces of kit, but I still prefer the tactile feel of a pencil in my hand, and a clean sheet of paper on my drawing desk.

Q: Do you do your own colouring?

A: I occasionally get the chance to colour some of my work, and I’d love to do more, but modern publishing schedules make this impractical. Also, I find that after three or four days working on a particular page, I just don’t have the freshness to devote another couple of days to colour that particular page anymore. One day I would like to be able to slow the delivery rate to enable me to colour more of my own work, but perhaps it is a little like the writing mentioned earlier. Comics are often a collaborative process, and sometimes their best results come from working with specialists who know their particular stage in the process much better than I could ever manage on my own.

Q: Can you describe your office, preferred tools, working schedule and working routines, if any?

A: Just the usual stuff. Pencils, paper, lights, lots of table space, computers.

I have my own little personal preferences, but for some reason my favourite materials seem harder and harder to find. But I’m discovering that it doesn’t really matter so much anymore, and I can work with just about any materials.

Once upon a time I used to think about 16

holidays, and attempted to at least keep each weekend work-free. But with modern (US at least) publishing requirements, not to mention the current overseas exchange rates(!), this is just no longer practical. Drawing comics is a slow, labour-intensive business. The financial rewards are often derisory, and so to earn a living it needs to be a 24/7 operation. My technique is to slow each day down a little, pace myself with some (non-comics) reading, doing the business paperwork, and occasionally even some gaming (I’m a Modern Warfare tragic!). It’s crucial to avoid burn-out, as I doubt if I would still be doing this if I wasn’t totally involved by each project I am working on at any given time.

Q: I lament the fact that there is no BD culture in Australia. What, in your opinion, is needed to push the genre in Australia?

A: Difficult question, and I don’t really know the answer. English language comics never really gained the recognition that the medium gained in Europe after WWII, and I now doubt it ever will. More so than ever here in Australia and New Zealand, where for years we were really only seen as a dumping ground for unsold overseas product. Although it is often cyclical, comics now suffer from competition from the electronic media, and I fear that as a medium, mainstream English language comics may have seen their best days. I’m convinced that the format will never completely die, and perhaps electronic distribution presents us with more possibilities than the

Inkspot #67 | Send your news to inkspot@cartoonists.org.au

mainstream US publishers currently realise, but we will certainly see some serious realignment in the format over next few years. The genre also needs to be taken seriously - unbelievably, comics continue to suffer from the stereotypical Gosh, Bam, Paw coverage in much of the Australian media. Hopefully the recent surge in local, self-published material in Australia will signal a significant improvement in the genre here.

Q: Every local library in France carries a huge section of BDs, with, undoubtedly many of your titles. Do you perceive income from the “Public Lending Scheme”?

A: I have no idea.

Q: Ever thought about joining the ACA? I am sure the Victorian Chapter would be delighted to have you on board and I would personally love to have you as a guest at the next Stanleys Conference...

A: Love to!

Colin, may I say it has been a real honour for me to talk to you. If we ever cross paths, I would love you to “dedicace” my “Dans l’ombre du soleil” BD’s... _____________

Christophe Granet’s syndicated comic strip “It’s a Jungle out There” syndicated nationally and online.

WoW, What a Night!

News from the Bunker Cartoon Gallery, Coffs Harbour

For those who missed the launch of the Women on the World International Cartoon Competition at the Stanleys Conference, WoW was aimed at the women cartoonists of the world to express their gripes and otherwise.

We were overwhelmed by the response! An amazing result; 393 entries received from 110 artists from 41 countries. The standard of entries was extremely high and ranged from fun gags and comic strips to serious social commentary and great caricatures. One message which did come through loud and clear for the men reading this is, the women of the world just don’t want to do the washing up, guys.

The announcement of the winners took place on 8th March; International Women’s Day, and the evening event was nothing short of fantastic. Even the Coffs Council cut short their regular meeting and cancelled their dinner to attend.

The Bunker walls were groaning under the weight of all the wonderful cartoons and the place was really buzzing.

Our gorgeous Deputy Mayor, Denise Knight, was MC and we were enter-

tained by the women of the CH Musical Theatre Company, followed by a riotous, funny and sexy performance by comedian, songbird and raconteur, Ms Denise Gold who hails from the coalfields of Newcastle. Admittedly our audiences can be a bit of a staid bunch, but Ms Gold had them screaming for more.

So many wonderful experiences came out of WoW and we made many new friends along the way. In some small way it did help to raise the profile of women cartoonists and brought many girls together.

And the winners were: First prize - $1,000 to Sepideh Anjomrooz from Iran. Merits - $750 each to Elena Ventu-

ra and Nicola Milan, who were both artists from Australia.

The exhibition will include works and memorabilia from the private collection of Melburnian, Barry Gom. A consignment weighing some 50 kilos with a value of $30,000 is on its way to us.

Opening this treasure trove will be a real treat.

Current Ginger Meggs cartoonist, Jason Chatfield, joined us in April for the opening night of the Ginger Meggs 90 year retrospective and also ran a workshop the following day.

The exhibition included works and memorabilia from the private collection of Melburnian collector, Barry Gomm.

A consignment weighing some 50 kilos with a value of $30,000 made its way to us. Opening that treasure trove was a real treat. More details on the exibition in the next issue of Inkspot.

July will the first showing of the 24th Rotary Cartoon Awards. What a milestone - 24 years! We would love to have heaps of you guys and gals in Coffs for the Rotarys this year. Please mark your diaries - the Rotary Awards Presentation night at the Bunker on Saturday, 21 July.

Hope to see you at the Bunker!

Dee Texidor with Chris Barr and his daughter

SINCE last Inkspot, our focus has been on women and we’ve had a WoW of a time!

Artwork: (First Prize) “The Kiss” by Sepideh Anjomrooz from Iran

by Fran Stephenson

Visit our new website | www.cartoonists.org.au

17

Killick

Hugh Stewart-Killick H UGH Stewart-Killick (Killick) passed away peacefully 18th April, 2012.

Like many cartoonists, he got his start at school in England, drawing caricatures of teachers and schoolmates.

He continued cartooning in the army, serving in the Parachute Regiment and contributing to Pegasus, the journal of the British Army’s Airborne Forces.

After leaving the army, Killick decided to pursue a freelance career in cartooning and contributed to The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, News of the World, Weekly News, The People, Reveille, Weekly Star as well as other newspapers and magazines in Britain.

After moving to Australia in the late 1970s, he became a regular contributor to Australasian Post.

Among his contributions were the comic strips Klog, Big Ces and The Moochers. Killick also created Professor Enzyme for the scientific journal, Australian Science. He contributed less regularly to People, The Bulletin, The Picture and various other magazines and newspapers.

In 1984, Marion Books published Killick’s Goodbye Cruel World (a collection of cartoons on the theme of suicide). He also contributed cartoons to 101 Uses for Popes, produced by Writers Press

in 1986 to coincide with Pope John Paul II’s Australian tour.

Ever the true all-rounder, Killick also produced regular editorial cartoons for The Weekend Independent, The City News and The Brisbane Review.

In 2001 and 2002, Killick won Merit Awards for his comic strips at the Rotary Cartoon Awards.

Examples of Killick’s cartoon work

Vale

are in the collections of The State Library of Queensland and The State Library of New South Wales. ACA members will be able to easily find some of his cartoons in the Stanleys Year Book and back issues of Inkspot, where he was a regular contributor to “Your View On...”

Hugh Stewart-Killick leaves behind his wife, Sally, his brother, John, as well as step-children and grandchildren.

“He had a lovely funeral -- all his mates from the Keep-Fit class were there.”

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Inkspot #67 | Send your news to inkspot@cartoonists.org.au

Searle Vale

Ronald William Fordham Searle

C ARTOONISTS sometimes get

asked to name their early influences and those whose work they most admire. In all such lists the name of Ronald Searle invariably appears, usually at the top.

Searle was the cartoonists’ cartoonist.

They saw at once that his was extraordinary output and his a unique talent.

Where they might begin to disagree would be in picking their favourite Searle: St.Trinian’s/Molesworth, those Punch caricatures, the travelogues, reportage, cats, flying machines, wine, books, film titles, animations, New Yorker commissions, political comment, philosophical... there is so much to choose from. The sheer amount that he completed is mind-boggling -often scenes of great complexity and detail, always done with that trademark boldness, originality and wit.

The basic facts of Searle’s life are well known: the self-effacing scribbler whose survival of the unspeakable horrors of Changi and the Burma-Siam Railway was near miraculous, the quiet-spoken artist

(1920 - 2011)

who went on to conquer the world.

At the very outset, unsurprisingly, Searle’s work echoed the Punch housestyle of the day, with shades of Emett, Anton and Pont. There were others (James Fitton, James Boswell, Victoria) illustrating alongside him on Lilliput in the late 1940s whose work is not always easy to tell apart from early Searle.

What stood out was the outrageous extremity of his humour. A girls’ boarding school where torture and decapitations were routine. This was more than subversive, irreverent, anarchic: this was in a league of its own. Barbaric St. Trinian’s was a conceit that tickled the middleclass establishment, busy consigning its offspring to similar. With film and advertising quick to cash in on Searle’s genius, his popularity soon spread to a wider audience.

A lesser artist might have been content to have stayed on that patch, assured of a bread-ticket for life. But Searle rapidly bored of the straitjacket and needed to take on bigger things. And thank goodness for that.

As his youthful rounded signature

became more spiky and more gothic, so his style took off and soared. The master draughtsman seemed incapable of drawing a line that was dull. Exciting, exuberant and seemingly effortless, Searle’s artwork exploded off the page, demanding attention in every detail. Each line skipped and danced in mischievous jest.

Even with the darkest of subjects, the composition drew you in; the colour delighted. Simply brilliant. From the fine field of talent that was cartooning in the 20th Century, Ronald Searle stood out head and shoulders above the rest.

Cartooning is generally undervalued in this country, with few cartoonists ever accorded the status of artist. In Searle’s case an exception is made, with the let-out that he was not so much a cartoonist, more a graphic artist. No amount of verbiage can conceal the truth. He was a great artist. And very funny with it.

In comic art, has anyone ever done it better? ~ Rupert Besley (from The Jester, Issue 451, February 2012.

Reproduced by kind permission.)

T

_hose things that should have been said about England’s Ronald Searle have been, with published biographies, reviews and newspaper and magazine articles. But, little known in Australia, during March 2011, his last exhibition and his last publication in book form was celebrated in London.

The background to these two events resulted from his wife, Monica being diagnosed in 1969 with a virulent form of cancer. In an effort to ease her dreaded chemotherapy procedures, Ronald created his ‘Mrs Mole’ performing various domestic activities identical to those planned for the Searle residence in the south of France. Ronald produced a Mrs Mole illustration prior to Monica’s horrific treatment, and these charming watercolour drawings, forty-seven in total, have been reproduced in full colour, titled Les Trés Riches Heures De Mrs Mole being indeed a moving testimony to love, optimism and hope.

Monica was eventually pronounced cured. ‘Ronald was wonderful throughout,’ she recorded - ‘a tower of strength and a continual source of pleasure. From the start he had the idea of giving a little drawing for each chemo session and I would lie in bed living the life he created in the pictures.’

This excellent publication, a final tribute to Ronald Searle, was published by Harper Collins Hammersmith. UK £9.99.

Their Australian branch may distribute copies. ~ Vane Lindesay Visit our new website | www.cartoonists.org.au

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Vale Monty Wedd Monty Wedd (1921 - 2012)

Born Montague Thomas Archibald Wedd on 5th January, 1921 in Glebe, Monty spent his childhood in Randwick and was educated at Randwick High School. Wedd said that as long as he could remember he was always drawing.

Adjoining the Williamtown air base just north of Newcastle in New South Wales is the Monarch Historical Museum. Whilst it somewhat resembles a Beau Geste-style fortress, it was opened only relatively recently - in 1998 - and contains a large display of military uniforms, antique weapons, armour, photographic equipment, toy soldiers and collectables.

In one corner is a collection of Australian comics and drawings, mostly derived from the 1940s and 1950s. At first, the display of black-and-white art seems out of place when viewed alongside the guns and military history. But there is a connection.

You see, the museum’s name comes from Montague and Archibald, two names belonging to it’s founder and builder, one Monty Wedd. The content reflects Monty’s fascination with Australian military history, which grew from his insistence of getting his Australian historical comics correct in every detail.

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“Comic strips played a big part in my life as a boy,” he recalled. “They were like the serials at the Saturday afternoon matinees at the “flicks”. They were great escapes from the humdrum reality of a schoolboy’s life. Ginger Meggs by Bancks and Bib and Bub by May Gibbs were popular. The comic that excited me most was Syd Nicholls’ Fatty Finn. Beautifully drawn with tremendous detail, it was a comic most kids could identify with.

Fatty played the same games we did and got into the same kind of trouble we did.

“Nicholls stimulated my imagination no end,” said Monty. “When he introduced a pirate dream sequence into his Fatty Finn strip, I was from then on sold on comics and knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Subjects that captured my boyish imagination soldiers, cowboys, Indians and pirates.

You name it, I drew it, on the walls in the little room in the house, as well as decorating the pages of my schoolbooks! As a schoolboy I drew strips about World War 1 fighter pilots, the French Foreign Legion as well as detectives and later would hawk them around to various Art Directors at the newspapers, hoping for that big break.”

Inkspot #67 | Send your news to inkspot@cartoonists.org.au

On Saturday mornings, Wedd took drawing lessons with Oswald Brock in the Victoria Arcade in Sydney at 2 shillings and 6 pence an hour (but often extending his hour to three for no extra charge). Wedd thought Brock was just happy to have someone to talk to.

Leaving school during the depression he walked the streets of Sydney for six months looking for work as an artist.

Despite getting lots of encouragement, work was hard to find with queues of over 100 job-seekers in them. Eventually he landed a job with the Hackett Offset Printing Company at 10 shillings a week.

He only lasted six months before taking a job with Corkhill and Lang at 30 shillings a week as a furniture artist.

“I had never drawn a stick of furniture before, except in the evening perspective class at East Sydney Technical College. But they weren’t to know that.

I drew bedroom suites and dining room suites for them, every kind and description, and soon became a valuable asset to the firm.”

He later joined Grace Brothers working in the art department. But this was short lived as World War 2 had started and Monty signed up for the AIF in 1941, transferring to the RAAF after about 18 months. When the war ended he spent three years completing a Commercial Art Course at East Sydney Tech. It wasn’t until 1946 when he sold his first comic strip. It was about the French Foreign Legion called Sword and Sabre and was published as a serial over three monthly

episodes in Middy Malone Magazine, published by Syd Nicholls.

“In those days 5 pounds was a very good weekly wage,” Wedd said. ”Well, I could earn three or four pounds for a page of comics and if I worked hard I could produce four or five pages a week.”

Wedd produced eight more comics about the French Foreign Legion for the Middy Malone Magazine. Wedd said, “Syd Nicholls was a remarkable man, as well as being a skilled artist and craftsman; he had a great love for all things Australian and abhorred the fact so many of our national newspapers filled the space allotted to comics with syndication strips with foreign customs and a different way of life. It was very un-Australian in his eyes, and very much against the national interest. Seeing I had found my feet as a young comic feature artist he suggested I create a strip with an Australian origin instead of the French Foreign Legion”.

Wedd acted on Nicholls’ advice and came up with Captain Justice. He battled bushrangers and championed the oppressed in rural Australia.

“The creation of this feature was to have a marked influence on my life, for I knew little of Australian

history, except what I had learnt in boring history lessons at school,” he said.

“My research into this subject came as a complete surprise; I felt I had discovered Australian for the first time. We had our own colourful wild west, unique in every way and much better than the American Wild West, which had been fed to us as children in films, short stories and comic strips.”

Jack Heming, a short story writer, advised Monty to “make sure your guns are right”; it was good advice. Working from a studio he shared with Nicholls and Stan Clements, Wedd was meticulous in his research into historical detail for the weapons, artifacts and settings and drew the comic as accurately as he could. To make sure he got the guns right for his comics, Wedd began to study firearms, which lead him to become an authority on the subject.

Captain Justice ran in Middy Malone Magazine for a while and then in the Fatty Finn Comic Book.

Australian comic book publishers flourished after the Second World LEFT: Captain Justice, probably Monty Wedd’s War, in part because most enduring creation ABOVE: The Scorpion could escape everyone they produced comexcept authorities in Queensland BELOW: Three panels from one of the 146 ics about Australia weekly instalments of Ned Kelly for Australians and

partly because there were restrictions on the importation of foreign publications. When the Labor Party lost office in 1949, the restrictions were lifted and the marked was flooded with cheep American comics. The Australian publishers couldn’t compete and many artists lost their livelihoods.

Wedd married Dorothy Jewell in 1949 and they had four children: Sandra, Justin, Warwick and Deborah. Stan Clements had married Dorothy’s sister Ivi in 1946.

Syd Nicholls Publishing closed in 1950 and Wedd started contributing comics to Elmsdale Publications. He produced a series of Captain Justice comic books for New Century Press for 102 pounds an issue at a time when the basic wage was 20 pounds a week. In 1953 he returned to Elmsdale to draw a new comic, The Scorpion, for 160 pounds per issue. It was about a bad-guy who kept escaping his just deserts in order to fight another day, but the comic was banned in Queensland in 1955 and Elmsdale stopped publishing it.

“The authorities objected to the Scorpion not being brought to justice, but if he had been I wouldn’t have had a series,” said Wedd.

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“It was all live and a wonderful experience, which lasted several years,” he later said, “until the program was unceremoniously axed along with others of Australian content, in an economy drive.”

ABOVE: Dollar Bill buys a car in January 1966

“Still, once they banned him in one state the distributor was no longer keen to handle the title at all, so that was the end of The Scorpion.”

In 1951 Wedd produced a 24-page comic book called Kirk Raven, which he sold to Elmsdale. Wedd said, “it was a one-off, but it did well”. He then created another comic for Elmsdale called Tod Trail, an American western. It too was successful and he was asked to do more work for Elmsdale. But after a disagreement about ownership of copyright he stopped working for them. He was keen to get back to Australian-based comics and sold three Captain Justice comics to New Century Press, which were published from 1950 to 1953.

the collection and he formed the idea of starting his own museum. This opened in Narraweena, on Sydney’s northern beaches, in 1960 and quickly became a showcase for early Australian history.

The museum only closed when Wedd realized it had outgrown the space available and, to house the ever-expanding collection, he decided to move to Williamtown and build a bigger and better museum.

For Calvert Publishing Wedd produced a series of Kent Blake comic books between 1953 and 1954, then another series of Captain Justice comics which ended in 1955. In 1954 Wedd and began contributing features to Stamp News. It was an association that was to last over 40 years.

It was around this time he started a 16-year association with The Australian Children’s Newspaper drawing adventure comics and, in 1958, he started contributing to Chuckler’s Weekly with more Captain Justice and King Comet comics as well as some illustrations. Wedd was also selling a comic strip called Children of Fortune to Woman’s Mirror, which was owned by The Bulletin. It was a story of a brother and sister in the Macquarie era of Sydney and by this time he was contributing historical illustrations to Woman’s Mirror.

Wedd started collecting reference items in the 1940s to assist his drawings, which stimulated his interest in collection historical artifacts. As the collection grew, he needed additional space to house 22

ABOVE: A rapt Stanleys Conference audience listens to Monty discuss his life and career in 2008. Needless to say, it was a capacity crowd.

Captain Justice appeared in another five comic books Wedd produced for Horwitz Publications in 1963. Wedd said, “These were made up of the Chucklers Weekly stories, and I hoped now there was so much Australiana appearing on television that the bushranging series would stand up to the flood of American Westerns. I was duly disappointed”. But there was one compensation; George Foster invited Wedd to become a regular on his Channel 9 TV programs, Tell the Truth and Play Your Hunch. Each week, Wedd would take something from his growing collection of historical items and present it on the show.

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Monty’s historical TV segments later appeared on a regular basis in the 1970s as Monty’s Odd Spot on the children’s breakfast show, The Super Flying Fun Show, hosted by Marilyn Mayo.

Woman’s Day ran a full page Captain Justice comic strip from September 1964 until April 1965. Wedd said, “This venture was very successful and something very different and truly Australian. But a problem arose when the assistant editor, for reasons best known to himself, wished to write Captain Justice, leaving me only the illustration. Rather than lose the space, I reluctantly agreed but when I found the material offered downgraded Captain Justice and was entirely unsuitable, and historically most inaccurate, I withdrew from the magazine rather than see the character face ridicule.”

Around this time, Nicholls pointed out to Wedd that there was some work to be had being involved with Australia’s conversion to decimal currency. Wedd entered a competition run by the Decimal Currency Board and they commissioned him to create a series of Dollar Bill cartoons featuring the history of Australian currency. They were intended to instruct the readers about the simple ways of converting pounds, shillings and pence into dollars and cents. Wedd thinks he must have done about 60 cartoon strips that were given to hundreds of newspapers all over Australia in 1966.

When the Dollar Bill series came to an end the American stranglehold on the Australian comic industry had intensified and Wedd got involved with animation with Artransa and Eric Porter. He worked on Australia’s first (and highly successful) feature, Marco Polo vs the Red Dragon, as well as TV series such as Charlie Chan and the Chan Clan, The Lone Ranger, Rocket Robin Hood and Super Friends.

In 1970, Wedd began producing an historical feature for The Daily Mirror in Sydney illustrating Captain Cook’s journal. Following the success of this venture he turned his hand to a series on Ned

Kelly for the Sunday Mirror. According to Wedd, “they had been going to run Captain Justice but they told me Rupert Murdoch had invested a lot of money in the Ned Kelly movie so they wanted a cartoon about Ned.” He left animation in 1974 to concentrate on the strip, which was originally expected to run for 25 to 39 weeks. But was extended to 146 weeks so Wedd could produce a detailed examination of Kelly’s life. Wedd said that the strip “told for the first time a true and unbiased story of the bush ranger’s life and the events leading up to his execution and, needless to say, my hours of research and hundreds of miles of travel made Ned Kelly a most successful strip.”

After Ned Kelly had run its course, Wedd produced a similar feature on the Australian bushranger Ben Hall. “ I endeavored to tell an authentic story of Ben Hall’s life and times, using the diaries and memoirs of John McGuire, Hall’s business partner and brother-inlaw,” Wedd said, “plus the recollections of John Vane, the only member of the gang to survive to tell the true story from the inside. There were also numerous letters and newspaper accounts to back up the facts.”

Bold Ben Hall ran for 400 episodes, only eclipsed by his next (even longer) series, Birth of a Nation, which appeared in The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Territorian and The Sunday Mail to commemorate Australia’s Bicentennial Year.

Monty drew a series of trading cards for the Golden Fleece fuel company and, in 1982, turned this concept into a highly acclaimed reference book on Australian military uniforms. Australian Military Uniforms, 1800-1982 is now regarded by military historians as the most accurate book of it’s type. It told for the first time the story of Australia’s armed forces from the earliest volunteers through the Colonial era to Federation and then to modern times.

In 1992, Monty was commissioned by The Newcastle Herald to create a colour broadsheet wraparound cover commemorating the 50th anniversary of the attack on Newcastle by the Japanese submarine, the I-21. A mammoth under-

taking, the inner spread featured two huge illustrations, one them a full-width cross-section diagram of the I-21. The artwork was something of which Monty was justifiably proud.

He was presented with Stanley Awards in 1987 and 1989 for Adventure/ Illustrated Strip Artist and in 1993 was awarded the Order of Australia for his services as an author, illustrator and historian. In November 2004, Monty was presented with the Jim Russell Award for his outstanding contribution to the craft he loved. One of Monty’s most recent endeavours completing a set of drawings for Newcastle’s Fort Scratchley Military Museum, depicting all the guns it has on display.

In 2009 his health began to fail and he moved into a nursing home for the last few months of his life. He died in Fingal Bay on 4th May 2012.

Monty Wedd’s funeral service, at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Stockton on 15th May was attended by an impressive crowd of around 80 people, including a small delegation of ACA members.

Lindsay Foyle & Steve Panozzo REFERENCES Ros Bowden, recorded interview with Monty Wedd. 1995 Vane Lindesay, Drawing From Life: A History of the Australian Black and White Artists’ Club. NSW, State Library of NSW, 1994.

Richard Rae, Cartoonists of Australia. NSW, View Publications, 1983.

Greg Rae, recorded interview with Monty Wedd. Updated 2008 John Ryan, Panel by Panel: A History of Australian Comics.

NSW, Cassell Australia Limited, 1979 Annette Sheil (Ed.), Bonzer: Australian Comics 1900s-1990s. Victoria, Elgua Media, 1998.

MEMORIES OF MONTY When you were a kid in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s the main entertainment was Saturday arvo at the pictures and reading comic strips. The local lending library as well as books had a comic book exchange (at a small fee of course) and the comics at that time were more adventure than cartoons and because of the war, American comics were not as dominating of the market as later, so the local artists had a chance to get published and one of the big ones was Monty Wedd’s Captain Justice. As an avid comic strip reader I was always a fan of Monty’s work and after I met him I was a fan, only moreso.

Monty was always a contributor in giving helping advice to young aspiring artists. With some artists this was not always the case. One artist I remember had this motto: ”tell ‘em nothing”, but I suppose they were all looking after their jobs. I remember one artist thought that if you were using black ink on white paper you were pinching their style. Monty was never like this. He was always bright when he came in with his strip and very friendly and was a valuable asset to all the committees he has been on and a great worker for the ACA in all of them.

The much-remembered comment of one of the Sunday paper’s editors on Monty’s Making of a Nation that “the bloody strip had gone on longer than the actual making of the nation”, but all the detail from soldiers’ uniforms to flint guns was as accurate and historically correct as Monty could make it. What a wonderful person he was and will be sadly missed.

John Thorby

I first worked with Monty in 1972 on a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, Charlie Chan & the Chan Clan. I was 1 at the time. We met at SYNCON ‘72 in Bondi Junction. I had some cartoon art of mine on display and I was looking at a Captain Justice comic book. Monty was a great bloke and what a sense of humour! He used to crack us up all day and I liked his blue pencils best, but (although) he liked to over-render, Monty was a damn fine cartoonist. I knew him very well and he took a great interest in my being a cartoonist.

Paul Power

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Time Capsule :1996

The venue was the Westpac Museum at The Rocks in Sydney, and the occasion was the opening of ACE, the Australian Comic Book Exhibition, an initiative of the Ephemera Society of Australia and Monash University’s National Centre for Australian Studies.

ACE toured the country in two virtually identical exhibitions, covering 60 years of the Australian comic book industry. At the opening in Sydney on 11th July, many of the artists who had long given up hope of ever being acknowledged for their massive contribution to Australia’s comic book culture, felt great pride in attending.

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STANDING L-R: Reg Pitt, Ken Emerson, Eric Jolliffe, Tony Rafty, Stewart McCrae, Stan Pitt, Les Dixon, Peter Chapman, Monty Wedd, Yaroslav Horak, Jim Russell, Norman Hetherington, ACA President Lindsay Foyle SEATED L-R: Tim McEwen, Chesty Bond, John and Stan Clements.

Don Hatcher

...but drawn with your other hand.

Rob Feldman

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Many thanks to everyone who contributed cartoons!

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Inkspot #67 | Send your news to inkspot@cartoonists.org.au