Issue #87, Summer 2019/20 www.cartoonists.org.au
ACA Board
Patron VANE LINDESAY
President JULES FABER president@cartoonists.org.au
Deputy President DAVID BLUMENSTEIN david@experienceillustration.com
Secretary STEVE PANOZZO steve@noz.com.au
Treasurer MARTINA ZEITLER treasurer@cartoonists.org.au
Membership Secretary PETER BROELMAN peter@broelman.com.au
Committee: ROBERT BLACK robert@robertblack.com.au
NAT KARMICHAEL comicoz@live.com.au
IAN McCALL mccallart@bigpond.com.au
JUDY NADIN judynadin@optusnet.com.au
CATHY WILCOX cwilcox@fairfaxmedia.com.au
National Cartoonists Society
President: Jason Chatfield www.nationalcartoonists.com
Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain
Chairman: Richard Skipworth www.ccgb.org.uk
FECO
President-General: Peter Nieuwendijk www.fecocartoon.org
Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (PCO)
Chairman: Clive Goddard www.procartoonists.org
Editor: Steve Panozzo
Editorial Team: Phil Judd & Nat Karmichael
Contributors: Roy Bisson, Robert Black, Chris Bliss, David Blumenstein, Shelley Brauer, Jim Bridges, Grant Brown, Ken Dove, Anton Emdin, Jules Faber, Lindsay Foyle, George Haddon, Paul Harvey, Leigh Hobbs, Judy Horacek, Andrew Joyner, Melinda Lawrence, Sean Leahy, Johannes Leak, Vane Lindesay, Ian McCall, Stuart McMillen, Judy Nadin, Dean Rankine, Glenn Robinson, Alan Rose, Hal Snodgrass, Cathy Wilcox and Danny Zemp
Cover Art: David Rowe portrait by Judy Nadin
Inkspot is (usually) produced four times a year by the Australian Cartoonists’ Association in January, April, July and November.
Deadline for next issue is 14th APRIL
PO Box 5178
SOUTH TURRAMURRA NSW 2074
ABN 19 140 290 841
ISSN 1034-1943
Australia Post Registration PP 533798/0015
Hello and welcome to your Inkspot, albeit later than we’re used to of late. The ACA apologises for that, as do I. It’s been a fairly hectic last three months to say the least. I imagine between fire, flood and pestilence, we’re just one horseman away from the Apocalypse. On that subject, David Rowe sent me a cartoon once. It was a glorious picture of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Riding alongside was little Tony Abbott flogging his dead horse of the carbon tax. It’s a beautiful illustration in David’s inimitable style, but it isn’t what’s really happening, of course. Cartooning, like all art, will survive. What’s important to remember is that cartooning, like art, like music and poetry and dance, requires ARTISTS to survive. Sure, individuals may fall by the way, but our heart will go on (sadly, that paraphrases a disaster movie, but my point remains valid).
I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re isolated, this is the perfect opportunity to get some work done. We tend to procrastinate a bit, we cartoonists, so once you get sick of Netflix, comics, reading and arguing with significant others, we’re basically doing as we’ve always done – hung out by ourselves and drawn, because we enjoy our own company.
To quote a successful artist of great repute, Neil Gaiman: “Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art.”
We may be concerned about the economy from this point, we may be worried about things not being as they were, but one thing we can count on, is that cartooning has always been the first art, riding the zeitgeist and forging the way for all others.
So we’ll be okay. Just hang in there, don’t panic, and make good art.
Cartooning forever!
As Inkspot goes to press, the COVID-19 pandemic is cutting swathes through our professional ranks - live caricaturists and graphic recordists have had their livelihoods stripped away seemingly overnight and it’s hard to know what impact this coronavirus will ultimately have on other areas of cartooning, nor whether any kind of balance will be restored. Personally, I’m hopeful that the need for cartooning talent may even be greater than ever. Luckily, I think cartoonists will be able to adapt very quickly to working in isolation, given that most of us already do! Hopefully, this issue of Inkspot (a little larger than usual, you might notice) will provide a pleasant distraction as you while away your solitary confinement and reflect on what to do with all that extra toilet paper.
We apologise for some of the regular features missing from this issue, they will return next time. For now, I want to particularly commend to you Cathy Wilcox’s brilliant précis of the Cartooning World Forum in Paris last year, which gives all of us much to consider. The topic for next issue’s Your View On... will be Panic Buying. There have been some brilliant cartoons in the press lately on this issue and we look forward to running some of them as we work on getting back to normal.
Letters for inclusion in Inkspot are always welcome. Please email your views to inkspot@cartoonists.org.au
STEVE PANOZZOHi Steve, Nat, Jules & the Inkspot team (or maybe you are the lnkspot team?) - l’m en route to London as I write this and, on a stopover, have received Steve’s email of the mag. l wanted to thank you for not only the classily laid out inside spread but the honour of putting my & Mr Chicken’s mug in the cover.
Best wishes & thanks again,
Leigh HobbsWILLIAMSTOWN VICTORIA
I wasn’t going to attend the Stanleys as I’ve been out of the scene for quite a bit. But thanks to some encouragement from Steve Panozzo, I turned up.
Last night the Stanley Awards for Australian Cartooning was held at the Museum of Australian Democracy (Old Parliament House) - it was a very enjoyable night in good humour. I got to catch up with erstwhile colleagues: Pat Campbell, David Rowe and David Pope
On the night, Pat won Editorial/Political Cartoonist and David Rowe won Cartoonist of the Year. David Pope is a multiple award winner in previous years.
Pat also won the Walkley Award this year and Rowe is on his way to breaking the Cartoonist of the Year record. Distinguished company indeed! And we all worked together at the Canberra Times. Life is good.
Ian Sharpe CANBERRA ACT
The Canberra Times’ Pat Campbell has won the 2019 Walkley Award for Best Cartoon, described by judges as a “striking and stunning tribute” drawn in response to the Christchurch massacre. The cartoon, Christchurch Fern, depicts the 50 victims of the 15th March 2019 shooting in the shape of a silver fern. The award is Pat’s second Walkley - he won Best Cartoon in 2013. The other finalists were The Age’s Matt Golding and The Australian’s Jon Kudelka.
What happens when BADIUCAO and QUEENIE CHAN lock horns at a cartoonists conference?
All the glitz, the glamour and pizzazz of a night out at Old Parliament House as DAVID ROWE nails it again!
ELTON JOHN never looked so good - see the sequins of events from the National Cartoon Gallery’s Rocket Man tribute
Cartoonists around Australia have banded together to raise funds for bushfire relief - find out how you can help!
The Cartooning Global Forum in Paris gave CATHY WILCOX plenty to think about - find out what went down
GLENN ROBINSON went for a country drive to check out GEORGE HADDON’s retrospective exhibition in Beaufort
LINDSAY FOYLE profiles our latest Hall of Fame inductee, MOLLIE HORSEMAN
PANEL BY PANEL’S 40th
NAT KARMICHAEL, JIM BRIDGES and KEN DOVE remember JOHN RYAN
Old Parliament House, Canberra was once again the setting for the 35th annual Stan Cross Awards.
Staged in collaboration with the Museum of Australian Democracy’s annual Behind the Lines exhibition, the weekend of 5th-8th December 2019 featured a stellar line-up of activities and events spread over four days: two exhibition openings, a film screening, two days of conferencing and a glitzy awards ceremony!
Thursday
Until 1995, the Stanley Awards was merely a glitzy night out with a lot of laughs, several speeches and a rather foggy AGM next morning. It’s interesting to see how far we’ve come since then; in 2019, the weekend programme spanned four days, beginning on Thursday and winding up on Sunday.
Following Bob Hawke’s death in May, Mark Tippett approached the ACA Board with the idea of staging an exhibition of caricatures and cartoons to celebrate the former Prime Minister’s life. Mark was asked to develop the concept and Hawkie! was born.
By the time the Stanleys weekend came around, Mark had sought contributions from cartoonists, secured sponsors, snagged support from the Hotel Kurrajong (who enthusiastically agreed to accommodate the display) and invited former Hawke Government ministers, Gareth Evans and Graham Richardson, to be guest speakers. With that sort of star power, the exhibition attracted considerable press attention and made cartooning a prime discussion topic just in time for the weekend’s shenanigans. Thanks, Mark!
Friday
The day kicked off with the launch of Behind the Lines 2019 at Old Parliament House, themed this time as “The Greatest Hits Tour”, complete with rock’n’roll imagery and tactile props, wigs and costumes for snap-happy visitors. The Museum of Australian Democracy awarded their ‘Cartoonist of the Year’ award to The Saturday Paper’s Jon Kudelka, replete with a giant $5,000 novelty cheque. MoAD generously hosted drinks and nibbles in Old Parliament House’s leafy courtyard after the presentation; quite welcome for many, after a long drive to Canberra.
While most headed into an exclusive preview screening of Kasimir Burgess’ documentary, The Leunig Fragments, the ACA Board headed in the other direction for a pre-AGM business meeting (with the otherwise-absent Peter Broelman joining in from Adelaide via the wonders of modern technology).
Saturday
Annual General Meetings are not always the most engaging of experiences, yet twenty-five ACA members managed to summon the courage to front up and have their say on issues as diverse as
BELOW:
Cathy did reappear next morning, to chat with Kas Burgess about The Leunig Fragments... and to negotiate her role in his next film
BELOW CENTRE:
Queenie Chan makes her first Stanleys conference appearance!
BELOW RIGHT:
how we count ballots in Board elections, addressing the behaviour of Board members and suggesting improvements to the Stanley Awards. Keeping the AGM strictly to an hour certainly ensured things didn’t get out of hand (the Minutes have been posted to the ACA’s Facebook page and website for those interested in the finer details)
The conference kicked off in earnest at 10am with a chat from about future directions for cartooning, followed by short-take tips from David Pope, Dean Rankine and Paul Harvey who gave great, frank talks about their work, their worries and how artists might be paid for what they do in the future. The conference’s first “star turn” xame in the form of a conversation between ‘Hollywood’ Cathy Wilcox and Kasimir Burgess, director of The Leunig Fragments, discussing the film’s fraught production and his recalcitrant subject.
Australia’s own manga star, Queenie Chan, then delivered a fascinating talk on technology and the impact on drawing comics, before we all took a well-earned lunch break.
After lunch, David Blumenstein took on the task of interviewing internationally-renowned dissident Chinese activist, Badiucao, now resident in Australia. Badiucao discussed the repurcussions arising from his various exploits, which angered the Chinese government and caused him to keep his identity secret for so long. Towards the end of his talk on the Hong Kong democracy movement, some of what he had to say didn’t sit well with Queenie Chan (the only other Chinese-born person in the room), who detailed her contrary experiences and those of a friend of hers. As David pointed out, the question of whether violence is ever justified in a revolutionary movement was never going to be solved in a roomful of cartoonists, but it was good to canvass the
topic and to witness the discussions that followed. Interestingly, not a word was spoken by anyone else for quite a while, with everyone either feeling unqualified to comment, or morbidly fascinated by where the heated exchange would take things!
The multi-award winning New Zealand political cartoonist Sharon Murdoch was up next. It was wonderful to enjoy her and David Pope unrolling NZ’s politics, which appear to be sort of a fun-house mirror of ours. The conference then adjourned, with everyone scrambling to get ready for the 2019 Stanleys Awards!
Sunday
While some heads were slightly sore from the night before (with several dusty delegates filing in throughout the morning), the conference juggernaut kicked off with a wide-ranging discussion on what we can all do to help preserve Australia’s cartoon history from archivist Katie Taylor, the Australian Cartoon Museum’s Jim Bridges and the National Cartoon Gallery’s Margaret Cameron
Attendees were then treated to a private screening of Danny Ben-Moshe’s film about Badiucao, China’s Artful Dissident, before hearing from former Australian Children’s Laureate, Jackie French AM. It was a masterclass in how to sell a book, with so many helpful hints it would be impossible to cram even a
summary into this page (here is a taste: make decisions that will guarantee you money next year rather than now, find editors whose opinions you can trust and hang onto them, educate yourself on what “marketing” actually is and figure out how to win them over, “go to the edge” and do not play it safe). She was totally mesmerising. To top it all, as a local, she had only that day been evacuated from her own home due to the encroaching fires yet still made a point of being part of proceedings. We can’t thank her enough for her time, and wish her and her wombats well.
Jackie then joined a panel discussion with Jules Faber and Dean Rankine before the conference concluded with a guided tour of the Story Time at the National Library of Australia, conducted by curator Grace Blakeey-Carroll.
Congratulations to first-time Stanleys conference coordinator, David Blumenstein, with additional accolades for host/techmaster Robert Black and “guest crisis wrangler” Martina Zeitler. Many thanks to our incredible array of guests and our gracious hosts at MoAD, including the marvellous Partnerships Coordinator, Heather Wallace... and, of course, all you intrepid explorers who braved the Canberra smoke to enjoy the 2019 Stanleys. Roll on 2020!
The 2019 Stanley Awards was curious mixture of the very familiar, yet refreshingly different to previous years. Here we all were in the same elegant Dining Room at Old Parliament House that we had gathered in since 2017, but with a slightly different cast of characters.
William McInnes, quite used to writing books, playing Prime Ministers and familiar with Old Parliament House, was our accomplished host; jovial and tall, he seemed at ease in our company. While numbers were slightly down, we were treated to both fresh faces in the crowd and the reappearance of old friends. There was even a reunion (of sorts) for the old Canberra Times art department!
Awarded Cartoonist of the Year for the seventh time, David Rowe was, despite his undoubted immense talent, at once baffled, surprised, humble yet grateful for the honour bestowed on him by his professional colleagues. We say congratulations, David - you earned it!
(recipients in bold)
ANIMATION CARTOONIST
Matt Bissett-Johnson
Robert Black and Jock McNeish
Mark Sheard
Peter Viska
Martina Zeitler
EDITORIAL/POLITICAL CARTOONIST
Peter Broelman
Pat Campbell
Mark Knight
David Rowe
Cathy Wilcox
COMIC STRIP CARTOONIST
Jason Chatfield
Gary Clark
Ian Jones
Tony Lopes
Dean Rankine
ILLUSTRATOR
Tony Bela
Roy Bisson
David Bromley
Anton Emdin
Eric Löbbecke
SINGLE GAG CARTOONIST
Lindsay Foyle
Matt Golding
Judy Horacek
Peter Player
Andrew Weldon
CARICATURIST
Joanne Brooker
Paul Harvey
Judy Nadin
David Rowe
Simon Schneider
COMIC BOOK ARTIST
Queenie Chan
Roger Fletcher
Glenn Lumsden
Paul Mason
Dean Rankine
BOOK ILLUSTRATOR
Tony Bela
Joanne Brooker
Jules Faber
George Haddon
Buddy Ross
CARTOONIST OF THE YEAR
Peter Broelman
Joanne Brooker
Paul Harvey
Judy Nadin
David Rowe
Cathy Wilcox
BEST CARTOON DRAWN ON THE NIGHT
Cathy Wilcox
JIM RUSSELL AWARD FOR SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION TO AUSTRALIAN CARTOONING
Behind the Lines
AUSTRALIAN CARTOONISTS HALL OF FAME
Mollie Horseman
by GEORGE HADDON
It was a toss-up to know who was having the most fun at the HeartKids Christmas party in Melbourne recently - the children and their parents who were being caricatured, or the caricaturists! The verdict: the caricaturists won by a nose! The bottom line is that we (Paul Harvey, Anthony Pascoe, Glenn Robinson, Danny Zemp, Jock Macneish, Alan Rose, George Haddon, Tony Bramwell and David Seery, who came down from Geelong to join the fun) all agreed that we had a very special day.
Victorian ACA members have been volunteering at this event for a number of years, giving these special children a “bliss-on-astick” day and a fun keepsake to take home for their wall. HeartKids is a support group that provides a lifeline to the families of children born with heart disease and to raise awareness and funds to fight against one of the leading causes of infant death in Australia, congenital heart disease, for which there is no known cure.
It was a case of “Judy in the Sky with Diamonds” on 31st January when Judy Nadin won top prize at the Nation Cartoon Gallery’s Captain Fantastic Cartoon Competition opening in Coffs Harbour.
The exhibition, designed to coincide with the Australian leg of Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” national tour, boasted a field of some 50 entries from artists in an equally wide variety of styles; second prize went to Eric Löbbecke’s impressionistic take on Elton’s features and third place went to Al Rose, who submitted a gag cartoon. Around 90 people squeezed into the former World War Two bunker on opening night (some guests even adopted boater hats, boas and glasses), including Chris Barr, Dee Texidor, Steve Panozzo and Nadin, who also won first prize in the raffle.
The Rocket Man’s two concerts, on 25th and 26th February, proved to be a massive shot in the arm for Coffs Harbour’s economy. Captain Fantastic drew nearly 500 people to the Gallery in it’s first four weeks! Around 90 people visited on the first concert day alone, encouraged in part by Steve Panozzo drawing “Eltoons” at Park Beach Plaza for two days and the presence of several promotional standees throughout the shopping centre.
If you missed seeing the exhibition, the Gallery is selling the impressive 2020-2021 Captain Fantastic Calendar. Priced at $25, it features 25 works from the show, with proceeds going to the Gallery’s redevelopment fund. To order, contact Shelley by email: office@nationalcartoongallery.com.au
For the latest on the NCG’s redevelopment, visit: youtu.be/E7ehOzuK3AQ
CLOCKWISE (from top right):
Judy Nadin’s winning digital portrait of Elton John; Steve Panozzo, who earned himself a “special mention” for his entry, was on hand to help Judy celebrate her win;
Eric Löbbecke’s entry surprised many and impressed the judges; Dee Texidor received a “special mention” for her entry;
Park Beach Plaza’s “Eltoon” poster, encouraging shoppers to stick their head through a standee and “be the man”;
Al Rose’s entry, “Elton’s John Tour”, earned him third place
The “Black Summer” bushfires of December 2019 and January 2020 were among the worst Australia has endured, leaving 18.6 million hectares scorched, 5,900 buildings destroyed and 34 people dead. An estimated one billion animals were killed in the catastrophe, with some endangered species driven to extinction. Air quality dropped to hazardous levels, with the resulting smoke being seen as far away as Chile and Argentina. Alongside other artists and entertainers, Australia’s cartoonists jumped right in to assist with the relief efforts.
In Victoria, cartoonists gathered at the Australian Cartoon Museum in Docklands on 8th February to raise funds for Wildlife Victoria’s Bushfire Appeal. Drawing caricatures of the public all day (and several of each other as well, it seems!), they collectively tipped around $2,500 into the fundraising hat.
Australia Burns, an anthology book of art and short stories, is a tribute to the heroic firefighters who fought so bravely to contain the devastating Australian bushfires in 2019-20. At 100 pages, it features stunning artwork by Dean Rankine, Darren Close and Jamie Johnson (among many others) and was printed by our friends at Jeffries Printing. With a cover price of $20, all proceeds will go to charity. For your copy, head to: www.australiaburns.bigcartel.com
The guys at Chronicle Chamber put the call out to some wellknown cartoonists around the world, seeking their help in raising money for bushfire relief. The result is a 52-page collection of stunning Phantom artwork from luminaries such as Sy Barry, Antonio Lemos, Dean Rankine, Glen Le Lievre, Jamie Johnson, Jeremy Macpherson, Paul Mason, Tim McEwen and Jason Paulos. The $30 book has raised almost $20,000 so far!
To order your copy, visit: www. chroniclechamber.com/phundraiser-bushfire-appeal
Photos by DAVID BLUMENSTEIN, PAUL HARVEY, DEAN RANKINE and ALAN ROSE
Haddon and Harv in action!
Jim Bridges and Tony Viska Rolf Heimann
Danny Zemp
Matt Golding drew Al Rose!
Andrew Dunn
Anton Emdin has illustrated the latest instalment in Anh Do’s Ninja Kid series of books, Ninja Kid 5: Ninja Clones. “It’s available online and in all stores that sell books,” says Anton, and it’s published by Scholastic Australia.
ISBN 9781743835128
The Jules Faber juggernaut continues on it’s unstoppable journey. Hot on the heels of his first book, The Quest Diaries of Max Crack (and receiving an Honour at the 2019 Koala Awards), comes Crack Up, featuring the further adventures of Max and his best mate, Frankie.
Priced at $12.99, it’s published by Pan Australia and is out now.
Old Tom is 25! Hard to believe, but Leigh Hobbs’ grumpy, mean-spirited feline has notched up a quarter of a century in print and shows no sign of slowing down.
“At the beginning of the 1990’s I sent some text and a dummy mock-up off to publishers, who rejected it one by one five times, a couple with quite demoralisingly curt rejection letters,” recalled Hobbs.
“I pig-headedly persevered and it ended up on the desk of Erica Wagner, then at Penguin Books, in 1994.
“Now at Allen & Unwin, Erica has been my editor and publisher for 25 years and it’s with her that I’ve created Old Tom, Mr. Chicken and Horrible Harriet.”
Allen & Unwin has now published a 25th anniversary hardback edition of that first Old Tom book, priced at $14.99
“There’s a degree of luck regarding on whose desk a manuscript lands,” said
Hobbs. “Pig-headed determination certainly helps!”
The rejection letters are now in the collection of the National Library of Australia.
Judy Horacek will be the subject of a new exhibition in June at Artspace Mackay. Called Finding the Funny: The Art of Judy Horacek, the exhibition will present original artwork from two sides; Judy’s cartoons that deal with the environment, social justice and women’s issues will be showcased alongside her work for children’s picture books.
The show opens on 20th June at 6pm, so get along!
Sean Leahy (above) has found a home in print since leaving the Courier-Mail The paper’s former daily cartoonist has joined suburban publication, the Sandgate Guide
“I moved to Brighton a few months ago and really love this part of Brisbane,” he said.
“Everywhere I went, the Sandgate Guide caught my attention so I rang the publisher and we met for a coffee; I asked if he could use a local topical cartoon and to my surprise, he offered me a full page!”
Sean is also running art, creativity and well-being workshops through his freelance business ArtaZen. For more details on the workshops, contact Sean: shamuspers1@gmail.com
Chilean comics artist Rodolfo Aedo visited Melbourne and Brisbane in October and took the opportunity to meet up with ACA members in both cities.
Rodolfo was on a visit to promote his “creative solutions in comics, graphic illustration and illustration” to Australian publishers with the assistance of the Trade Commission of Chile in Australia. His work has so far been focused on educational heritage.
In Victoria, local cartoonists gathered at Rolf Heimann’s home in Albert Park to welcome Rodolfo.
In Queensland, a sturdy group of eleven gathered at late notice to welcome our new South American friend, including Gary Clark, Tim Mellish, John Hartley, Ian Jones and Nat Karmichael
“Rodolfo brought along Camila, a Chilean national who has lived in Brisbane for the past ten years and who is a fantastic artist in her own right,” said Nat.
“She was most useful in helping Rodolfo explain/translate some of the more difficult concepts he wanted to get across.”
Among the highlights of Rodolfo’s Brisbane visit was a private visit at Gary Clark’s studio.
Rodolfo would like to express his appreciation to all ACA members who took time out to meet him and make him feel so welcome.
The extraordinary comedian and juggler, Chris Bliss unexpectedly dropped into Sydney in February.
Chris is mates with US cartoonist Joel Pett and was keen to meet up with some Sydney cartoonists, so he contacted the ACA via Rod Emmerson Jules Faber, Steve Panozzo and Jon Harsem were able to arrange a rendezvous with Chris at The Rocks in Sydney.
Incidentally, if you’ve never seen Chris in action, check out his website, www.chrisbliss.com. His “amazing juggling finale” video is a must-see!
Cartoonist-about-town, Dean Rankine has written a little book of inspiration called Be Batman. At 178 pages, it’s slightly more than a quick read, however and, apart from the cover illustration, there are no pictures, which might prove a shock to someone expecting Simpsons-style philosophy.
When Bill Leak, multi-award winning editorial cartoonist for The Australian, passed away suddenly in 2017, it took some time for anyone to wonder who would - or even could - replace him.
Well, wonder no more. Leak senior’s successor turns out to be his own son, Johannes! The Australian’s Editor-inChief, Christopher Dore, made the announcement in November, with the comment that Leak Jnr was the perfect person for the job.
If the drawing style seems somewhat reminiscent of his Dad’s, remember that Johannes has been painting, drawing and playing music alongside his father since he was a toddler.
“If you get it right - bang, hit the nail on the head - it rings true to people,” he told The Australian
“You’ve put into an image what they were already thinking, but they didn’t know how to express it.
“If you can do that, well, that’s the magic of it,” he said, adding that taking on the job will be a “complete challenge”.
Cartooning legend John Spooner, formerly with The Age, has also started working at The Australian, contributing pocket cartoons on alternate days.
When Theodor Geisel - better known as Dr. Seuss - passed away in 1991 aged 87, few suspected this cat still had a surprise in his hat. In 2012, Geisel’s widow, Audrey, found a manuscript and sketches for a book called Horse Museum, dating from the 1950s.
Two years ago, South Australian illustrator Andrew Joyner found himself signing a non-disclosure agreement and a contract to illustrate a missing Dr. Seuss book! Eighteen months of hard work has paid off and Dr. Seuss’s Horse Museum was launched.
The book’s central character is a horse who guides a group of children through a
Sub-titled The Unofficial Superhero’s Guide to Overcoming Adversity, Dean’s book stems from his realisation that Batman, Superman, Spider-Man (and heaps of others) are all ophans and that their story is one of overcoming adversity in all it’s myriad forms. Hidden within the pages of our much-loved comic books is a treasure trove of stories all about getting through tough times. Dean believes that we can learn much about resilience from our fave fictional characters.
He also chats with real-life people, too - everyone from clinical psychologists, to doctors, writers and other artists. Be Batman is $29.95 and available now at: www.shootingstar.pub
museum looking at horses in paintings by Picasso, Monet, Munch and Magritte. It was Joyner’s idea to have the horse character act as the museum guide.
“The roughs were actually very rough,” he said, referring to Geisel’s sketches. “I still don’t know why they thought ‘Oh yes, he’s the person to do this’. I didn’t want to ask.”
Since winning Bill Mitchell Memorial Award in 1991, Joyner has had considerable success as author and illustrator, with books such as The Terrible Plop and The Pink Hat to his credit. Published by Random House, it’s $18.99 and available everywhere. 2
When I started collecting cartoons in 1983, I used to go to the newsagent and buy all different kinds of magazines. One of them was Australian Playgirl (for the cartoons only) and I came across this Roy Bisson cartoon (below). I got in touch with Roy and he very kindly sent me the original art.
Recently, I was reading an old copy of MAD in my collection and came across a “Bisso” cartoon. I wondered how Roy was going, so I rang him and we had a chat.
Roy was born in Sydney in 1941. He started work at NCR at 15 as a junior artist and started submitting cartoons to various magazines including Surfing World, Squire, Surfabout and had his first cartoon book Surfalong with Biss published.
At 25, Roy was hired to work on the design and illustration for Surfing World and Squire magazines; he then became Art Director on various magazines including Squire, Motorcycle Rider and Mechanics, Rendezvous, Gourmet and several others.
He went with Gareth Powell to Hong Kong in 1975 and 1976 to design Cathay Pacific’s inflight magazine, Discovery. Returning to Australia, he continued working for publishers and was sending cartoons to a range of magazines.
In 1978, he decided to go freelance and produced several books: A Twist of Lemmings, My Man the Chauvinist, Herpes is Forever, as well as the World’s Best sport books. Whilst work-
ing freelance Roy drew cartoons for Australian MAD, Reader’s Digest, Australian Photo World, and Pacific Panorama.
Roy, as a freelancer often does, worked from home. One day, his son’s teacher asked everyone what their Dad did. Most were tradesmen, accountants or some other professional; Roy’s son said all his Dad, “stays at home and colours-in”.
Roy and his wife Janice have long since retired, living a stone’s throw away from Newcastle. Roy is still cartooning a little, cycling, walking, swimming and travelling. He is also involved with the Newcastle U3A, as well as writing and photography.
Roy was inspired by many cartoonists including Emile Mercier, Walt Kelly, Hal Foster and Wil Elder. As he still draws, he is still inspired by many of our talented locals including David Rowe, Eric Löbbeke, Geoff Pryor, and the late Michael Atchison.
Ian McCall
by CATHY WILCOX
In October 2019, I had the honour of participating in the second annual Cartooning Global Forum in Paris.
This is an event organised by a team comprising Nicolas Jacquette and Jerome Liniger of Agence Si (an ethical design and communications studio) in association with Chloe Verlhac-Tignous, the widow of Bernard Verlhac (“Tignous”), one of the cartoonists killed in the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s office in January 2015.
The event’s HQ is the Centre Permanent du Dessin de Presse in St Justle-Martel, the site of a beloved annual international cartoon festival. The Forum is timed to launch during the first weekend of the cartoon festival, and to close during its second weekend in St Just, while the main day of interactivity is midweek in Paris.
This year, the locations for Paris events were variously: the Hotel de Ville, the Mairie du 4e arrondissement and the Bibliotheque National de France, including the Francois Mitterand building and the Richelieu building. These buildings and their impressive interiors lent gravitas and stateliness to our meetings. The Hotel de Ville was made available thanks to the support of Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who befriended Chloe Verlhac after the Charlie Hebdo attack, having offered to help in any way she could, and she remains committed to championing free speech and free expression.
All delegates to the CGF were responsible for their own expenses regarding transport, accommodation and meals, so there were no “junketeers” along for a free lunch. Traditionally, cartoonists are billeted by locals and food is provided, refectory-style, for the artists and their host families. Train travel to and from Paris is also provided. It was the first time I’d been to St Just, and although I chose to stay in a hotel out of the village, I was impressed and moved by the generous spirit of community, which is evident in making this festival possible.
It’s understood that there is a need to champion the cause of press freedom in general, and that a free press is a key indicator of the health of a democracy. Cartooning can be seen to come under the umbrella of press freedom, and has generally been assumed to be covered by its principles.
However, cartooning exists beyond “the press”, or journalism as such - it spans a broader definition, into the realm of artistic expression and free speech. It has the potential to carry a message beyond borders, as
it frequently employs visual imagery and signifiers, and thus may be understood - or misunderstood - by speakers/readers of other languages/cultures, and indeed by the illiterate, to convey what written words might fail to do.
Also, cartooning can be cunningly ambiguous, or speak to one audience while being obscure to another; for example, to a repressed populace in identifying their injustice, while being sufficiently non-specific as to evade charge by the repressor. As such, cartooning has a particular power, to the difference of journalism of the written word where meaning can be specifically identified.
The attack on Charlie Hebdo had a uniquely chilling effect on cartooning, its practice and its practitioners. The discussion around free speech and the taboos specifically relating to the Muslim religion and Islamic extremism was already very much current since the famous Danish Mohammed cartoons.
It was the opening topic of choice at several international meetings I attended, and the question of “where to draw the line” between the freedom of the artist, and respect for the beliefs of particular groups, always remained open and inconclusive, so varied were the positions held.
Still, the French position, with France’s history of cartooning, its fierce belief in free speech (Liberté, Egalité, etc), its love of rational, secular thinking (je pense donc je suis), its plurality and enjoyment of defiant rule-breaking and anti-puritanism, held that they would never be cowed by the sensitivities of a special interest religious group. Freedom trumped respect. After all, how could you have a revolution without being prepared to smash a few barriers?
The deadly attack on the cartoonists and staff of Charlie Hebdo, initially at least, evoked this ethic of freedom. The people rallied, they manifested solidarity on social media, they declared themselves one with the cause of the besieged: #jesuischarlie.
And so it echoed around the world: we were all in solidarity with these artists who’d been gunned down for drawing... a religious prophet?!
But then... people, unfamiliar with the publication, began to read about what an iconoclastic paper it was. Full of writing and cartoons which took the piss out of all groups - even Jews and Catholics! - and seemed to have no scruples regarding the other sacred cows of our time, such as sexism, racism and the hypersensitivities of millennial culture. Sometimes these cartoons were just vulgar, or rude! How did we feel about defending such things when we ourselves were flat out learning to be culturally sensitive?
Never mind that much of the meaning of these cartoons was second or third degree satire - the point was that people began to feel uncomfortable defending that which they disapproved of, and began to equivocate on the “rightness” of the right to free speech. Taken to its extreme, this logic leads to the notion that somehow, in being grossly irreverent, these cartoonists somehow deserved to be killed, or at least punished.
This is the thinking that leads people to respect the rule of repressors: if you just do what you’re told, you need not fear consequences. So then, the chilling effect: publishers and gallery owners started to become risk-averse regarding cartoons, deeming it safer just to go without than risk annoying a bunch of vigilantes with guns and a grudge. This, in a country which has already felt many times the effects of Islamist extremism, with such as the truck driver killings of Nice, and the explosions and shootings at the Bataclan Theatre... cartoons are just one part of a cultural flashpoint between the seemingly libertarian West and the theocratic Arab world.
This is the world from which the idea of the Cartooning Global Forum emerged: where we take stock of the extent to which behaviours and mindsets have changed in the wake of terrorism and reactionary politics, and ask whether this is how we want the world to be, and if not, how to change it.
If we recognise that extremism flourishes in the absence of free thinking, knowledge and in the indoctrination of the ignorant, then it is clear that the best antidote to extremism is education. A group of people being told that someone has insulted the Prophet and must therefore be punished to avenge God might be less deadly if the people were able to distinguish between someone’s free expression, not intended for their cultural context, or a life-threatening attack.
In the wake of Charlie Hebdo, this thinking has led to the establishment of an organisation called CLEMI (the French Media and Information Literacy Centre), which is dedicated to teaching media and informational literacy to school children, such that they can understand and interpret cartoons and news, and develop the ability to discern what is fact, opinion or exaggeration for satirical purpose.
This educational mission is a large part of the purpose of forums like the CGF. It seems too obvious to say it, but clearly, not only must we teach that no drawing is worth killing another human being for, but we need to teach, and to learn, that it’s ok to disagree. This is a natural consequence of free thought, and vital in a healthy democracy.
One of the key educational moments for me was on the first day of the meetings, when we had interactive sessions with school children. Some delegates spent time drawing with children; another group discussed cartoons in an exhibition; and our group talked about cartooning in an auditorium. The kids (aged from 8 to 17) were asked what they knew about news cartoons, if they knew of any cartoonists, what they felt was the purpose of cartoons. In a time when fewer kids grow up with newspapers in the house, many of these French kids were nevertheless reasonably aware of cartoons.
Then they were asked whether they thought people had freedom, in their country, to say anything they liked in a cartoon. A few kids answered, “yes, of course”. That was the point at which Chloe Verlhac-Tignous stood up and explained that she had thought so too - right up to the time that her husband, along with several of his colleagues, was shot dead in the offices of the satirical newspaper he worked for - because of the cartoons they drew.
The silence - the smack-in-the-gut realisation for these kids - was palpable. This was a hard reality to digest, but one that would undoubtedly prompt them to consider their assumptions about their world. One hopes they would find it an unacceptable truth.
The main event was held at the Hotel de Ville de Paris. 2018’s event had 81 participants from 30 countries, representing 33 organisations and associations, 8 institutions and universities and 10 publications, publishers and businesses.
It began with a session of introductions, where each participant stood in turn and gave a brief introduction of who they were and what they had been doing in the past year to further the cause of cartooning (dessin de presse), to promote, protect or raise awareness in the field. We were asked to provide a page summarising our activities, which we could distribute among participants over the day.
Among the participants, some represented organisations aiming to bring cartoon literacy into schools. Others were involved in the cause of drawing as a way of helping children deal with trauma. Others were from groups similar to the ACA - national organisations for cartoonists. There were people from the Maison des Journalistes, which provides support for journalists and cartoonists in exile or seeking asylum; and lawyers who advocate for them. One such cartoonist present was from Turkey, currently on a temporary protection visa in France.
A cartoonist from India spoke of the “virtual museum” he’d established, to showcase the work of many cartoonists and we were given a virtual tour... somewhat quaintly, he opined that he wished that cartoonists would cease to depict nudity in their cartoons, as this was an art form that should be suitable for families! The irony to me was that we were seated in a magnificent room with paintings on panels beneath the high ceilings depicting, among other things, scantily clad women - and in France, you can’t walk three paces without seeing a glorified artistic expression of the nude. A further irony to me was that the art of India - depictions of gods and goddesses and such, are sometimes very nude and very explicit, and the raw display of humanity in all its nakedness is everywhere in India.
Zunar from Malaysia was present – an esteemed cartooning statesman indeed, having been imprisoned for his work exposing the corruption of the former Malaysian Government. The president of a Moroccan cartooning organisation announced initiatives made to promote women cartoonists - a big deal in a culture where gender inequality, and curtailed speech due to religious constraint, are fairly normal.
Terry Anderson, the president of the Cartoonists Rights Network International (of which I am also a representative) spoke of the CRNI’s work in advocating for cartoonists in danger, including the Chinese dissident cartoonist Badiucao, currently resident in Australia.
A concluding highlight was the announcement by the Moroccan participant and his compatriot - another cartoonist who currently lives in France. They announced that the internet presence of the CGF would henceforth be available in a third language: Arabic. This is a momentous development, and an emotional climax, considering the vastness of the Arab-speaking world and the importance of bridging the chasm of understanding between the West and the Arabspeaking world, regarding the right to freely criticise the powerful, and to disagree peacefully.
The day was concluded with drinks in a special room in the Mairie du 4e, called the Tignous Room. This was a symbol of collaboration between the mayor and Chloe Verlhac-Tignous. A meeting room in the council building is illuminated throughout with cartoons (painted on the walls) by Tignous (re-rendered by a colleague). Powerful, beautiful and funny, it is a fitting tribute, and a way to keep cartoons and cartoonists top of mind for the decision-makers of the capital.
The day after working sessions provided visits to a couple of major sites of relevant cultural significance.
First, we toured the Bibiliotheque National de France - Francois Mitterand, where we were given a (somewhat exhaustive) presentation on the process of preserving the work of cartoonists for collection.
This talk was interesting for a few reasons - for one, the idea that cartoonists should perhaps pre-empt the potential historical worth of their work by choosing only the finest, acid-free archival paper stock and most permanent inks and colours. This is notion antithetical to the more typical approach of a cartoonist, which is to care mostly about the published form of the work - often highly ephemeral, to be seen one day and forgotten the next - and also to not take their own artwork too seriously, simply giving expression to the urgent need to get an idea down on paper!
Another point that rather confirms the first is that more and more cartoonists produce their work digitally, so there is (often) no such thing as a drawing to conserve.
We heard about the collections of the work of famous cartoonists and how these works were valued and preserved for posterity. I asked about the process of acquisition, whether they paid to acquire the work and whether there was a system of tax deduction. In France: no.
I was able to tell them about how our museums (such as the National Museum, the National Library and the Museum of Australian Democracy) are rigorous about paying artists for the original work they acquire; they pay a licence fee to exhibit the work (important if the work is in digital form only), and our tax system has an arrangement whereby the value of donated artwork can be compensated with a tax deduction.
In the evening we attended the opening of an exhibition of cartoons by two dissident cartoonists: Pedro Molina, who left Nicaragua in 2018 after being threatened by the paramilitary, and Badiucao, exiled from China, in the Gallerie Soufflot in the Sorbonne (an exhibition of his work in Hong Kong was cancelled in 2018 due to threats to his family members in China; this
was covered in a documentary aired on the ABC in June 2019).
The works were still being hung as we arrived - cartoons in large format, hung like paintings, in fixed frames - so it was in fact more like an event. This exhibition was highly significant. Organised by Terry Anderson (who has advocated for both dissident cartoonists) in co-operation with the Sorbonne and a creative agency called Citron Pressé, it set a precedent in exhibiting cartoons within the university, breaking through an important symbolic barrier; that being the reluctance of cultural institutions to risk showing “dangerous” work, for fear of repercussions from offended parties. Subsequent feedback suggested that the university students received the work positively.
I must say, for all that France showers its cartoonists with adulation, and local governments and communities enjoy celebrating cartoons as part of their culture, Australia stands out as a country which, largely, values their work and pays for it. We cannot, however, be complacent about this: cutbacks by news media have pounded our industry and our present Government’s record on arts funding (along with the “culture wars”) threaten to take its toll. Where once our cartoonists were revered as national treasures, we are now very much dependent on and obliged to a shrinking number of dedicated curators.
The Cartooning Global Forum was only possible, too, because a couple of very dedicated people were able to persuade a few key people of influence to support them, financially and in principle.
A conclusion I draw from this event and also from my attendance at the Press Freedom Day in Jakarta in 2017 is that: leadership is vital.
There must be laws to protect free speech and there must be a genuine spirit of open humanity underpinning this. Free speech gets hijacked by cultural warriors and religious conservatives, as a cover for their freedom to exert prejudice. At the same time, minority interest groups who demand the right not to be offended use the language of censorship. There exists an ongoing tension between free speech and hate speech.
Any kind of corruption of leadership by special interest groups, be they religious, commercial, ideological or political, has the potential to compromise and undermine free speech.
Cartoonists’ heads poke above the parapet as easy targets for repression, as their work is easily seen and propagated and they can wield great power in being able to expose injustice, inequity and corruption.
The Cartooning Global Forum is an ongoing conversation of increasing relevance in a world of growing instability. At its conclusion, I was invited, and accepted, to be on their committee. I am grateful for the support of the MEAA, which made it possible for me to attend.
by GLENN ROBINSON
I blame the 1980s for a lot of things.
Pink Floyd were now far too wealthy and far too busy fighting among themselves to produce a worthy follow-up to The Wall, the BBC were far too cashpoor to produce a really scary series of Doctor Who like they did the decade before it, and my high school was far too useless to do anything remotely productive with me. It was because of the latter that the pages of my school exercise books were covered with depictions of my teachers in all manner of distress. Some (if not all) were even being exterminated by Daleks. These drawings (and those subsequent visits to the headmaster’s office) had cemented in my mind that the only thing I truly wanted to be - was a cartoonist.
It was around this time that my parents would keep on their coffee table the new edition of the RACV’s monthly magazine, Royal Auto. Anyone in Victoria would be familiar with the
mag; it arrived in the post, you put it on your coffee table, and over the period of time ‘til the next issue arrived, you never read it, with the exception of the magazine’s centre pages which always had a feature about some remote Victorian country town. Those same centre pages were beautifully illustrated in ink and watercolour by cartoonist George Haddon.
It wasn’t until some thirty-five years later that I would discover the Australian Cartoonists’ Association, be granted membership (sorry, Mr McCall and apologies, Mr Faber) and meet people who shared that similar “thing” that I had. And, at the very first ACA meet-up I ever attended, I met the very sincere gentleman who drew those centre pages of the Royal Auto magazine: George Haddon.
As most of us are aware, George has been drawing his distinctive cartoons for longer than any of us have been
wishing our high school teachers would be shot by mutant robots. His loose and whimsical style with pen and ink have been gracing the pages of The Herald since the 1970s, when he shared art room space with one William Ellis Green(WEG).
Although I was born too late (and certainly not remotely talented enough anyway) to share office space with those cartoonists, I have - on a few occasions - had the pleasure of sitting in George’s studio at his South Melbourne home and marvelling at the abundance of natural light he has to work with, his drawing board that’s propped up on an angle by two jam jars, and the studio walls full of haphazardly pinned cartoons and watercolour paintings. It’s these same cartoons and paintings that took me to two hours out of Melbourne to a small country town to see George’s exhibition at the Beaufort Art Gallery.
George and his wife Maxine have been
closely associated with the community of Beaufort since they bought their holiday property in the area in 1985. Maxine’s connection goes back even further - right back to the convict era of the late 1800s, when her family came from Tasmania and settled in the nearby country town of Waterloo.
As a way of paying homage and saying thank you to the local community, George had set up an exhibition at the Beaufort Railway Station (now a converted art gallery for local artists) featuring his illustration work. He has called it A Funny way To Make A Living.
Among the nearly fifty pieces George has personally selected from his long career, are original black and white cartoons from The Herald tackling front page news such as the election of Rajiv Ghandi in 1984, the Lebanon Hostage Crisis in 1985 and the execution of Barlow and Chambers in 1986.
The lighter side of life is represented in George’s hand-coloured cartoons about everyday trips to the doctors, the simple joy of going on holidays, the comical antics of animals, and many of Melbourne’s landmarks .
Perhaps the stand-out pieces of the exhibition are George’s stunning watercolors. Many are from Royal Auto, others are simply from wherever George had set up his sketch book and paints at that time. Looking at one of George’s paintings is perhaps the closest you will experience seeing the world as George sees it; dog shows where the owners take on the same lofty mannerisms of their overly-pampered pooches, the colourful hustle and bustle of the Queen Vic Market, and a stunning depiction of the Murray Jazz Festival which beautifully captures the atmosphere of music, dance, and an enjoyable afternoon by the river.
George’s eye and artistic hand captures everything perfectly. The individual everyday characters you meet on the streets, markets, and country shows are all here and instantly recognisable. The landmarks are stunningly recreated with attention to perspectives, light and shadows. The backgrounds of trees, sky and water are detailed, but never intrude on the main action. There is always something to look at, something you missed from the last time you looked, some hidden character who suddenly appears.
One of George’s personal favourites, a print of the Block Arcade in Melbourne takes pride of place below a lively depiction of buskers under the Flinders Street clocks.
Also of note is an original drawing from 1974 of Melbourne author Alan Marshall, framed, with an accompanying letter from Marshall expressing his pride in George’s work and how pleased he was to have met and talked with him.
George’s exhibition ran for the month of November and, from what I gathered from the gallery volunteer who showed me around, was well attended and greatly appreciated.
On the drive home I gave George a call to let him know I made it both there, and out again. His concern makes me smile.
“What did you think of it?” George asked me.
“I really liked it. It’s very you.”
“Mmmmm,” he said, in the way that he does.
I admire George. I like his style. I like that when you look into a George Haddon cartoon you can instantly picture him there at his trusty drawing board, the one that’s propped up by two jam jars, taking his time. He’s the reason I got into this “thing”.
His exhibition makes me want to grow up... and become a cartoonist.
Marie (Mollie) Compston Horseman (also worked under the name of Vanessa)
Born: Rochester, Victoria 1911
Died: Blue Mountains, New South Wales 1974
By Lindsay FoyleMollie Horseman worked hard all her life. But she also enjoyed herself and made people feel comfortable in her company. On one occasion, she invited some of her more bohemian artist friends over for dinner. The evening was a great success, with great conversation and laughter and went on until the early hours. Only the next morning did Mollie find the dinner she had prepared still in the oven. Everyone was having such a great time they totally forgot the food.
She was born in Rochester, Victoria on 9th December 1911, the daughter of Frederick Ernest Horseman (1882-1966), a farmer, and his wife Katherine Marie Compston (née Miller), who were migrants from Yorkshire, England.
Horseman grew up in Melbourne. When she was 13, her parents amicably separated and she was taken by her mother to Sheffield, England, and then to Germany. While Katherine managed a canteen on the Rhine for the British Army, Mollie (as she was always known) was enrolled at a finishing school for young ladies. As Mollie spoke no German and her teachers lacked any English, she mainly communicated by drawing pictures of castles. Her two years in Germany were not wasted; when she returned to Australia she could dance the Charleston and speak a little German. She also knew that she liked drawing.
Now back in Australia, Horseman was briefly employed by Norman Lindsay (1879-1969) and his second wife, Rose (1885-1978), as a governess for their two daughters. On one occasion, when a model failed to arrive, Mollie was used as a substitute. A considerable feat, as she was tall and slender and Lindsay’s models tended to be more rounded. Lindsay
was impressed with Horseman’s drawing skills and recommended she attend the National Art School. For financial reasons, she did not complete her course at East Sydney Technical College but during her studies she was influenced by Rayner Hoff’s (1894-1937) artistic style.
In 1929, she joined Smith’s Weekly at the same time as Joan Morrison (1911-1969). They called themselves “The Smith’s Sisters” and occasionally drew cartoons jointly. Horseman married William Longford Power, an articled clerk, on 2nd September 1931 at the North Sydney registry office. They had one son, Roderick Packenham, before they divorced in May 1938.
Horseman next married Nelson Illingworth (grandson of the sculptor Nelson Illingworth) on 8th June 1938 at the Mosman Presbyterian Church. They had one son and three daughters before the marriage ended in divorce.
In the early 1940s, the family moved to Brisbane where Horseman freelanced, drawing comic strips for Frank Johnson Publications as well as contributing cartoons to Man magazine, The Australian Woman’s Mirror and Rydge’s Business Journal (for whom she created “The Tipple Twins”, two secretaries who regularly created office havoc).
Horseman moved back to Sydney in 1946 and in the 1950s found work at the Sydney production unit of The CourierMail in York Street. It had been established in 1950 by Keith
Murdoch, mainly employing ex-Smith’s Weekly journalists and cartoonists. Their work was syndicated to newspapers all over Australia and overseas.
For a time in the early 1950s, Horseman was part of the Northwood artists group. It was made up by a small group of friends who would go on painting excursions around Sydney Harbour and north-western Sydney. Lloyd Rees (1895-1988) was there and so too was fellow cartoonist Stewart McCrae (1919-2008). He said Mollie was a great support for him when he was starting out.
Mollie created the strip Girl Crusoe and, after Jean Cullen (1921-1953) suicided, took over her comic strips; one was a teenage strip called Pam, which ran in The Sunday Mail, the other was The Clothes Horse in The Sydney Morning Herald Both were also syndicated to newspapers in Australia and South Africa and became her best known works, running for over 11 years.
An active member of the Sydney Black and White Artists’ Club
(now known and the Australian Cartoonists Association), Horseman was “smocked” at the annual Artists’ Ball in 1956, being pre sented with an artist’s smock decorated by fellow members. Later that year, she was voted Sydney Savage Club’s “Cartoonist of the Year”.
Horseman moved to the northern Sydney beachside suburb of Avalon in 1957 with her five children, where she lived for a decade. At a local jazz club on Saturday nights, she would play the “lagerphone”; made from beer bottle tops at tached to a broomstick, it is struck against the floor while upright or shaken to provide sound.
Mollie is often credited with being on the staff of Everybody’s magazine in the early 1960s. She was not, although she was clearly a valued contributor, creating mainly full-page colour cartoons, often featuring sexy girls. Most were signed “Vanessa” as she had other commitments which would not have approved of her using her own name.
In 1963, Everybody’s inaccurately hailed her as “Australia’s only woman cartoonist”, although she was definitely the one of the better known ones. The following year, she was the only female cartoonists to attend an exhibition, Fifty Years of Australian Cartooning, organized by the Sydney Journalists’ Club and featuring the work of 140 cartoonists, nine of which were women.
Horseman was back in Brisbane in 1967, illustrating books for Jacaranda Press. She eventually moved to the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. There she lived in an old cottage in Glenbrook, where she continued to freelance and paint landscapes in oils as a hobby.
In 1973, she was hit by a car. This was followed by a stroke that deprived her of speech and the use of her right hand. Undaunted, she taught herself to draw with her left and produced small abstracts with coloured pens.
Horseman died on 7th May 1974 at Blue Mountains Hospital in Katoomba, and was buried in the churchyard of St Thomas’s Church of England, Mulgoa, New South Wales.
Living in Coolac, NSW, in 1994, Peter Batey first came up with the idea of a satirical art prize as a colourful addition to the town’s Festival of Fun. It became the Bald Archy Prize, a satirical take on the infamous Archibald Prize, whose winner would be determined by a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Maude.
According to Batey, who saw Maude far more than anyone else, she would flap her wings in front of the painting she liked best, and the decision was made. As the years flew by, he became more and more convinced that the Bald Archy was more relevant than ever.
Born at Benalla, Victoria in 1933 to Francis and Elsie Batey, he was one of five children. Batey was educated at Benalla East Primary School and Benalla High School. He was creating art from a young age, before moving to Victoria at the age of 16 to study drama at the University of Melbourne.
He went on to become a prominent playwright and founding member of the Melbourne Theatre Company, directing and producing theatre productions, operas, musicals, revue and puppetry. Barry Humphries has credited Batey with contributing to the creation of Dame Edna Everage, who was born
as the two tried to alleviate boredom on long MTC bus trips whilst on tour.
Batey’s collaboration with, and the direction of, Reg Livermore’s famous one-man shows in the 1970s (including the infamous Betty Blokk Buster Follies) revolutionised Australian commercial theatre.
His first original play, The No Hopers, was presented across the country in 1961. He directed around 130 professional plays across several genres. He was a founding member and the inaugural artistic director of the South Australian Theatre Company, and the first director of the Victorian Arts Council.
In 1999, Batey was awarded an OAM for his services to the arts and community.
The creation of the Bald Archy prize was not simply a light-hearted elbow-jab to the Archibald Prize. It also aimed to provide an outlet for artists who otherwise would not be able to showcase their work to a wider audience.
His mission statement to artists hoping to have their works accepted into the prize was straightforward: “Hit me in the face, if you can.”
Previous winners of the Bald Archy Prize have included Eric Löbbecke, Rocco Fazzari, Judy Nadin and - and in 2019 - Simon Schneider.
Batey was often fond of quoting a journalist who said that while it took 12 galahs to judge the Archibald Prize, it only took one cockatoo to judge the Bald Archy. Maude the cockatoo died several years ago, but Batey maintained the secret.
Batey died on 14th June after his car left the road in Coolac and hit a tree. It was suspected that Batey had a heart attack at the wheel. He was buried at Coolac Cemetery on 6th July, followed by a wake in the gardens of his beloved Old School House in Coolac. Following a break in 2020, it is hoped the Bald Archy Prize will continue in 2021.
“While it took 12 galahs to judge the Archibald Prize, it only took one cockatoo to judge the Bald Archy”
In the early 1960s, Bruce Petty contacted Les Tanner to tell him he was in Sydney and looking for work. Tanner, in turn, told John Endean who was doing some freelancing work at The Bulletin. Endean had a friend on The Daily Mirror. The paper had been taken over by Rupert Murdoch the year before and was working hard to revitalise it. Endean’s friend had originally asked him if he knew anyone who could draw political cartoons. As Endean was a cartoonist and his friend knew that, Endean assumed he was not the cartoonist they were looking for. So, he passed the information on to Petty, who then made contact with The Daily Mirror. It was not a wasted effort. Petty got the job and started drawing cartoons for the paper in 1961.
Endean was working for ABC-TV when, in February 1965, he was asked by Maxwell Newton to contribute a cartoon every week to The Australian. It was intended as a prelude to him filling in for Petty when he took holidays in the middle of the year. After contributing cartoons for three weeks, Endean was told by a very important somebody at the ABC that he could, “either work for The Australian or for the ABC, but not both”. As there was no guarantee the cartooning work at The Australian would become a full-time position, he had to give the cartooning away.
Endean was born in 1930 in Bondi and grew up in Sydney, attending a public school in Roseville before going to Crows Nest Boys Technical High School. In 1945, when Endean was 15, his father, a journalist working for Universal Pictures, approached Jim Russell, then head artist at Smith’s Weekly, about finding a job for him. He started soon after as a cadet artist on £2 and five shillings a week.
One day in 1950, Endean answered the phone at Smith’s Weekly and was told there was a job going for an artist to work on the film Kangaroo. Endean took extended leave so he could go off for a few months to work on the film. When he got back, Smith’s Weekly had been taken over by a finance company and was about to close. He ended up working for the Sydney Production Unit of the Courier-Mail. It had been set up by Keith Murdoch in an attempt to keep some of the staff from Smith’s Weekly together. The unit produced stories and comics that were syndicated around Australia, mostly to newspapers owned by the Herald and Weekly Times group and the Fairfax newspapers.
Endean sailed to England in 1952, working his way in the officer’s mess while sketching sailors for a little extra money. In England, he freelanced and got a few cartoons published in Punch. He headed back to Australia in 1954, hitchhiking, and arrived early in 1955. He spent the next two years freelancing around Sydney before taking a job on the Daily Mirror where he drew a few political cartoons. He left the newspaper in 1959 to work on a film about Aborigines and headed
to North Queensland. At the time, he had an agreement with The Bulletin to get two cartoons a week published. But when Frank Packer took over the magazine late in 1960, the agreement came to an end. Endean moved back to Sydney where he continued to freelance before taking a job in the graphics department at the ABC.
At the ABC, Endean did some animation for This Day Tonight and worked on Four Corners but left in 1971 to work for John Singleton’s advertising agency, SPASM. He was there for two years before leaving to freelance again, illustrating for books and magazines. In 1973, he was back at the ABC and left in 1985 to once again go freelancing.
Soon after, Endean found himself the recipient of yet another invitation to draw cartoons for The Australian. The editor, Owen Thomson, approached him and asked if he would be interested in filling in for Petty. Endean was interested. But despite having made the contact, Thomson was not sure Endean was the right person to fill in. He suggested Endean might like to draw a cartoon a day for a week so his suitability could be evaluated. None of the cartoons were intended to be published, though Endean was told he would be paid for them as if they were. He was freelancing at the time and glad of some regular work, so he drew a cartoon every day and left it with Thompson. At the end of the week, Thomson told Endean that his cartoons were good and he was then offered the job. Endean asked what was he to be paid. He was told he would get $10 per cartoon. It was far less than what Endean thought was fair and said so but was told to take it or leave it. It wasn’t a hard decision - he left it. Endean continued to freelance, getting cartoons published in Cleo and The Bulletin
Endean was the last living artist to have worked on Smith’s Weekly. He passed away in March, 2019.
Lindsay Foyle
I was privileged to know Phil Sparnenn for many years; he joined the ACA and came along to many Melbourne meetings with his good friend and neighbour, Bill (WEG) Green. Then Phil stopped working full-time as a cartoonist when he became sick with a severe lung condition. However, over the last few years I regularly dropped into see how he was going. Sadly, Phil passed away on 19th May, 2019. Recently, I spent a lovely morning chatting with Carmel, his widow, to chat about his life.
Phil was born in Lancaster in the UK on 14th November, 1952 and moved to Australia as a “ten-pound pom” when he was 10 years old. The family moved to Leigh Creek in South Australia. They lived there for 3 years in the desert, before moving to Elizabeth, where he started High School. The family of 5 kids eventually moved to Melbourne and settled in Fitzroy.
Phil started work, in retail, at around 16 and moved up into working with very early large computer mainframes during the 1970s; he then worked for Carlton-United Breweries and then Spotless. He got married to Veronica and they moved to Kinglake, Victoria, and had 2 children. When that marriage fell apart, he moved back to Melbourne. He met a new partner, had two more children and started working for the Depart-
ment of Social Security. That relationship didn’t last, and Phil raised the girls. He met Carmel in the 1980s and they were together for over 30 years. Phil was always intrigued with art and drawing as well as unusual antiques, although his passion was drawing cartoons.
In the 1990s, he completed a Diploma of Cartooning at a tertiary college as well as securing a Diploma of Freelance Illustration with the Australian College of Journalism. This inspired Phil to work fulltime in cartooning. He submitted work regularly to Australasian Post, People, Penthouse, Woman’s Day, New Idea and World Vision magazines as well as regular small publications. A high point in his cartooning career was winning a Rotary National Cartoon Award in 1999, while another was seeing one of his cartoons (below, left) appear in Punch, on 17th May, 2000.
Phil was very happy working in this world but when he realised that the magazines weren’t publishing as many cartoons as they use to, he pursued his interest in collecting and selling unusual antiques, such as ancient Roman statuettes, gemstones and Viking artefacts, with some dating from as far back as 200 AD.
Ian McCall
For over 30 years, Michael Mucci worked in the Fairfax art department illustrating humour, satire, politics, current affairs and celebrity stories for the Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was made redundant in 2016 and was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour the following year, dying in 2019 at the age of 57.
Mucci was born in Torre Del Greco in Naples, Italy and migrated to Sydney when he was six. He grew up in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney and displayed a talent for drawing at a young age. He attended St Charles and Waverley College before studying art education at Alexander Mackie College, however he never completed his degree.
After leaving school he briefly worked in animation and graphic art for advertising agencies before being hired as an illustrator at Fairfax in 1986.
“Mooch” started out working on traditionally paper, but as technology developed, Mucci moved with the advances in graphic software while maintaining
his own art studio. As he grew older he enjoyed meditative, abstract painting and experimenting with light and tone.
Away from the world of media, he was a finalist in the 1989 Blake Religious Art Prize, the 1994 Doug Moran Portrait Prize and in 1998 he won the ARIA Award for Cover Art for the Powderfinger album Internationalist. Mucci and wife Tina moved to Stanwell Park in 1990 and in 2000 he became a part-time lecturer at the University of Wollongong and TAFE,
where he remained until 2004.
In 2006, he was awarded the Packing Room Prize (part of the overall Archibald Prize presentations) for his portrait of builder and television personality, Scott Cam. The following year, his portrait of Midnight Oil front-man and former politician Peter Garrett drew acclaim. He entered the renowned portrait competition more than a dozen times.
Mucci was a member of the Sharkies/ Coledale surf line-up, where he was known for enjoying a deep and meaningful conversation in the water, more than catching waves. He had the ability to make anyone he spoke to feel like the only person in the room. A deep spiritual thinker and philosophiser, he strove to simply live a peaceful and compassionate life. He died a peaceful death, held in the arms of his loving wife.
by Guy Hansen
Published by NLA Publishing
ISBN 9780642279361
Available from publishing.nla.gov.au
RRP $29.99
From 7th March until 21st July 2019, the National Library of Australia hosted a remarkable exhibition entitled Inked Whereas the annual Behind the Lines exhibition compiles the best political cartoons from the previous 12 months, Inked was an exhibition that chronicled the broad evolution of Australian editorial cartoons from 1788 to the present.
Inked took place in the NLA’s ground floor Exhibition Gallery, next to the iconic Main Reading Room. As they progressed deeper into the bowels of the Gallery, visitors took a trip through time from the earliest days of the fledgling Australian colony through to the present day. Cartoons by Australian artists served as time capsules that charted the evolution of both our nation and the artform of cartooning.
The earliest works featured in the exhibition are barely recognisable as “cartoons” to the eyes of modern readers. Early works like Convict Rebellion at Castle Hill, 1804 (1804), and The Arrest of Governor Bligh (1808) look to modern eyes like the works of traditional colonial artists. But upon closer inspection, they bear the hallmarks of lampoon and exaggeration that is common to cartoons of this era. These were works commissioned by colonial authorities, designed to depict the world from the Government’s slant. Enemies of the State were depicted as foolish, disorderly or cowardly.
This subtle exaggeration would become more, well, exaggerated in future cartoons. The exhibition charted a course through to the works featured in publications like Punch and The Bulletin by artists like Phil May and David Low that are more familiar to modern eyes.
The exhibition also tracked the shifting role of editorial cartoonists in the Australian print media. Editorial cartoonists were originally employed by newspapers to draw scenes that reflected the political viewpoints of the editors. In many cases, the cartoonist would have been instructed exactly what to draw - and what the captions should be - by the editor.
Inked didn’t shy away from highlighting questionable pieces, such as Phil May’s The Mongolian Octopus, depicting a caricatured “Chinaman” as a nefarious octopus who would poison all aspects of Australian society. Similarly, wartime artists like Norman Lindsay were commissioned to caricature German soldiers as brutish “Huns” who were eager to conquer the world. By contrast, Australian soldiers were caricatured in a favourable light by artists like George Sprod as resourceful, knockabout “diggers”.
By the second half of the twentieth century, Australian editorial cartoonists became social commentators. Prominent cartoonists each fought for their right to maintain control over the political messages of the cartoons they drew. It was both the skill and persistence of cartoonists like Low, Will Dyson, Bruce Petty and Alan Moir that have enabled current Australian cartoonists to be able to practice as independent political commentators within most Australian newspapers. This was extended even further by artists like Ron Tandberg and “cartoon philosopher” Michael Leunig.
Inked was an exhibition that drew from the cartoons within the National Library of Australia’s collection, which limited the scope of what was included; that said, the exhibition still gave a tremendous overview of the ongoing sweep of the medium.
As well as the deep history of decades-old cartoons, Inked also featured contemporary cartoons spanning through to 2018, showcasing work by Matt Golding, Jon Kudelka and Cathy Wilcox. Of particular interest is David Pope’s He Drew First (2015), which cura-
tor Guy Hansen contends is the mostviewed Australian cartoon of all time.
Though primarily consisting of framed artworks on walls, the exhibition was not limited to two-dimensional illustrations. In the centre of the rooms were three-dimensional artefacts of Australian cartooning, such as one of Petty’s fantastical “machines”, puppets from the Leunig’s 2002 Animated TV series, and Peter Nicholson’s fantastic caricature sculptures depicting Gough Whitlam’s dismissal by Sir John Kerr and Malcolm Fraser
Taking pride of place in the exhibition was the original 1933 Stan Cross cartoon, For Gorsake, Stop Laughing: This Is Serious!, which of course was the inspiration for the ACA’s Stanley Awards statuettes. Inkspot readers will recall that the “funniest drawing in the world” was missing for decades until it surfaced in 2014. It was satisfying to see the one-and-only metre-high drawing in its full glory, with the yellowing paper adding to the charm of this once-lost “holy grail” of Australian cartooning.
Cartoons are an artform designed with reproduction in mind. Working on paper or artboard, artefacts of creation such as pencil strokes, correction fluid and margin notes are often plainly visible. The artists drew their works knowing what would and wouldn’t be visible when reproduced in print. As such, it is always a treat to see the original artworks and imagine the artist in the process of creating it. This is particularly the case with the earliest cartoons shown in Inked, which were often drawn on enormous, easel-mounted
boogie-board sized surfaces.
David Pope was charged with the task of creating mascots for the exhibition. He knocked it out the park with Inkie the Echidna, and Drew the Kangaroo! The latter character’s name was invented by a member of the public, who won a NLA competition to name the tattooed ‘roo.
The National Library generously accompanied Inked with a series of free public talks spread across the four months of the exhibition. Judy Horacek spoke about her career as a cartoonist, as did the Canberra Times duo of Geoff Pyror and David Pope. The artists reflected upon their own careers, as well as the broader context of Australian cartooning that surrounded them. In addition, Inked curator Guy Hansen gave two solo talks about the history that his exhibition highlighted. All four of these talks were recorded and published as podcasts, with the audio available to download via the NLA website.
For those who couldn’t make it to Canberra to see the exhibition, there is a wonderful book written by Guy Hansen which catalogues Inked. Dr Hansen is known for his long-standing curatorial work chronicling Australian cartooning, having founded the long-running Behind the Lines exhibition.
Hansen’s book uses the same cartoons from this exhibition as his potted tour of Australian cartooning. Across almost 100 cartoons, he shows us the sweep of the artform’s evolution. Hansen’s text is clearly written and insightful, using particular cartoons as archetypes to represent the broader trends of Australian cartooning that he discusses. This book is an essential part of the library of anyone who loves the history of Australian cartooning.
Inked: Australian Cartoons is available to purchase for $29.99 from the NLA’s online bookshop, and from other prominent book retailers.
Published by John Farmer
ISBN 9780646807478
Available from www.johnpollyfarmer.com.au RRP $49.99 + $7.50 postage
The title of John Farmer’s magnificent career retrospective is based on the conceit that he has the reader’s attention for between 10 seconds and a minute before they move on to another part of the newspaper. Which is just as well, because there are 36 years’ worth of cartoons behind the understated cover of this heaving, 280-page volume!
“Polly” and I both started our newspaper careers the same year, in 1985, albeit on opposite ends of the Earth (me at The Manly Daily in Sydney, Polly at The Mercury in Hobart) and, in the main, drawing slightly different things. But that’s one of the joys of looking at his life and career in a book such as this - it’s easy to relate to his experience. Taking a timeline approach, he takes us on a decade-by-decade guided tour of his career and I recognise this journey.
Looking at Polly’s earliest work, I find it easy to relate - as styles, techniques and technology changed or as other cartoonists came into our professional orbits, they kept inspiring us to try something new. That brief flirtation with DuoShade (which seemed to vanish as easily as it had arrived) is a fixed point in time for any cartoonist in print during the late 1980s and almost everybody gave it a go. The arrival of the Apple Macintosh (and Adobe Photoshop) in the 1990s meant artists could take control of how their work looked, applying greyscale effects with ease.
for an inkwash effect and his work is all the more appealing for it. Going into full colour in 2009, Polly’s artistic confidence is unstoppable. It’s not a coincidence that he has won 21 Rotary Cartoon Awards since 1997, including two for Cartoon of the Year.
A Minute of Your Time is beautifully presented, so much so that I was surprised to learn that it’s self-published (which is another reason to support Polly by purchasing a copy). There’s a lot to learn from these large retrospective books, seeing someone’s work develop as they offer a commentary on the process. It’s easily comparable to Paul Harvey’s retrospective last year, or even Mark Knight’s Collection from 2005. In short? A joy.
Stuart McMillen
By the 2000s, technology was helping cartoonists add texture and warmth to their work; Polly completely abandons stark black and white linework in 2005, employing a cascading range of greys
Following the precedent set in eighteenth-century Europe, and later in America, it was only a matter of time before magazines, as a product of leisure reading, were produced in Australia. The early settlers were dependent on slow sailing ships to bring all their requirements from England, including hopelessly out-of-date newspapers and magazines.
By the middle of the 18th century there were about 150 British magazines in existence, most of them of a literary nature and not illustrated. Satire was not a considered ingredient of the first printed magazines. However, with the founding in 1841 of two satirical illustrated weekly publications - Charivari in Paris, followed by Punch in London - this situation changed. Their influence on popular magazine publishing was felt the world over, including in Australia, with the founding of Melbourne Punch in 1855 being the first of many having illustrated satirical content.
Among these, The Comic Australian was successfully launched in October 1911, achieving a weekly run until June 1913. It had 24 reduced-tabloid pages, covers, comic strips in four-colour tints, joke drawings and humorous articles, with snippets and rhymes making up the rest of the contents.
Produced in Sydney, The Comic Australian attracted artists from every state in the young Commonwealth. publishing the work of Ambrose Dyson, Hal Gye, Cecil Hartt, Bert Rosling and the first published cartoons of one J.C. Bancks, later (of course) to be nationally famous for his red-headed, schoolwagging, orchard-raiding, fighting youngster with the “terrible right”, Ginger Meggs.
Among the band of cartoonists to contribute was
This is the fifth in a series of articles on Australian cartoonists who have written published books, composed stage plays or have made a significant cultural contribution.
This issue: HUGH McCRAE
Hugh Raymond McCrae (1876-1958), remembered today as Australia’s finest lyric poet, but little known or remembered for his other considerable talent as a fine pen-and-ink illustrator, and the first artist in Australia to have his comic strips printed in colour. He also contributed some prose, a large number of joke drawings, front cover cartoons on themes both domestic and foreign, and designed the amusing masthead for The Comic Australian
McCrae’s talent for cartooning was developed at a time when the novel comic strip was steadily gaining popularity with both readers and editors. His talent for drawing was in all likelihood encouraged when he was a youth as part of the Norman Lindsay bohemians living in Melbourne. His first published artwork appeared in 1899 in Lindsay’s shortlived, quaint magazine, The Rambler. He used the signature “Splash”, later changing it to “Mac”.
Considering the infancy of this particular creation, McCrae had a remarkable appreciation of the stylistic form and requirements of the comic strip - exaggerated action and expression of both features and body, the arrangement of speech balloons and continuity of action in every drawn panel.
Today, the humour of these early comic strips, including those of McCrae, seems very naive, characterised as simple and innocent, whilst comically violent. But when it originated, this lively communication medium was a tremendous novelty. The naiveté of this formative humour in the European and American popular press of the time was of course reflected in the work of Australian cartoonists. This is plainly evident with McCrae’s comic characters, Jim and Jam, published in The Comic Australian, being obviously modelled on US artist Rudolph Dirks’ comic strip characters Hans and Fritz, the Katzenjammer Kids (and being, in turn, originally copied directly from the Demon Children, Max and Moritz, the creation of the German artist Wilhelm Busch).
Gradually The Comic Australian took on the look and tone of its title. In particular, the comic strips by Hugh McCrae featured different types from time to time in situations which assumed already-established Australian stock characters, such as Cocky Cornstalk, complete with whiskers and carpet bag visiting the city for the first time. There were bushrangers, swagmen, Aborigines, snakes, and Englishtalking, smiling, japing koalas and kangaroos. A journal striving, if a little self-consciously, for a national identity, The Comic Australian remains a fascinating relic from an age of unbelievable innocence.
In 1914 McCrae made an attempt to live in America, where he eventually drew for the magazine Puck, and was also engaged in some part-time acting on the New York stage. It was there he met fellow Australian, Pat Sullivan, the creator of Felix the Cat. Sullivan invited McCrae to work with him on the sensationally successful Felix films. McCrae,
by declining this offer, passed up his only chance to make a fortune as an artist. In 1917, back in Australia, he acted the role of his relative, Adam Lindsay Gordon, in an Australian film, which was produced in a number of Melbourne locations.
During 1924, The Herald newspaper group acquired the weekly magazine Punch (formerly Melbourne Punch), appointing the poet Kenneth Slessor as chief sub-editor, and he in turn secured, among many other fine cartoonists, Hugh McCrae, then living in Sydney. His cartoon drawings and illustrations
appeared in many issues of Punch until, after one year of publication, it was discontinued and “incorporated” into Table Talk in December 1925.
After the failure of Punch, McCrae returned to Sydney, accepting the offer to co-edit, with Ernest Watt, a monthly literary-social magazine, The New Triad The cover of the first issue in August 1927 - and several others following it - was designed by Hugh’s artist daughter, Mahdi, in the art deco manner which was in vogue at the time. Other than Hugh’s own highly skilled black-and-white illustrations, those of Cecil (“Unk”) White, Adrian Feint, Hal Gye, Percy Lindsay, Betty Dyson and her father Will’s satirical etchings, with a double-spread, full page cartoon satire, were a feature among the text contents.
Again, after only one year, McCrae’s employment came to an end, as The New Triad ceased publication in 1928. It would appear that this period was the last of Hugh’s freelance cartooning for publications, although he was to produce many dincus-style fun drawings illustrating his 1948 collection, Story Book Only
Until his death in 1958, aged 82, Hugh McCrae continued to write poetry, prose and drama for publication. In his letters to friends, cleverly, and often humorously, illustrated with figures or with landscape scenes, he continued to practice the art of illustration.
ABOVE: The cover of Hugh McCrae’s collection, Story-Book Only (1948)
has led a difficult life, but you wouldn’t know it. She deals with everything philosophically, laughing at life’s absurdities. She has a good circle of friends and maintains local Church activities without seeking any glorification for these services.
John Ryan (1931-1979) was the grandfather of Australian Comics. He wrote the seminal volume Panel by Panel: An Illustrated History of Australian Comics, sadly passing away soon after it saw publication, forty years ago last November. At the time, he was married to Jan with two small children.
Jan and I have kept in occasional contact over the years. Given the looming anniversary, it seemed appropriate to introduce her to Graeme Cliffe, a Brisbane researcher who has spent the past twenty years finding material for his own tome, From ‘Sunbeams’ to Sunset: The Rise and Fall of the Australian Comic (1924 to 1976) that was published last year. A meeting of minds, if you like.
Jan greeted us warmly at her home, welcoming us into her lounge. She
She was able to counter Graeme’s intimate knowledge of Australian comics history with tales from the lived experience. Jan and John Ryan, in the mid-1960s, were living in Sydney and personally knew every comic book artist in the country: from John Dixon and Monty Wedd, to Reg and Stanley Pitt, Keith Chatto, Phil Belbin and more. Even with overseas artists such as Alex Toth and Will Eisner, Jan was able to personalise these people, describing all their foibles, with kindness and compassion. John knew everyone in the comics medium, and it seemed everyone knew John!
John wrote to me soon after he arrived in Brisbane (in 1970). Although he thought my schoolyard plans of publishing a successful local Australian comic book was fanciful (“I’d be astounded … if you could pull it off”), he was still most encouraging. He sent me copies of “a couple of fanzines” he had written, which were the catalyst for my later publishing ventures.
At that time, he was still dreaming of completing his magnum opus: “If I had such time available, I would be pressing-on with researching and writing my ‘book’ on the Australian comic scene - but I can tell you that it’s many a long day before
I get around to completing that little project”.
Jan felt that John would have been “in seventh heaven” had he been alive now, with the resources available from the internet. He was working long hours to complete his manuscript when a Sydney publisher indicated an interest in going to print. Once it saw print, he was travelling Australia promoting the book.
He passed away from a heart attack while he was in Mount Isa. Jan spoke fondly of her memories, and Graeme was chuffed to have been able to present a copy of his book to her. It had been designed deliberately to be about the same size as John’s volume, so Australian comic book historians can place them in their bookshelves together.
Nat Karmichael
I met John Ryan at a comics convention at Melbourne’s RMIT in 1979. He was a crusty old bugger, and we got on well straight away. He was in Melbourne flogging his book, Panel by Panel. We discussed all the cartoonists that he knew and met and when I mentioned my idea for a cartoon museum, he got excited and ran with the idea. He had to return to Brisbane straight away, but said he’d return within a fortnight and we would get the ball rolling. He had met most of the overseas comics artists and was friends with Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Bob Kane, Harvey Kurtzman and so many more.
They had all, in turn, wanted to know about Australian comic book artists; at the time, John didn’t know many at all. He told me that he was a little ashamed at not knowing enough about Australian cartoonists, so he made it his business to meet as many as possible and got stuck into researching Australian material. Apparently, he held barbecues and invited as many artists as he could, in order to get to know them socially.
Anyway, ten days after our conversation, I read in The Age that he had died. This upset me so much, that I went into the city that very day and purchased
all the interstate papers I could get my hands on. So started the Australian Cartoon Museum!
John’s passion and warmth - and the shock of his death - got me off my butt and started the ball rolling. I had so many interests in those days, that if it wasn’t for the time I spent with John, I’m positive I wouldn’t have gone on with the ACM. Thanks John!
Jim BridgesHave you ever noticed how your own career’s development has been influenced by people drawn into your life? In my case, John Ryan was a significant one of those people.
Around 1977 or 1978, working towards a full-time career in cartooning, I placed an advertisement looking for a gag writer in the Australian Journalists’ Association’s magazine (“of all places,” someone quipped). Ideas were my great challenge at that point. As a result of placing that ad, I made a couple of contacts with writers. Although it did not result in any joint efforts in publication, both provided me with some development of my drawing skills!
(continued from previous page)
In 1979, the writers and I engaged the services of Sol Shifrin, a cartoon syndicate owner, to interest some Australian newspapers in a series of single panel gags, The Punter’s Glossary and, in 1980, a daily and weekly strip, Slattery Creek – both to no avail.
Another person who responded to that advertisement was John Ryan, who had authored Panel by Panel: An Illustrated History of Australian Comics
John was not offering to provide ideas, but presented encouragement to a newcomer to the professional comics field. At that time, his book was with the publisher and had not yet been distributed for sale. I accepted John’s invitation to see his comics collection – it was very impressive and inspiring. He thought enough of my work to commission a caricature of himself in the act of typing, to be used for the introduction and flyleaf of his book. I treasure my copy of his book, complete with my sketch.
It was a sad day when I learned of John’s death so soon after his book was published.
Ken Dove 2