Inkspot 81

cartoonists.org.au

ALSO INSIDE: The Art of PAUL HARVEY The 2018 ACA Cartoon Exhibition TONY LOPES: Insanity Saved Me! EATEN FISH HAL GYE

PLUS: We Farewell RON TANDBERG and PETER McADAM The Official Australian Cartoonists’ Magazine

Number 81, Autumn 2018 $10 (FREE for ACA members)

Issue #81, Autumn 2018 www.cartoonists.org.au

Presidential Palaver

ACA Board Patron Vane Lindesay President JULES FABER president@cartoonists.org.au Deputy President NAT KARMICHAEL comicoz@live.com.au Secretary STEVE PANOZZO steve@noz.com.au Treasurer MARTINA ZEITLER treasurer@cartoonists.org.au Membership Secretary GRANT BROWN membership@cartoonists.org.au Committee: ROBERT BLACK robert@robertblack.com.au PETER BROELMAN peter@broelman.com.au ANDREW MARLTON firstdogonthemoon@theguardian.com IAN McCALL mccallart@bigpond.com.au CATHY WILCOX cwilcox@fairfaxmedia.com.au

Affiliated Organisations National Cartoonists Society President: Bill Morrison www.reuben.org Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain President: Terry Christien www.ccgb.org.uk

FECO President-General: Peter Nieuwendijk www.fecoweb.org

Your Inkspot Team Editor: Nat Karmichael Layout and Proofreading: Steve Panozzo Contributors: John Allison, Jan Andrews, Daniel Best, Jim Bridges, Thomas Campi, Ernie Carroll, Gary Chaloner, Graeme Cliffe, Aina Crawford, Jules Faber, Eaten Fish, Lindsay Foyle, George Haddon, Paul Harvey, Rolf Heimann, Phil Judd, Frantz Kantor, Vane Lindesay, Tony Lopes, Neil Matterson, Ian McCall, Stuart McMillen, First Dog on the Moon, Al Rose and Martina Zeitler Cover: Jim Bridges (and Aina) by Paul Harvey

Inkspot is produced four times a year by the Australian Cartoonists’ Association in January, April, July and November.

Deadline for the next issue is 14th JUNE

PO Box 5178 TURRAMURRA NSW 2074

Phone 1300 658 581 ABN 19 140 290 841 ISSN 1034-1943 Australia Post Registration PP 533798/0015

Welcome to another issue of Inkspot!

As usual it’s jam-packed with goodness including all the news that’s fit to print and two items that aren’t. See if you can guess which they are.

Work continues in building our Stanley Awards weekend in November, which will again see us at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, Canberra. Last year’s Stanleys weekend was incredible, with super special guests and plenty of awesome content. It was one of the great weekends and certainly one of the better Stanley Awards I’ve attended in the last decade (and a lot of people agreed with me). The room was magnificent and the view was to be-sacked-and-relegatedto-the-backbenches for!

Natter

This issue marks my tenth as editor of Inkspot. It’s been said that it is the most tangible thing members receive for their dues, and the one thing they most look forward to. That’s why we want to ensure it keeps coming out four times a year!

We would really like you to tell us (by phone, email or on the ACA’s Facebook page) what you really LIKE about this issue, what you would like to see MORE of, what you want to see LESS of, what you DON’T want to read about.

Inkspot now appears in other locations too, like public libraries and within some

So with that being said, don’t miss out this year – start making your plans NOW. We know the venue, we know the dates – the 16th to the 18th of November – so make a start today. We’re aiming higher than ever this year on the strength of 2017 and we’re even mixing things up a little.

MoAD will be announcing their Cartoonist of the Year on Friday at lunchtime and we’re welcome to attend before we have a welcome event on Friday night. Then we’re trying something a little different this year; so as to garner as many people as possible for the Conference, we’ll be starting as usual with the AGM and going through Saturday in the lead-up to Saturday night’s awards. Then Sunday we’ll be having more Conference, instead of having it on Friday when many people can’t attend due to work commitments.

Don’t worry, it won’t be an early start on Sunday and it won’t be as long a day, wrapping up around 3pm to allow people to get back home for Monday morning if need be.

More on the content of the Conference as we get closer, but in the meantime start planning ahead now because we’re hoping to have some hotel deals to you very shortly.

Anyhow, enough from me. I probably have something I should be working on but I’m gonna put my feet up and read this crackerjack issue instead.

comic specialty shops. Any noncartooning reader is welcome to share your thoughts on the magazine too.

Of course, Inkspot doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Thankyou to the many people who have contributed articles, photos and cartoons over the past ten issues.

Thanks too, to all the designers and people in the background I have worked with over the space of those ten issues: Phil Judd, Chris Barr, Judy Nadin, Cam Winks and Steve Panozzo. And if YOU would like to submit a cartoon or article, please feel free to contact me: the magazine is nothing without YOU! Here’s to – at least – the next ten issues!

Nat

New ACA Committee Members At November’s Annual General Meeting, members of the Australian Cartoonists’ Association voted to install two new Committee members, filling the void left by the departures of Mark Knight and Kerry-Ann Brown.

Agreeing to fill two rather large pairs of shoes were Victorian freelancer Martina Zeitler and freshly-minted Tasmanian, Andrew Marlton, better known as firstdogonthe moon.

Martina Zeitler My name is Martina and I’m an engineer by trade, a cartoonist by good fortune and most recently the Treasurer for the ACA. I guess it was a combination of my two professions that offered the potential for creative accounting solutions.

At work I’ve managed to incorporate cartooning into my day job, creating visuals for presentations, training and

internal communications. I publish my single panel cartoon, Just Outside the Box and because of the space nerd within, I created Cosmic Caboodle, a kid friendly educational website all about space and cartoon aliens.

In addition, I somehow manage to squeeze in family time with our two daughters and practice for my upcoming third-dan black belt in tae kwon do.

Where does all that energy come from, you ask? My secret is the copious consumption of only the highest grade Peruvian caffeine (and yes, I’m a Melbournian). But despite my addiction, fear not – our ACA funding is safe with me.

First Dog On the Moon

First Dog on the Moon is the Walkley award-winning political cartoonist for The Guardian Australia.

The author of at least 3-and-a-half books, one of which was actually a bestseller, First Dog has been a professional full time cartoonist since 2007. Numerous appearances include TV, radio and even writing, as well as performing live one-cartoonist shows around the country (including the Melbourne International Comedy Festival).

First Dog is a self-described national treasure and spends most days working at the First Dog on the Moon Institute, a bipartisan thinktank in the Huon Valley in Tasmania. He is also currently the Official Cartoonist for the Western Bulldogs AFL Team (semi-retired).

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The ACM is Open for Business Is there an Australian self-image?

It may even happen one day.

ROLF HEIMANN reports on the opening of the Australian Cartoon Museum in Melbourne.

There is already a growing list of events planned at the Austraian Cartoon Museum. Melbourne life is unthinkable without footy, and the football season will be used to attract attention to our newest museum.

Another show in the planning stages will focus on music – we already have humorous musical treats lined up for the opening!

In putting the call out to cartoonists, it is hoped that other States will respond to our call for contributions. After all, it isn’t the Melbourne Cartoon Museum, but an Australian one.

The ACM intends to run classes on cartooning, the art of caricature and storyboarding. Other planned uses for the museum include creativity classes for entrepreneurs and comedians, illustrated talks and debates and others where comedians use cartoons flashed on a screen behind them to illustrate what they are talking about.

Other plans include monthly meetings for animation groups, manga and anime nights, book launches, information and illustrated talks for school groups and the hiring out of the museum for one-off events.

Australian cartoonists have come to love the Bunker Cartoon Gallery in Coffs Harbour and the ambience of its environment warrants additional appreciation. Unfortunately most of us reside in the capitals, and overseas visitors are more likely to arrive in Melbourne or Sydney. We hope to establish a working relationship with the Bunker Gallery and other institutions.

The ACM has already taken steps to interact with equivalent overseas establishments. To borrow a phrase from Oprah Winfrey: “A new era is dawning!”

The Australian Cartoon Museum is located at Level 1, Wharf Street, District Docklands Shopping Precinct , Melbourne, Victoria, 3008.

Phone (03) 9973 4600 4

Inkspot Autumn 2018

PREVIOUS PAGE (from top): Victorian Shadow Arts Minister, Heidi Victoria, chats up Peter Viska and Adrian Patterson; Robert Black is unimpressed when Grant Brown reveals his secret identity; George Haddon contemplates Tasmania’s struggle for independence THIS PAGE (clockwise from below): Judy Horacek and Leigh Hobbs wonder where the wine waiter has got to; Australian museums expert Margaret Birtley reluctantly gives the ACM a mark out of 10; Lefent Efe refuses to share his dip and crackers with Peter Viska; The ACM’s Chief Stirrer, Frantz Kantor explains beer to French artist Jean-Nicolas Weryha; Olympic Arm-Folding champion Jim Bridges, with ACM Librarian Gordon Dunlop and Jinty Kubale; To the delight of humour academic Maren Rawlings (centre), Rolf Heimann shows Danny Zemp the fine art of beard-tugging as employed by art critics

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by JOHN ALLISON Jim Bridges, founder and President of the Australian Cartoon Museum, describes Paul Harvey as Australia’s premier sports caricaturist. John Spooner goes one step further.

“Paul Harvey is the greatest-ever caricaturist in Australian history,” attests Spooner.

‘Harv’ was thrust into the spotlight on 10th March when his one-man exhibition, Head High Tackle, an exhibition of Paul’s 2018 AFL collectors’ card artwork, opened at the ACM in Melbourne. During March and April, visitors to the ACM were given the opportunity to see why Paul receives such high praise from his fellow cartoonists.

All the big names were at the launch: not only Paul and Jim but the likes of Spooner, Mark Knight, Rolf Hiemann and Peter Viska. Not to mention many of the notable Aussie Rules stars who were adorning the walls: Buddy Franklin, Clayton Oliver, Jack Billings, Brad Ebert, Jarryd Roughead and Nik Naitanui.

“I do love this job,” Harv says, who’s been whipping up this range of popular caricatures for six years. He averages just over 70 sketches a year for Select Australia, who produces a range of products for the AFL. For the first five years he digitally produced his artwork, but when the chance came up to have an exhibition at the Museum, he didn’t hesitate in opting for watercolours.

Paul Harvey and his wife, Carolyn at the ACM

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“I spent about half an hour getting the initial sketch right, then another four hours on with the watercolours,” he says. That’s when he’s doing the caricatures for the AFL cards, mind you – if he’s booked in for a live gig, he usually wraps up a black and white portrait with a few deft pen strokes.

After each AFL season, Select Australia provides Harv with a list of players that they want to feature for the collector cards. Naturally, they’re the guys that the company believes will appeal to the public – the popular championship players, a smattering of up-and-coming rookies, the accomplished old favourites. Though Harv, a keen AFL follower, can also offer his own recommendations if he feels there’s somebody that they should target. Naturally, some players are easier to draw than others – West Coast’s Nik Naitanui and Hawthorn’s Jarryd Roughead, for example, are simply a caricaturist’s dream.

“The kids love the cards,” Paul says.

“They’ve been very successful…I get great feedback.”

Chances are Aussie Rules fans, and not just the kids, will continue to love his innate ability to capture the essence of their hallowed footy heroes. And when it comes to the AFL caricatures, Jim Bridges is not afraid of admitting he is a one-eyed Harv fan.

“He does great caricatures. It’s not just the face…when he does a caricature of a footballer handballing or kicking, that’s how he handballs or kicks.

He actually caricatures the movement,” opines Bridges. “Paul has been very accommodating with his deals with the museum and when we sell

his artwork, we have a very generous 50/50 agreement. This has been extremely helpful with our fundraising.” As Jim will tell you, it’s not cheap running a national cartoon museum.

Harv will stress that he’s not at all parochial or narrow-minded when it comes to ball sports.

“I’m also happy to do rugby and soccer caricatures,” he says. Though, just for the record, Paul is a Brisbane Lions follower – just don’t ask him how they’ll go in 2018!

BELOW (left to right): Some of Harv’s stunning watercolour portraits on show at Head High Tackle, on show at the Australian Cartoon Museum until the end of April: Adam Treloar, Marcus Bontempelli, Tom Hawkins and Jasper Pillard.

OPPOSITE PAGE (clockwise from top left): John Allison and Paul Harvey assess Harv’s portrait of Jarryd Roughead; Mark Knight and John Spooner looking through Harv’s preliminary sketches, hoping to find inspiration; Peter Viska and Jim Bridges deliver an acapella performance of “Up There, Cazaly”

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Bringing a Cartoon Dream to Life

President of the Australian Cartoon Museum, Jim Bridges (left), with partners in crime Peter Viska and Ian McCall, standing outside the dream that became a reality

By JIM BRIDGES The Dream The story started in June 1979 in Melbourne at a Comics Convention, where I met John Ryan who had just published his book, Panel by Panel. We talked about setting up a cartoon museum, planning to follow up our talk in two weeks’ time when he intended to return to Melbourne. A week later he died. I was so shocked.

I got on my bike and rode into the city every day and purchased all the interstate papers I could lay my hands on. Two weeks later, my wife wanted to know where all the money was going, and when I sheepishly told her, the biggest barney of our entire marriage erupted! The phone rang in the middle of this debacle: it was her Dad, offering me a job as a cleaner at the Airport.

Talk about manna from heaven! I knew that the place was filled with interstate newspapers and I was not wrong….

Shoplifters don’t get far when Jim is on duty!

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“Everybody has been incredibly generous in wishing me well, and congratulating me on my achievement, but I feel the opening the ACM is only the overture to a three-part opera!”

Fast forward twelve years and I had 54 four-drawer filing cabinets, stuffed to the gills and hundreds of archive boxes bulging with comic strips, comics, stuffed toys, thousands of books and magazines – mostly from people who had left them on planes!

As a collector, there was always a method to my madness. My thought was there should be a copy of everything published in this country under one roof. My great love is really animation and caricature, but all seven (or is it eight?) genres of cartoon art are just as important as each other. As far

as cartoonists are concerned, they are all just bricks in the wall of Australian cartooning.

The Australian Cartoon Museum concept was incorporated into a non-profit organisation about 6 years ago and concentrated on building up an online presence – which is still the goal! We now have over 100 Cartoon Bites and Book Bites on YouTube, with many more to come.

Personnel Frantz Kantor kick-started my desire for a museum. He machine-guns IDEAS at me, hardly ever misses, and has guided me along the righteous path to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Aina Crawford is my 80-year-old secretary who practices her swearing at my computer (it’s a Mac)! She fights my computer battles, while I selfishly ignore my technical responsibilities and push on trying to transform a 40-yearold backlog of cartoon ideas into a physical entity.

Peter Viska (of Viskatoons) is VicePresident, and his little black book of who’s who in Melbourne is worth all the friends of everybody on Facebook worldwide!

Paul Harvey, who, according to John Spooner, is “Australia’s Greatest-Ever Caricaturist” (and he should know,

right?) gives astute advice to the committee and steered us to a safe harbour at Docklands.

Rolf Heimann – my hero – reckons the ACM stands shoulder to shoulder with all the overseas equivalents.

The committee is stuffed with talented cartoonists – long on talent and short on economic and practical business types. Still, we somehow got there, and most people are impressed and say it’s got the “wow” factor! Everybody has been incredibly generous in wishing me well, and congratulating me on my achievement, but I feel the opening the ACM is only the overture to a three-part opera!

It must stand on its own two feet, be economically self-reliant, and not depend on any individual for its existence.

I’m 68. Since the museum has started, I’ve tripled my workload, and I’m still working part-time at nights. So, it’s great the Museum is finally open, but there’s still so much to do and I personally feel that my time is running out!

Rolf Heimann (left) with Peter Viska at the ACM launch

I would like to see a cartoon museum in every capital city in ten years’ time, with Melbourne supplying all the others with exhibitions, art and expertise. The world is going into a visual future and it needs visual thinkers and artists to convey the knowledge to educate and entertain

faceoff!

us in the future. I’m passionate about cartooning and cartoonists and I’ll keep going until I drop; but I’m keeping an eye out for younger, passionate people with energy and personal vision to take the ACM into the future.

this issue, we feature artwork by al rose compiled by phil judd

http://alanrosegraphics.com.au Inkspot Autumn 2018

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THIS PAGE Above: Lindsay Foyle faces the music Below: Albo calls the tune

Several months ago I launched a project, with the backing of the ACA Committee, which I might not have, had I given some thought to it.

people in the creative sector are cartoonists, because they can tell a story just visually or with minimal words,” Albanese said.

The project? A large exhibition of cartoons to be shown while the Melbourne Comedy Festival was on. It would contain work of well-known cartoonists, consisting of past and present members of the Australian Cartoonists’ Association. As it turned out, there would be more than 140 cartoonists with something on show and 180 cartoons all up.

“Cartoons evoke an emotional response - it’s not a passive experience to look at a cartoon. They can make you laugh, they can make you angry. What they do absolutely is make you think, often moreso than the written word.”

The idea behind the exhibition was to bring attention to cartooning and hopefully build public interest along with it. All the work was printed on A4 paper and displayed with black mounting, so there is a uniformity to the exhibition.

“There are two sorts of politicians - those people who acknowledge that they look at cartoons (particularly the ones they’re in) and those that aren’t telling the truth.”

After a lot of hard work, the exhibition has become a reality and, as I write, is currently on show at the Glen Eira City Council Gallery, on the corner of Glen Eira and Hawthorn Roads, Caulfield, in Victoria until 22nd April.

On 4th April, the Honorable Anthony Albanese, MP opened the show to an enthusiastic crowd. In his welcoming speech, Albanese professed a long-held love of cartoons.

“It strikes me that the most efficient 10

Inkspot Autumn 2018

Albanese also had a word to say about his parliamentary colleagues.

Geoff Hook then took to the stage on behalf of his fellow cartoonists, thanking our politicians for keeping us gainfully employed!

While this exhibition was largely a solo project, I would like to place on record my thanks to my partner Jan Andrews and acknowledge the invaluable assistance of George and Maxine Haddon in getting the work up on the walls. And thanks, too, to the helpful staff at the Glen Eira City Council Gallery.

LINDSAY FOYLE Exhibition Curator

OPPOSITE PAGE (FROM TOP) Geoff Hook, Leigh Hobbs, Glen Eira Cr. Nina Taylor and Lindsay Foyle; The “Find Jeff’s Hook” competition was very popular; John Allison after finding his artwork and just noticing his spelling error; Helen Lindesay, her dad Vane Lindesay and Judy Horacek; Puckering up with Al Rose and Ian McCall

Photos by John Allison, Jan Andrews, Lindsay Foyle and George Haddon

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JOHN ALLISON (Victoria)

JUSTIN LLOYD (Victoria)

GARY CLARK (Queensland)

DON HATCHER (South Australia)

ROY BISSON (NSW)

your view on...

Inkspot Autumn 2018

DON HATCHER (South Australia)

compiled by phil judd next issue’s theme: “Mobile Phones and Telecommunications” Deadline for entries is 14th June.

Send your cartoons to inkspot@comic-express.com

PHIL JUDD (Queensland)

JOHN ALLISON (Victoria)

GARY CLARK (Queensland)

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Tony Lopes

What was your first break in the business?

In April 2000, Greg Swain, Australian Provincial Newspapers’ regional co-ordinator, contacted me to ask if Insanity Streak could be drawn on a daily basis. Prior to this, it was a weekly-only comic strip that I had commenced in 1992. I accepted Greg’s offer on the condition that he pay for the ongoing therapy that would be needed!

What category of cartooning does your work cover? What formats do you use?

Insanity Streak is a comic strip that appears 7 days a week. The strip has no central characters, so in essence it is a gag-a-day cartoon in a traditional comic strip format.

How do you generate your ideas?

When did you first start drawing/cartooning? Do you have a first memory?

I’m not sure I have a first memory, but I do recall having a real passion for cartooning as a primary school student, often spending more time doodling in the margins of my schoolbooks than studying. At home, mum recalls that I always had to go off and draw cartoons. I especially loved to study the old Warner Bros cartoons. My first sale was to a niche publication in Sydney called Sky & Space. Basically, I knocked on their door cold and showed the Editor a few of my Alien cartoons! I was an ambitious 16-year-old. Luckily the editor, with whom I’m still friends, loved them.

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A couple of mornings a week I head to the beach to write material. I find it’s there I’m most relaxed - my subconscious is just in a rhythm now. I have a natural instinct for it and the distractions just disappear. There is always the germ of an idea rattling around in my head but it’s at the beach that I can find my way and focus. Generally, I’ll brainstorm a topic or situation that I want to explore, looking at a premise from all angles, reversing the scene, or substituting people, places or props to the situation to see what happens. I’ll ask “What if” about a scenario. I’ll think in opposites, or perhaps look for a potential conflict in the premise. Substituting modern or ancient customs, or a historical character or setting, can often produce something.

Also inserting animals, myths or legends into a scenario.

Looking for a familiar word usage, or object that might spark something. Now if all of this fails and nothing works, I’ll jump

onto Seek.com and look for new employment! Finding a voice and comedic style has taken many years and, if I’m honest, I still struggle - even after almost 20 years as a full-time comic strip artist! It’s still a laboured process to find ideas I’m happy with, but I do enjoy the process.

What comes first - the drawing or the writing?

The writing. I believe cartoonists are writers first and artists second.

What materials, technology and methods do you currently use to create your work? Any favourites?

My methods are a mix of traditional old-school techniques with a dab of digital. My originals are pencilled in fairly accurately to how I want them to appear in print. I’ll then ink them using a sable brush and India Ink. For the Speech balloons I use a Rapidograph Pen (Do they even still make these?

I’ve had mine for many a moon!) The inked versions are then rubbed out, cleaned up and scanned into Photoshop.

Then colouring process is completed in Corel Painter using a Wacom pen & tablet. The works are then archived back in Photoshop and whisked away to my respective clients.

Have you ever won any awards for your work?

Yes, I’ve been very fortunate to win 10 Stanley Awards and 20 Rotary Awards.

What’s the best thing that has happened so far in your cartooning career?

It was in 2001, when the Editor of the Daily Mail (UK) left me a message to say he wanted to start running the strip. The United Kingdom has opened up many doors and UK readers are very engaged.

Is there any advice, tips or insights you could offer your fellow cartoonists or those aspiring to be?

Hmm, for fellow cartoonists? Don’t call Editors on a Monday morning! As for aspiring cartoonists…do your research, read all the books you can on the industry and be prepared for the long haul! It’s hard at the moment, with fewer opportunities than ever before. I remember that, to supplement my cartoon income during the 1990s, I was also a full-time photographer.

But really, like anything, you must be persistent and never give up! If you really want something bad enough, and you are truly passionate, only good things can (and will) come

from following your passion…

It probably doesn’t hurt to go to Church and pray, either.

Do you have any favourite Australian cartoonists?

Paul Rigby, without doubt. I loved his artwork. I have his drawing & cartooning course book plus a few of his small editorial collections. I love to pore over them.

Who would you say are your five favourite cartoonists that inspire you?

I loved the genius that was Don Martin from MAD. My early comic strip influences came from the usual suspects; Gary Larson obviously opened up doors that inspired everyone.

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Others include Johnny Hart of BC and Wizard of Id, Jim Borgman, Chuck Jones, and Bob Thaves, who drew Frank & Ernest.

I actually wrote to Mr. Thaves when I was 19, asking about the profession. He replied and was very encouraging. I realised then that this was something I could do.

What are your favourite five comic strips, books or films that have inspired and motivated you?

I loved reading the Asterix books; the art of Albert Uderzo was amazing. Let’s see... Monty Python, Pixar, Woody Allen.

Can I mention TV? Yes, OK then, I must say Seinfeld.

Any obscure cartoonists you can suggest checking out?

I’m not so sure these guys are obscure, but I also like the work of animator Peter de Seve, and French cartoonists Stedo and Lewis Trondheim.

Where does your current work appear?

Insanity Streak appears in 100 newspapers across 15 countries. There is also a range of greeting cards available.

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Where can we find out more about you, your business and your work?

The best place to go is online at www.stoneytoons.com (soon to become tonylopes.com.au).

What are you currently reading, cartooning or general wise?

At the moment, a book on Australian photographer Peter Dombrovskis and Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Suess What music do you enjoy? Do you listen to anything whilst working?

Yes, I enjoy a diverse range of music, but I generally gravitate towards more alternative stuff. For example, bands like Tool, Kings of Leon and Faith No More are on high rotation in my studio.

Do you have any other special talents besides cartooning? Or talents you’d like to have?

Over the last few years, I’ve rekindled my passion for landscape photography. You can see more at www.tonylopesphotography.com

where are they now?

The second in a series of “catch-ups” with retired or reclusive ACA members as they sit down and have a chat over a cuppa with Ian McCall. This issue: ERNIE CARROLL! A few days ago I called in to see cartoonist Ernie Carroll. As I hadn’t heard from Ernie for a while, I decided to pay him a visit.

Ernie was born on 26th May 1929 and grew up on his father’s farm near Geelong. Although Dad wanted Ernie to follow suit and take over the farm, he had other ideas. He started work at radio station 3GL in the early 1940s and also started drawing advertisements for the Purcell Electric Company and many other Geelong companies. These were published as daily strips in the local newspapers.

He started submitted work for Humour magazine and drew the covers for the publication for throughout the 1940s, whilst maintaining his radio commentator role at various country radio stations. Ernie even drew cartoons for Minties wrappers! When television was launched in Australia in 1956, Ernie started work at GTV9 as a cameraman and, going on to become a producer for the Happy Hammond Show, which later evolved into The Tarax Show. Whilst working on the show he started drawing his Smiler the Swaggie strip, which ran for around 25 years in country newspapers in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland as well as Stock and Land.

Ernie based a lot of his gags on experience, having grown up on the family farm.

Ernie continued to draw cartoons for a few years into the mid 1980s, but as the media changed and he became more and more involved with television (and Ossie), he found he really didn’t have much time to do so. One of the last strips he drew was the Ossie Ostrich strip for TV Week. There was even an Ossie Ostrich Cartoon Book!

What a great morning chatting with Ernie Carroll about his work and cartoons!

Daryl Somers and Ernie Carroll in 1992

Enter Daryl Somers, who took over the role of presenting the afternoon show Cartoon Corner from James Kemsley in 1971. Kemsley had left Australia to look for work in London, later returning to draw Ginger Meggs for 23 years. Ernie worked as the writer and producer of Daryl’s afternoon show. Collingwood Football legend Peter MacKenna worked alongside Daryl, although the role only lasted only a few weeks due to the demands of Peter’s football career. Daryl and Ernie were stuck, wondering what to do. Suddenly the puppet character Ossie Ostrich, who until then only had a small role introducing some of the cartoons, moved to the forefront.

Ossie soon became a hugely popular character in the show. Seeking to capitalise on this popularity, the station created the Saturday morning show called Hey, Hey it’s Saturday. Then, due to an overseas Australian Cricket Test Match being played at the same time, the station management chose to re-schedule Daryl and Ernie’s show to a Saturday night.

Hey, Hey it’s Saturday became a national fixture in that time slot for many years.

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Australian cartoonist firstdogonthemoon has, for the past three years, been advocating on behalf of celebrated Manus Island detainee, Ali Dorani - better known by his pen-name, Eaten Fish - to assist in securing his release. With the welcome news of Ali’s release from detention, firstdog filed this report...

A Fishy Tale

Ali Dorani is a young Iranian man – a cartoonist. We have been friends for almost three years now – we communicated occasionally on the phone, mostly on various messaging apps. It started when I received an email from a friend who asked, “Would you be interested in mentoring a young asylum seeker who is a cartoonist? He is currently detained on Manus Island”. I said sure, and off we went. At various points along the way, with people campaigning for his (and others’ release) he won an international cartooning award (Courage Award from Cartoonists Rights International) for bravery and the Voltaire Empty Chair Award from Liberty Victoria.

In the beginning of our friendship I didn’t know what to say to Ali – how do you talk to a guy who was detained in a concentration camp for years, was routinely suicidal and had various other complex and cruel mental health problems that he wasn’t receiving treatment for? They don’t teach this in cartoon school. Actually, they might; I didn’t go to cartoon school.

It didn’t matter how I felt about it though – in the beginning we talked

like (it was extremely boring and filthy and brutal, thanks to the guards and the other detainees - the days were a terrible grind). Ali has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), among other conditions, and is anxious much of the time. He suffers panic attacks, scrubs himself until he bleeds, receiving little or no medication for these things.

As we spoke over the years I noticed he had become stronger. I don’t know how.

He wasn’t the same young man I started talking to. Winning the cartoon award, getting published, obtaining a website all meant a lot – but also nothing while he remained detained in there.

about cartoons – he was excited because I was a “famous” cartoonist and he was… I don’t know… stuck in a tropical gulag bored out of his mind while worrying daily if he was going to be murdered or assaulted.

We talked about what the camp was

Then the Government shipped him to Port Moresby late last year for some reason. Possibly because they planned to close the camps and they knew Ali wouldn’t survive in the general community. Finally, in December, there was the news that we had been too scared to hope for all along – after enduring years of grinding boredom, hopelessness, beatings, misdiagnosis and untreated illnesses, threats, assaults and deliberate vicious neglect at the behest of the Australian Government – Eaten Fish was finally to be freed. There were tears and hugs all round.

With the help of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), the CRNI and many other people, Ali made it to Norway, where he was welcomed with open arms and amazing support services. He has a small but comfortable apartment with his very own washing machine. “No more dirt, germs, guns, or violence. And there is a laundry room.”

Ali is Norwegian now. Although he has a job and a future, he still suffers from his various illnesses; but Norway’s gain is Australia’s loss.

I look forward to meeting him one day, perhaps at the Royal Commission into Australia’s Offshore Detention regime. firstdogonthemoon

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Cartoons by Eaten Fish created during his detention on Manus island

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With newspapers and magazines facing uncertain futures, cartoonists are looking for new ways to bypass the old publishing gatekeepers. Crowdfunding is one such option. Stuart McMillen delivered a talk about crowdfunding at the 2017 Stanleys Conference in Canberra. Here are his top ten tips!

The In-Crowd Planning a Crowdfunding Campaign After three successful campaigns, raising a total of over $16,500, here are the top ten lessons that I’ve learnt from crowdfunding comics.

your political stripes, or your aesthetic that appeals to your readers? Translate that audience-artist connection into a fundraising link.

#1 Crowdfunding supporters mostly donate because they like helping artists.

#2 Cartoons and comics are uniquely suited to crowdfunding.

This might seem like an obvious statement, but it is worth thinking about on a deeper level. The primary motivation for donors is usually the innate human desire to help an artist who is creating positive work. Importantly, other trinkets offered as rewards - postcards, tea towels, books, etc. - are secondary motivators.

As cartoonists, we have two opportunities to connect with our audiences.

In my case, I publish comics that stem from my environmental and social convictions. My crowdfunding supporters see a little piece of themselves in me. They endorse my world view and want me to prosper. Think about how this applies to you and your cartooning. What is it about your sense of humour,

Second, the ‘person behind the artwork’ is equally compelling to that audience. Readers are fascinated by the interesting creatures who create their favourite cartoons! If they like the cartoons, they will seriously consider helping the cartoonist who produces the artwork that they enjoy so much.

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First, every cartoonist has a personal artistic style, distinctive and idiosyncratic, which is instantly recognisable to his or her readers.

#3 Overcome the fear of asking for help.

Most people never reach out and ask for help. Instead, many sit around and hope that things will magically work out.

Australians are often particularly hesitant when it comes to fundraising. Fearing ‘tall poppy syndrome’, many shy away from asking.

I, too, baulked at asking for help prior to my first crowdfunding campaign in 2012. But I went ahead and asked anyway. To my delight, 117 of my readers donated to the campaign.

Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Realise that your audience wants you to succeed. All that you need to do is ask.

It’s not that scary after you’ve done it. So, do it.

#4 You are the one responsible for planning and running your crowdfunding campaign.

Platforms like Kickstarter, Patreon and Pozible will gladly host your campaign on their service. But they will do zero promotional work for you. You need to drive the fundraising effort yourself. Consequently, most donors will come from within an existing circle of friends, acquaintances and readers. Treat it as a happy surprise if random strangers donate to your campaign. But don’t count on it happening.

#5 Do the maths.

Your crowdfunding campaign should not be a guessing game. Quite the opposite: list all the people in your life. For each person on this list, write a dollar estimate of how much you think they will likely to donate to your campaign. Be conservative!

Do a similar thing with your audience base. Put numbers on how many people are in your fan base, and then run realistic numbers about how many people are likely to donate $5 or $50. Instead of hiding yourself from the numbers, you need to honestly assess whether you are likely to succeed. If these calculations show that you are far from succeeding, you need to reassess whether you should launch your proposed campaign.

#6 Create a master plan for your crowdfunding campaign before beginning.

How many weeks will it last? When will you communicate with your audience? How much will your rewards cost to produce and send? Again, be conservative with your budgeting.

Build buffers into your costs and time frames.

Pre-plan all the communication that you will release during your multi-week crowdfunding campaign. Pre-write your email newsletters and press releases. Pre-shoot your videos.

You don’t want to play ‘catch-up’ in the middle of your campaign when the clock is ticking.

#7 Don’t publicly launch a crowdfunding campaign with “$0” as the current pledge total.

Understand donor psychology. No one likes being one of the early donors to a campaign. No one gets excited by pledging a donation that will take a campaign from 3% funded to 5% funded. Yawn!

On the other hand, people love being one of donors in the later stages of the campaign. They want to be the person Inkspot Autumn 2018

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who can push you from 93% funded to 95% funded. Now that is exciting!

Think about that: how the same donation creates different psychological reactions in the minds of your donors.

How do we get around this problem? My biggest tip is to privately ‘soft launch’ your campaign to close friends and supporters before you publicly announce your campaign.

Ask them to take you to at least 25% before your campaign begins.

In 2016, I encouraged early donations by shooting an informal video that I only shared with my personal friends. In this short video, I spelled out this donor psychology phenomenon, and asked my mates to help me by becoming an early ‘icebreaker’ donor.

An alternative is offering extra goodies for the early donors who take you to 50% of your target. Mail them handwritten postcards, or similar nifty gifts.

#8 A crowdfunding video.

Statistically speaking, crowdfunding pages without videos are far less likely to succeed than those with videos. So, don’t fight against the odds: shoot a video! It doesn’t need to be too flash, but it should be competently shot and edited.

The creator needs to appear in the video, as the primary focus. No exceptions! Keep the whole thing well under three minutes and get to the point as soon as possible. If we don’t know your ‘elevator pitch’ within the first 20 seconds, you

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have failed. Reflect on Tip #1 from this list. Your video should remind your readers of how much they enjoy your art and make them think about how good they would feel if they became your crowdfunding supporter.

Importantly: at the end of the video, remember to directly ask for help, rather than leaving it to the viewer’s imagination.

#9 Reboot your marketing material in the middle of the campaign.

Here is more Donor Psychology 101: you need to ask people multiple times before they will decide to act. Keep mentioning and re-mentioning your crowdfunding campaign. But, remember that no one will watch a video more than once.

Think of creative ways that you can revive your marketing materials midway through your campaign.

I recommend multiple videos, staggered through a crowdfunding campaign. Change the tone from ‘serious’ to ‘silly’.

Change the backdrop from ‘indoors’ to ‘outdoors’. Anything to make the person decide to watch your new, updated video.

Eventually, after multiple exposures, the person will hopefully finally decide to pledge a donation.

#10 Steal good ideas from other crowdfunding pages.

Have you seen a good crowdfunding video? Seen a great blurb? Analyse the underlying reasons why you think they are successful... and then steal them for yourself! You might as well borrow ideas from the best. After all, if it appeals to you, it will likely also resonate with others.

Bertram and Horak Announced as Ledger of Honour Recipients The Ledger of Honour (Hall of Fame) Awards were announced on 10 February at the Australian Comic Arts Festival (ACAF) held in Canberra in February.

This year’s recipients are MOIRA BERTRAM and YAROSLAV HORAK. Moira Bertram (with her letterer sister, Kathleen) was one of the very few female artists working in the comic industry of the 40s and 50s in Australia.

Her bold, distinct style and dynamic layouts were ahead of their time. Her key works include Jo and Her Magic Cape, Flameman: Genie Of The Sun, Red Finnegan (self-published with Kathleen), and Dan Eagle.

According to Dr Kevin Patrick, Bertram was “unlike many of her male counterparts of the time,” and “from the outset grasped the dynamic storytelling possibilities of the comic book page.

Huge panels, inventive compositions and dizzying perspectives dominate her page layouts, while her use of over-thetop sound effects anticipates the comic book paintings of 1960s ‘pop’ artists like Roy Lichtenstein.”

Ingrid Unger, from the book Bonzer, wrote: “Bertram developed a striking visual style that included a skilful use of changing angles for dramatic and humorous effect. Bertram’s stories are action-packed, without being excessively violent, and often contain humour. They feature strong women and a variety of other female characters.”

Moira and Kathleen produced many war, adventure and romance stories for publishers such as Page, Cleveland and Horwitz. Later in her career, Moira also drew and painted covers for pulp paperbacks, mainly Carter Brown detective books. Moira Bertram passed away in 1993.

Yaroslav Horak worked on many Australian comics from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. Moving to the UK, he was given the assignment of drawing the James Bond newspaper strip, first adapting Ian Fleming’s novels, then producing original stories with writer Jim Lawrence.

His key early works include Skyman, Rick Davis Detective, Jet Fury, Ray Thorpe and Ripon: The Man from Outer Space. In 1954, he created The Mask - The Man of Many Faces. He also worked on Brenda Starr, Sergeant Pat and The Lone Wolf.

From 1957 until 1962, Horak produced a Sunday strip called Captain Fortune, based upon an early Australian television show. He also created Mike Steele...

Desert Rider for Woman’s Day. In 1962, Horak moved to England. He began drawing the James Bond newspaper strip in 1966, developing his distinctive style. By 1968, he was drawing

original Bond adventures, which led to a lengthy run of 33 adventures between 1966 and 1984.

Horak moved back to Australia in 1980, where he worked on the Sun-Herald strip, Cop Shop, which was based on the popular television show of the same name. He also created the sci-fi strip Andea, about which he was justifiably proud.

The Ledger Awards acknowledge excellence in Australian comic books and graphic novels. This year’s awards will be held on 6th July in Sydney, where the Ledgers Annual will feature in-depth articles on both artists and their careers.

Visit the website for further information: www.LedgerAwards.org GARY CHALONER and DANIEL BEST

Yaro Horak in his studio in 2007 Inkspot Autumn 2018

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LOOK! UP IN THE SKY! It’s a Bird... It’s a Plane...

Truth, Justice, and the American Dream: The Men Behind Superman was written by Julian Voloj and illustrated by Thomas Campi. While it is yet to be released, Inkspot is able to exclusively present pages from the new book. We think you’ll agree, it looks amazing.

Here, Thomas speaks with Nat Karmichael about the his labour of love.

How did you get to work on The Men Behind Superman?

Before moving to Sydney, I was living in Hangzhou, China.

Each May they held a big Comic Festival there, with a few international guests. During one of those events I was first introduced to [France-based literary agent] Nicolas Grivel by a friend. We met on a hot afternoon in late spring, 2014 in Xihu (West Lake), where he told me all about the script. It wasn’t difficult to convince me [to begin working on the story].

Were you aware of the back story to Superman before you read Julian Voloj’s story and what motivated you to illustrate his script?

I knew a little bit about Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel and their struggle, but not all the details. The Men Behind Superman tells that, with all the tangled circumstances that led to the creation of the Golden Age of comic books in the USA. Making this book has been a good excuse for me to study the American comic book industry and the biographies of some of the more influential artists who have worked within it.

I’ve always been interested in telling stories that explore common people, their relationships and how life can change in a moment. With this graphic novel I had the chance to do that and much more. I also had total artistic freedom; so I got to draw in different styles and techniques, changing my color palette from my previous works as well as having the fun to draw my personal interpretation of New York and the old days.

What -- as an artist -- do you now feel about Joe Shuster after having illustrated his life?

I feel very close to him.

Every time I start working on a new story I begin by sketching the characters. It is similar to real life when you meet somebody you have heard of, but have never actually met. You need the time to get to know them. It’s the same for the characters I draw; I get to know them day after day, page after page and they become friends (this sounds silly, I know).

With Joe, this feeling was amplified. He was an artist and an immigrant, much like myself (although in a different time and for different reasons). And like myself, he was in love with comics. He made his dreams come true and then he had to go through painful times where everything he accomplished crashed because of money, politics and opportunism.

I’ll miss him.

Truth, Justice, and the American Dream: The Men Behind Superman will soon be released in Australian bookstores. A special edition of book that includes the writer’s commentary and preliminary artistic roughs of the cover artwork is available for pre-order now from www.comicoz.com

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It’s...

Interview by NAT KARMICHAEL

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Kids Score Caricatures for Christmas!

GEORGE HADDON reports on the 2017 Christmas Party for Special Children

The doors to the biggest Christmas party in town opened and the crowd of about 5000 people - 2300 excited children, plus their families and carers - came surging in.

The noise was getting louder, the queue for a caricature instantly began snaking out past the face-painters, spinning tea cup rides and off into the distance…. and ten of Melbourne’s finest caricaturists began drawing until the band stopped playing, the tea cups stopped spinning, the kids stopped yelling and the doors closed, 4 hours later…

The event was the amazing annual Christmas Party for Special Children held at the Melbourne Showgrounds in December. The day gave over 2,300 children with life-threatening diseases, intellectual or physical disabilities, or those living in disadvantaged circumstances, their families and carers a day they will never forget. They were treated to a wonderful day of diverting entertainment, amusements, activities, great caricatures - and gifts from Santa!

It was a special day for everyone, including those drawing. A few days later we received a moving thank you from an unidentified parent. The Australian Cartoonists’ Association has been volunteering at the Christmas party for a number of years now, and the cartoonists are now second only to Santa.

A huge thank you to my mates for their help this year: Paul Harvey, Anthony Pascoe, Levent Efe, Ricky Walker, Alan Rose, Peter Mathieson, Jock Macneish, Danny Zemp, David Seery and, yours truly, George Haddon.

TOP: Special scribblers (left to right) Anthony Pascoe, Ricky Walker, Danny Zemp, Al Rose, Paul Harvey, George Haddon, Levent Efe and Peter Mathieson; missing are Jock Macneish and David Seery, who’d gone for a Tosca RIGHT (TOP): Another masterpiece from Harv RIGHT (MIDDLE): Pascoe all set for the onslaught BELOW (left to right): George Haddon and art critic; Al Rose and Danny Zemp in action; Ricky Walker with his hands full!

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Christmas Caricatures Leave Lasting impression on family If anyone ever doubted the transformative power of a cartoon or caricature, they need not go past the emotional reaction of parents with sick kids.

Many who draw in a “live” situation have elicited a similar reaction at least once in their career and it is as special to the artists as it is to the parents.

A few days after the 2017 Special Children’s Christmas Party in Melbourne, co-ordinator George Haddon received this Christmas card from one of the families present on the day.

“The anonymous sender of this card, a mother or a father, was expressing a family’s heart-felt thanks to the ACA members who donated their time at the Christmas party, “ said George.

“We don’t know who the parent is, but we’re grateful and we can only hope their child gets better.”

Vale

Peter McAdam (1942-2018) “Dad loved sailing and cooking on yachts, and later on the heritage tall ship, the James Craig. Dad received a call inviting him to be the ship’s executive chef, to which he responded: ‘Executive chef? I’m just Peter the Reheater!’,’ said Jane. “He was told that his reputation preceded him, and after taking up the challenge of cooking for 70 on a weekend trial run, he leapt at the opportunity to do voyage after voyage.”

On 13th February, the Australian Cartoonists’ Association lost one of it’s more social members in Peter McAdam.

The 75-year-old father of two and grandfather to six, died less than a year after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

ACA President Jules Faber and several of Peter’s cartooning colleagues were part of the 700-strong crowd at the standing-room-only service at St. Clement’s Anglican Church, Mosman on 20th February, which gives a fair indication of the way Peter’s life touched others.

Peter McAdam at the 2009 Stanley Awards at Darling Harbour, Sydney

Jane McAdam gave a stirring summary of her Dad’s life. We realised, despite Peter’s utter enthusiasm for cartooning, that it was just one interest in a very full and busy life! There isn’t room to publish her eulogy in this issue of Inkspot, so we’ll hold it over ‘til next time. It is a great read!

by the time he was 26. As the 1980s got under way, Peter was working in the financial planning industry. He delivered monthly talks at the Australian Stock Exchange and organised the 1992 Money Expo at Darling Harbour that attracted 8,000 attendees. In 1989, he started a Sydney radio talk-back segment on investment which ran for six years.

Born in Adelaide in 1942, Peter been a talented teenage gymnast, a dance club proprieter, a life insurance underwriter, a pharmaceuticals rep and married all

Peter was active in his local community, including founding the Asylum Seekers Centre Trivia Night fundraiser and cofounding the Mini-Mosmarathon.

If that wasn’t enough, he sailed more than 20 Sydney-to-Hobart yacht races as a chef. The funeral was replete with stories!

Peter was also a proud, devoted husband to Jenanne whom he met in 1968.

“He was the champion of Dad jokes.”

Jane adds. “So much so that Mum had to tell him not to joke with the doctors in case they thought it was the cancer attacking his brain.”

When four-year-old grandson Mason was told that Dad had died, his immediate reaction was, ”Oh no, now we don’t have any good drawers in the family.”

Vale, Macadamia.

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Vale

Ron Tandberg (1943-2018)

drew small, thought big A Reflection on the Life of Ron Tandberg

by Lindsay Foyle, George Haddon and Neil Matterson When writing about someone with the talent of Ron Tandberg, it is easy to be accused of hyperbole, and to label him the clichéd “cartoonist’s cartoonist”.

Whatever adjectives chosen to describe his long career they are, in the end, mere words used to try to make sense of his extraordinary success and what exactly it was that made him admired by so many.

On one level Tandberg was a deceptive cartoonist. His printed work was small, his line-work and caption minimalist, all working together to hide his subtle, clever and often sophisticated ideas.

The complicated was masquerading as simplicity. The simplicity allowed maximum readability and understanding.

It became Tandberg’s gateway for the readers to participate in the business of cartooning the news.

Tandberg’s job as a ‘pocket’ news cartoonist on Melbourne’s The Age newspaper was an onerous one. He often worked as the paper was being pieced together with no time to quietly mull the nuances of the story or the characters involved. Tandberg’s job was of the here and now. But the exceptionally clever part became the appearance that Tandberg had mulled for a long time, such was the polish and sparkle of his work. The other enormous hurdle 32

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of his job was the fact that the cartoon, appearing as a beacon in the body of a story, was read first. Tandberg’s clever and incisive use of the English language (his captions) repeatedly gave him the pathway of overcoming those difficulties. “I don’t get it” was a phrase rarely used when reading a Tandberg cartoon.

Deceptive also applied to Tandberg’s line work. It was easy to dismiss it as childlike and of little artistic merit. But make no mistake - Tandberg could draw. The three to four centimetres (the width of a newspaper column) that Tandberg had to work with gave him no space for the superfluous and unwarranted graphic. He worked the lines to perfection to convey the fundamental and crucial elements of the artwork.

Nothing was added to distract from the reading of the idea and concept of the work.

His linework contained no variations in width; black and white, pure and strong, and just plain funny to look at.

With this simplicity, Tandberg contributed to reinventing the art of cartooning alongside John Spooner, Patrick Cook, Peter Nicholson, and Michael Leunig in the 1970s.

Ronald Peter Tandberg was born in 1943 to Melbourne working-class parents and raised in a small house at

the suburb of Pascoe Vale South. His grandfather was a builder who gave away his money during the Great Depression and believed in communist ideas. Raised a Catholic, his father was a maintenance electrician while his mother was an overlocker who worked in a knitting mill. At one time both his parents worked at William Angliss Meatworks. “My parents worked in the same Footscray abattoirs as Ron’s father and they all knew each other long before Ron and I were born,” wrote Leunig in The Age recently.

Until grade four, Tandberg attended St Fidelis Primary School in Moreland, before moving to St Joseph’s Christian Brothers College in North Melbourne for two years. After his mother became concerned about the welts on his backside, he was moved to St Joseph’s College and then Coburg Technical School.

Ron’s family discovered little Ron had a talent for drawing when he about eight.

“Saturday nights were spent at my grandparents’ house,” he recalled. They lived near Flemington racecourse and Grandpa was a bit of a punter – never had any money, but he was a punter.

Tandberg said, “We discussed the horses and my brother who was 4 years older than me tried drawing them, then I drew some and the family discovered mine were better than his. He never drew another horse!”

The nuns at the primary school and the teachers and his mates from Coburg Technical School all recollected little Ronny Tandberg being a “Good drawer!”

So, it was no surprise when he went off to Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to study art. He was 16 with not much more than ten years of schooling behind him. Tandberg has been quoted saying, “My traditional education was pretty ordinary, but I think it helped because I didn’t have a structured way of looking at things; I had to have my own way of thinking about them.”

Ron did not know he was destined to become a cartoonist, although, he said in 2011, “Being brought up a Catholic taught me to question things, and I always had that lack of respect for authority. My drawing style came from a belief in simplicity which came from my four years of art at RMIT and tied in with graphic design,” said Ron. He was not politically aware, “but a friend alerted me to Bruce Petty’s drawings

in The Australian. Petty’s cartoons were bold and free.”

After RMIT Ron started work in the art department of the Leader in 1963. They published a dozen suburban newspapers and it was where his first cartoon was published, in a magazine called Tom Thumb when he was 19. He was sacked after doing an impersonation of the general manager.

Ron then found work in a small advertising agency. “I didn’t believe in advertising particularly, but I thought it was the only area I could get into as a career. I learnt about the impact of captions in advertisements, using a simple message with a minimalist approach, not just with words but with drawing. I was obsessed with simplicity.”

He then worked as an art teacher at Williamstown High. During his time there, Ron drew the comic strip, Fred & Others, first published in Melbourne’s The Herald in 1969. It was soon picked up by United Features Syndicate and published in The Advertiser in Adelaide, and syndicated internationally to newspapers including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and in South Africa.

The biggest problem he had with the strip was when it was banned in South Africa for being blasphemous.

Geoff Hook recalled, “While at The Sun News-Pictorial I would have other artists and cartoonists visiting and sharing their work with me. In 1972, Ron came to see me, his work showing outstanding examples of acerbic wit, fun and excellent draughtsmanship within his style. As Bill Green - WEG- was firmly established at The Herald and I filled The Sun News-Pictorial’s editorial space, and as I could see the literary focus in Ron’s work, I suggested he take his work around to The Age.” However, The Age was not interested in taking on Ron’s comic strip.

cartoons [because] they didn’t relate to the stories. So I [saw this as] a bit of a breakthrough – [so I began] to actually draw ‘on the stories’. It just happened by accident. After that, my cartoons began appearing with the news items in the magazine.”

Writing for Inside Story, the editor of The Secondary Teacher Bill Hannan said, “One day the education editor of The Age asked me if the paper could re-run some of Ron’s cartoons in its ‘Education Age’ section. This was awkward.

Ron happened to be away, so I couldn’t ask him. But I decided on Ron’s behalf that being in The Age would be a good thing. Happily, when Ron came back he agreed.”

Tandberg said, “Graham Perkin, the Editor of The Age, saw my work in his own newspaper and invited me back to his office not realizing I was the same bloke he had seen earlier. He tried me out for two days a week, then three days, then four and then…” It was Fred from Ron’s strip Fred & Others who became Ron’s ‘everyman’.

Tandberg starting work at The Age in 1972 and was about to become a cartooning legend. Over the next 45 years he was to cartoon on Gough Whitlam’s dismissal, Malcolm Fraser’s Easter Island aloofness, Sir John Kerr’s tipsy Melbourne Cup performance, Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s rustic folksiness, the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating rivalry, Joan Kirner’s gender challenges, Jeff Kennett’s open-mouthed struggles with silence, “Honest” John Howard, Kevin Rudd’s selfie nerdiness and any other subject making news in The Age. Often the memory of the cartoons remained in the mind long after the event they portrayed had faded into the background.

So, as he continued teaching he began drawing cartoons for the teachers’ union monthly magazine, The Secondary Teacher. It was the same magazine Alex Stitt contributed designs, cartoons and illustrations to for 10 years. Tandberg has said, “I think my cartoon style began to evolve there,” and the influence of Petty and Stitt in Ron’s style can be seen at that time.

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Peter Nicholson started cartooning at The Age in 1976 and he recalls working with Tandberg. “It was fun working in the same room as Ron, watching him go to and fro to the Page One subs and the Editor with his ideas. Sometimes they wouldn’t really appreciate the joke, didn’t like it, or thought it was too cheeky. Ron would always show it to a couple of subs further along the Page One desk on the pretext he was getting feedback. When this got a good laugh, he would show the cartoon to the Editor. In the early days, many of Ron’s ideas were too revolutionary for a broadsheet “newspaper of record” to put in the hallowed space of page one, especially above the fold. After he won a few Walkley Awards, Ron had less of a battle.”

Tandberg won the first of his eleven Walkley Awards in 1976. It was the year George Haddon won his fourth for illustration, so the two flew to Perth for the presentation. Haddon said, “I had close friends living there at the time and Ron joined me drawing on the place mats and tablecloths at their house for dinner a few times before we came home. I told them they should hang on to Ron’s drawings – I hope they remembered!”

Sean Leahy, who was living in Perth at the time, said, “I met him when he flew to Perth to collect his first Walkley, then in Melbourne and later when he worked briefly for News Limited. Arguably Australia’s best political cartoonist, Tandberg’s humble demeanour was inversely proportional to his genius, economical of pen-line and devastating of wit. A gentleman always in person with a powerful radar targeted on those who abused positions of power.”

“Ron Tandberg was an inspirational cartoonist, the absolute master of the pocket cartoon”, recalls Judy Horacek.

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“I adored Ron’s cartoons,” said Anton Emdin. “I first encountered them as a kid reading the ‘family’ newspaper. The simple black and white ‘cartoony’ style drew me in, and once I was a bit older (and able to understand the issues) I delighted in his quick wit and deft ability to boil down big, serious issues into absolutely biting satire – all delivered in his fun, digestible and utterly unique Tandberg style.”

“With an amazing economy of line, he caught the foibles of politicians with devastating wit and drew his Everyperson characters with kindness and love.

I loved that he used both female and male characters as his spokespeople. I could always trust that he would be on the side of goodness and light, wanting a better world; if Ron thought something was not right, then so did I. And he was the nicest, friendliest person; it was always lovely to see him.”

“Ron got a lot of his ideas whilst on phone to Michelle Grattan, who would brief him directly from the Canberra bureau about the day’s events,” said Nicholson. “Not necessarily exactly what she would write as that was often different altogether, but this was ideal for Ron. Nearly all good cartoon ideas spring from a truthful description of what’s going on at some level anyway.

Ron would reply to her with casual badinage, and meanwhile be jotting down his thoughts. He was like a tennis player returning a fast serve. You don’t think about it, you just try to hit it. If you stop to think you’ll miss it. This was how he worked, and I learnt a lot from watching that.”

“Loved and treasured by the readers of The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, he was known for preferring a personal telephone briefing to get his ideas firing,” recalled Cathy Wilcox. “This was warmly remembered by many reporters and editors; others acknowledged his need to chew the fat and occasional querulousness, stretching their patience in an ever-shrinking newsroom with less time for everything. I had my own prickly experience of him when he was less than thrilled to share his pocket-cartooning gig with this new kid from Sydney. But Ron was Ron. Undisputed master of his tiny, powerful format. Sharp, devastatingly funny, concise, unerringly true to principle. He left us too soon, and certainly before he’d had enough. Cartooning will miss him. We will miss him.”

Tandberg won further Walkley Awards in 1977, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985 and 1986 for cartoons and the Gold Walkley in 1979 and 1986. Nobody has won as many Walkley Awards as Tandberg has.

The only Stanley Award Ron Tandberg received was in 1986 at the Sheraton Wentworth in Sydney, awarded the year’s best Editorial/Political Cartoonist.

He was struggling to put on his coat when guest of honour, Bob Hawke, was attempting to give him the trophy.

It was a big night, and the night that Dean Alston first met Ron. He said, “Everyone knew ‘Tandberg’. His brilliant cartoons skewered politicians, crooked businessmen, bigots, racists, hypocrites, political correctness and hubris. With his simple drawing style and a few words, he told the true story. I admired his work. His intuitive and matchless thought processes and his unmistakable drawings. I am very sorry to see him go.”

In 2011, George Haddon asked Ron if his pen had upset many people over the years. Tandberg remembered one night, hosted by The Age, where he was speaking while sketching when then-Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett pointedly turned his back. “Tandberg, merrily sketching the premier with his mouth wide as Port Phillip Bay, ventured a few verbal jabs about how Kennett had ‘opened up’ Melbourne and Victoria. Eventually the Premier shouted from the floor that Tandberg had ‘offended half the population’ because he’d made a quip about ex-Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Tandberg responded by telling Kennett that judging from the last election results, he had offended half the population of Victoria.

Kennett stormed out.”

Tandberg considered Kennett standing up and screaming at him was probably one of his career highlights. “He was a lousy politician, but great entertainer really! I was able to use that incident whenever I had to give a speech – it

always entertained people. We need people like that around, or I do anyway,” Ron added laughing.

Towards the end of 2017, Ron discovered he had oesophageal cancer and spent time undergoing intensive radiation treatment. In Australia, about 1,400 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer each year.

Leunig recalled, “Ron once told me that he likened his role to that of a heckler: the irreverent, nimble voice from the crowd who was able to cast an enlightening or corrupting spell of hilarity upon an audience, bringing the whole show into well-deserved ridicule.”

In February 1987, Fairfax took over the Melbourne television station HSV-7. It was a disaster, as broadcast rules did not allow the ownership of any more than two TV stations at a time, and Fairfax already owned one in Sydney and another in Brisbane. Fairfax ended up selling all TV interests off to Qintex, controlled by Christopher Skase. Dismayed by how Fairfax was being run, in August 1987 Warwick Fairfax launched a takeover bid for John Fairfax and Sons. While successful, there was further calamity – in October the world’s stock market crashed and Warwick went broke. Canadian media operator Conrad Black and Kerry Packer combined to launch a takeover in 1991 via their jointly owned company, Tourang.

Packer departed in 1992, leaving Black to take control of Fairfax. Everyone was mightily surprised when Tandberg left The Age and moved to the Herald Sun in 1993, not long after a new editor Alan Kohler had been appointed by Black.

“I was disenchanted with the changes happening at The Age at the time, and the revolution there was disturbing me. A former Age executive, Steve Harris, was then Editor-in-Chief at the Herald Sun. He was an old friend and had been asking me to join the paper for six months,” he said, “and I thought he might change the approach of the paper.”

There were many attempts to get Tandberg back to The Age, particularly

by Michael Hoy, a senior Fairfax executive in Sydney who rang him regularly.

Eventually, after 17 months, he returned ‘home’. Posters proclaimed, “Ron is back!” with an agreement that he could work from home.

Besides his most recent Walkley Awards in 1997 and 2014, Tanberg won the Melbourne Press Club Quill Award for Best Illustration in Any Medium in 2006 and the Quill People’s Choice Award in 2002.

He was awarded the National Museum of Australia’s Political Humour Award

for Best Political Cartoon in 2002 and in 2003. He was inducted into the Melbourne Press Club’s Australian Media Hall of Fame in 2014. At the time, Harris wrote, “His sharp brain and pen meant that for 50 years in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney a frequent conversation of the day was: ‘Did you see today’s Tandberg?’ That’s a big message about a pocket cartoon.”

Ron’s working day in began at about midday. He loved the interaction he got from the letters sent in by readers and said that if he ever got stuck for an idea, one would often present him with a fresh thought and another way of approaching a subject. “Sometimes you have a germ of an idea that hasn’t quite formalised into a decent idea – like the one about weapons of mass destruction which I was quite chuffed about.

“Here was this powerful country selling all these weapons to these little countries that shouldn’t have them, and they have this great war machine, and then they’re criticising other countries for having weapons – I just found that a massive contradiction and I hadn’t got it into a simple concept until it suddenly hit me: ‘How do you know they have weapons of mass destruction?’ ‘We’ve kept their receipts!’

“I try to make it look simple, done quickly. The trouble is, then you have people say, ‘What else do you do?’ They haven’t seen me stuck there tortured, surrounded by scraps of paper. The drawing hasn’t gone right, something’s wrong, the character’s not quite right, the idea’s not working, fiddling, fiddling, walking away, tweak this, and then…

Eureka! They don’t see that.”

Ron used to dabble a bit with painting and sketching when on holidays, and carried a sketchbook when having a coffee somewhere.

Tandberg told his friend Tony Wright a few weeks before he died, “I’ve been drawing for close on 50 years,” he says.

“And the world is in a worse place now than it was when I started, so I’d have to say my influence has been pretty limited.” He turned 74 on New Year’s Eve, and died on Monday 8th January 2018, at the St John of God Hospital in Geelong, surrounded by members of his family – his wife, Glen, at his side.

“I met Ron only a few times over the years. I found him such a genial gentle man. But with a mischievous twinkle in his eye,” said Alan Moir. “His little explosives were scattered through The Age like minefields buried in the stories.

Over the years I must have read thousands of his simple pared-back gems, and never came across one that didn’t work. His stuff was utterly inspirational, jaw dropping in its simplicity and audacity. You will be missed. Farewell Ron.” Tandberg never stopped seeing the funny side of life. While getting treatment for his cancer he drew several cartoons illustrating his condition. His last being of the pier at Queenscliff, featuring happy souls fishing and walking their dogs on the beach. He leaves his wife Glen, five children and seven grandchildren.

ABOVE: Dean Alston’s tribute to Ron Tandberg

Ron Tandberg’s final book of cartoons, A Year of Madness: The Tandberg Collection, was published this year by Wilkinson Publishing. It chronicles the events of 2017 according to Tandberg and is available online at www.wilkinsonpublishing.com.au

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Beyond Their Pens Articles on Australian cartoonists who have written published books, composed stage plays or have made a significant cultural contribution.

This issue: HAL GYE Of the many cartoonists known for literary connections, Hal Gye (pronounced as for ‘jive’) was undoubtedly the best known and remembered for his association with his friend C.J. Dennis, when he illustrated Den’s second and best-loved book, The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915).

Because of the popularity and frequent reprints of this book, most adult Australians are familiar with Hal Gye’s delicate pen drawings of The Bloke, Doreen, The Straw Hat, Coot and Ma – naked winged cherubs of immense charm and invention enlivening Den’s narrative poem.

Dennis and Gye first met through the Melbourne office of The Bulletin towards the end of 1914. And the friendship lasted – Hal Gye illustrating all of Dennis’s future books except for A Book for Kids (1921) which Dennis himself illustrated. Den fancied himself as a comic artist but in no real sense could he be allowed this distinction. Dennis drew a caricature of Hal Gye, which was published in The Bulletin.

David Low’s caricature of Hal Gye, and Gye’s returned compliment, both also printed in The Buletin, came from the time when Low and Gye shared a studio in Melbourne. Dennis, Gye and Low were in fact members of the “Sunnyside” Kallista (Victoria) group, one of the brightest literary-artistic circles to meet in this country.

Harold Frederick Neville Gye was born at Ryde, a Sydney suburb, in May 1888. As a child his schooling was at Black Range (now Lavington) in New South Wales at a bush school, attended by Aborigines and white children. He left when he was twelve years old to find employment in a Melbourne architect’s office with a starting wage of two shillings, but he threw his job over to work for a city solicitor serving summonses mainly on poor people for back 36

Inkspot Autumn 2018

by Vane Lindesay

rent. Hal recalled experiencing poverty when a youth, and as home entertainment his father would recite lines from Dickens and Shakespheare, and perform on his piccolo.

From this background the young Hal Gye, knowing no other condition, believed that, “no child should be deprived of poverty; it is the doorstop to appreciation and without appreciation, we might as well be cabbages”.

Hal yearned to be an artist. He answered an art school advertisement conducted by Alek Sass, an artist of high attainments and a regular contributor to the weekly magazine Punch. His studio was situated on the corner of Elizabeth and Collins Streets, where Gye was accepted and had his first art lessons. Determined to be an artist, Hal spent his free time reading every book on art in the collections of the public library where he copied in pencil the various illustrations. He showed these to Sass.

After his time with the studio Gye had the confidence to submit cartoons to the Adelaide magazine The Gadfly (a cheeky publication, with sometimes cheerfully malicious comment, widely ranging from the then-prospering theatre and its personalities to Australian Rules football, edited by C.J. Dennis) and to the Sydney-based Bulletin, where both publications accepted his cartoons.

During the years 1907 and 1908, other work was published in the magazines Vumps and The Worker, both publishing jokes, cartoons, verse and various articles, with short stories by Henry Lawson.

At age nineteen, Hal took a studio in the old St. James Building, the favourite location for Melbourne artists. Other studios included the Collins Street Olderfleet Building which he shared with David Low for seven years. Gye’s full-page cartoon features for The Bulletin displayed remarkable drawing progress from 1908 to 1915, when Den invited him to illustrate The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, and later The Glugs of Gosh, Den’s other narrative poem published in 1917.

He became nationally famous for his illustrations to Den’s Songs, selling fifty thousand copies within nine months in 1915, and two hundred thousand copies in total. Sadly, as illustrator of the fourteen drawings, Hal only received twenty-one shillings for each illustration. This was somewhat redressed when George Robinson, the principal of the publisher, sent the artist a decent cheque as a wedding present when Hal married in 1916, and began paying him liberally for later work. It was not only his illustration work that supported him in his middle career, as Hal had written many thousands of articles, paragraphs and light verse; this latter with others recalling his youth and aspects of the nowvanished ‘bush’.

Shortly after the success of The Sentimental Bloke drawings, Gye illustrated a full page for The Weekly Times Annual 1918, in the manner of The Bloke illustrations echoing the winged cupid theme, but the device could not be used indefinitely, and this encore was the final curtain. The Glugs of Gosh illustrations in 1917 were pen-drawn more in terms of fanciful and grotesque characters and costume fittingly caricatured for Den’s socially satirical verse.

These Glugs watercolour illustrations for the dust jacket, frontispiece, and title page are, from any point of judgement, his best work comparable with those similar created by the English book illustrator Arthur Rackham. Other than his Glug illustrations, the ups-and-downs of Hal Gye’s drawing style and his uncertain direction was evident in his illustrations for the 1918 publication of Dennis’ vernacular poems Digger Smith and Ginger Mick.

During the 1920s Hal Gye was resident cartoonist for the Sydney Daily Telegraph and later the Adelaide daily, The News. Both appointments were announced on the front pages of the respective newspapers, together with photo-portraits and drawings by Hal Gye. Back in Melbourne, he contributed joke drawing to Punch during 1925 and drew sporting cartoons for The Herald and for The Sporting Globe.

Hal Gye belonged to the old school of black and white artists – his drawings teem with japes and harmless eccentricities, the Bohemian life. After he shared his studio with Low, Gye became interested in watercolour painting. Following a serious car accident and hospitalisation in 1933, he lost interest in black and white illustrations and explored the medium of oil painting.

At the time he lost this interest, his drawings became more uneven. Somehow, he never developed an individual style or followed through with any technique he tried with the pen or with the brush to attain a personal, distinctive and original achievement. Instead, Gye’s interest was now with writing paragraphs and articles published under his own name up, until 1936 when he wrote the first of his two Father stories as James Hackston. It is not clear why he chose a nom-de-plume although it is known that he chose an old family name, thinking that, “it sounded right for an author”.

Unknown to all, his stories and light verse appeared in The Bulletin for many years. In the 1960s he had two books of his writings published – the first, a collection of his Father stories: Father Clears Out (which has a fine Thurber sound to it) and the second, an autobiography covering the years of his last century childhood The Hole in the Bedroom Floor. In his excellent introduction to the first of the James Hackston short stories, Douglas Stewart declared, “I never had any doubt that such masterpieces of satiric comedy as Father Clears Out and Our New Properties will find a lasting place among the best short stories written in Australia.”

Three years after the publication of Father Clears Out, another collection of biographical short stories was produced, entitled The Hole in the Bedroom Inkspot Autumn 2018

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Floor. Hal Gye wrote under his given name for this his second collection, containing an introduction by fellow writer Alec Chisholm who plainly admired his writing.

Hal Gye was a tiny man, looking for all the world like a retired, successful jockey – spic, span and natty. David Low, in his autobiography, recalled, “Hal was a fantastic chap, thin with long hair parted in the middle, a way of waving his arms about and an irresistible wit”. Talkative and intelligent, the companions of his youth included not only Low and Dennis but Will and Ambrose Dyson, Cecil Hartt (later the “Digger” artist for Smiths Weekly), the poet and Bulletin freelance artist Hugh Macrae, and, the watercolourist Harold Herbert.

He was represented in the 1945 edition of the Oxford University Press collection, Australian Short Stories, edited by Walter Murdoch and Henrietta Drake-Brockman.

In 1962, it was widely known that a series of his poems were published in the prestigious literary magazine, Meanjin. This of course could have been through the influence and recommendation of Hal Gye’s admirer, Douglas Stewart. Regrettably, Hal did not live to see his published autobiography, The Hole in the Bedroom Floor. He died in November, 1967.

It is for his pen drawings of larrikin cupids, with their evocative backgrounds sensitively suggested, that he will share with Dennis a degree of immortality for giving Australians the pictures and the songs of The Sentimental Bloke.

Submissions to Inkspot are most welcome. Please supply as Word documents (as a guide, a half-page article equates to between 200 & 400 words, a full-page article is around 500 words). Articles longer than 1,200 words may be edited for space.

The resolution of images and photographs should be no less than 300dpi and submitted in JPEG format.

The DEADLINE for Inkspot #82 (Winter 2018) is 14th JUNE. 38

Inkspot Autumn 2018

The Last Word

Caption This Classic Bulletin Cartoon and Win!

So, you think you have what it takes to write a decent gag? To the left is an old cartoon from The State Library of NSW’s collection of cartoons from The Bulletin, selected by none other than the former Deputy Editor of The Bulletin and successful cartoon exhibition organiser, Lindsay Foyle, Esq. What you have to do is write a modern caption or gag for the illustration. Enter as many times as you like! Entries are welcome from anyone who reads Inkspot (and with our magazine appearing in libraries around the country and in selected comic bookshops, there are more and more people reading it!).

The funniest caption (in the opinion of our judges) that arrives before the next Inkspot goes to press will win $100. The winner will be announced in the next issue. No correspondence will be entered into and Editor’s decision is final.

Send your entries, either by snail-mail (to The Editor, Inkspot, P.O. Box 187, Margate Beach, Queensland, 4019) or by email to comicoz@live.com.au, with “The Last Word” in the subject line.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR PREVIOUS WINNERS! From the Spring Edition (#79): VANE LINDESAY

HE: “What’s wrong darling? You look quite upset!”

SHE: “My cartoon. I’m disappointed. They scratched out my signature!”

From the Summer Edition (#80): LINDSAY FOYLE

“I’m not sure if this is the right costume for the Gay Mardi Gras, Kevin”

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