CARTOON
SPOONER
The Australian Cartoon Museum Magazine - Pilot Issue
1
EDITORIAL Welcome to the world’s first Pilot issue of the Australian Cartoon Museum online magazine. It does, and always will, feature all the cartoon genres i.e. political, caricature, gags, strips, comics, advertising and animation, and showcase them so the effect is somewhere between a magazine and an exhibition. We plan to put out 11 issues next year. As you can see, this issue is dominated by Gough Whitlam from the stunning cover by John Spooner through to the caricature section (Mugs Club) to Jeff Hook (Live Cartoonists Society) to Cartoon Conversations (Last Months’ Best Themed Political Cartoons) all tied together with cartoons of Whitlam.
Other things covered will be Cartoon Controversies (Litigation and Censorship etc.) In the Drawer (unpublished work) and International (to give a world perspective). Eternal themes of cartoons will come out in every issue with the subject of the connections between past and present cartoons ….. some things change and a lot doesn’t! We want to celebrate and showcase Australian Humour, Culture and History with each issue, but mostly to display Australian Cartoonists and cartooning at their best. At the end of some articles, if you or your organisation wants to go further i.e. an extended talk or exhibition, it will say it’s available as a bigger extended talk or exhibition version.
We want to celebrate and showcase Australian Humour, Culture and History with each issue, but mostly to display Australian Cartoonists and cartooning at their best. The Australian Cartoon Museum is, at present, an online Museum without walls (or roof) www.theaustraliancartoonmuseum.com.au and we think that what we publish will soon warrant, in our readers’ minds, the need for a permanent home (bricks and mortar) for Australian Cartooning. Most of our History and Culture is embedded intrinsically in our cartoons and we at the Australian Cartoon Museum intend to recycle cartoons to remind us of our past and to tell our unique Australian story. Please support us. Jim Bridges
CONTENTS COVER: ……...Gough Whitlam by John Spooner LAST MONTH’S CARTOON CONVERSATIONS: MUGS CLUB: …..Caricatures of Gough Whitlam ADVERTISING/STRIPS: ………………. Chesty Bond THEMES: ……………….Melbourne versus Sydney LIVE CARTOONISTS SOCIETY: ……….. Jeff Hook COMICS: ………….. High Stakes by Greg Gates & Russell Edwards -from “Inkspots” No. 2 CARTOON CONTROVERSY: ………...Harry Seidler sues Patrick Cook & Fairfax ANIMATION: …. Abra Cadabra—the World’s 1st Animation Feature Film …. Never released DEAD CARTOONISTS SOCIETY: …….. Joe Jonsson INTERNATIONAL: …………….. Malaysian Artist Lat
CONTRIBUTORS WRITERS: Rolf Heimann, Alex Stitt, Jim Bridges LAYOUTS & SCANS: Jim Bridges & Aina Crawford EDITING: Jim Bridges & Aina Crawford WEBMASTER: Tom Rayner For contributions contact Jim Bridges Email: jim@cartoonmuse.com Phone: 03 9734 6861
LAST MONTH’S
CARTOON CO
Eddy McGuire—Collingwood Football Club CEO has a birthday Mark Knight—Herald Sun—28.10.2014
ONVERSATIONS
y
Hong Kong demonstrations with the Cartoonist usin Glen Le Lievre - Sydney Morning Herald
g Tiananmen Square as a reverse metaphor d—2.10.2014
John Polly Farmer - Hobart M
Mercury—30.10.2014
John Spooner—The Age—4.10.2014
Financial Review
Bill Leak—The Australian—2.10.2014
Glen Le Lievre - Sydney Morning Herald—18.10.201
14
D
David Pope—Canberra—22.10.2014
Michael Leunig—The Age—22.10.2014
Jon Kudelka— The Australian— 22.10.2014
2014-10-22_Peter Lewis—Newcastle Herald—22.10.
.2014
Whitlam was quite a guy as his memorial day proved. I think the day was on par with “Sorry” day as far as Aboriginals and Noel Pearsons’ speech was concerned. Gough is shown here in all his many glories. The profile picture by Bill Leak will probably in time be the one caricature that becomes the iconic one. John Spooner’s many versions of Gough (especially the cover) point towards a more private version of the man. And, although the Spooner’s vary, it shows how the Artist is attempting to get deeper into the man than his public persona allowed. All the caricatures depict at least one aspect of his character, so enjoy the Mug Club’s first ever resident, Gough Whitlam.
Alan Moir—28.10.1985 Sydney Morning Herald
Alan Moir—7.07.1987—Sydney Morning Herald Michael Atchison date unknown Adelaide Advertiser
“Make politics, not law ….”
Artist & date uknown John Spooner The Age Date unknown
WEG (William Ellis Green— Melbourne Comedy Fest.ival—date?
Stuart Billington—1.06.1985—The Age
Wulf Kaiser 11.09.1981 The Australian
Bill Leak—….. Gough at 80: a legend in his time—The Australian—11.07.1966
John Spooner—The Age—date unknown
Sturt Krygsman—The Australian
Peter Nicholson— The Age— Whitlam & his wife Margaret in China during an earthquake— date unknown
John Spooner 30.11.2002 The Age
Bill Leak—John Kerr & Gough Whitlam—The Australian—14.04.2001
John Spooner—Gough as the Naked Emperor– The Age—Page 15—3.12.2002 Notice the placement of the microphones
Jeff Hook—The Sun—3.02.1979
David Rowe—Financial Review—date unknown—Laurie Bretherton as a boil on
n Gough’s nose
John Spooner—The Age— Date unknown
Extended Version Available.
Sean Leahy— The Courier Mail— 11.11.1985—Whitlam maintaining his rage the easy way
C H E S T Y
B O N D
Chesty was born in 1938, fathered by cartoonist Sy at J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency to flog th ished the strip enough to send it out, running three
yd Miller and Ted Moloney – the Bonds Executive he company’s singlets. By 1939/40 they had pole times a week, and by 1942 five times a week.
According to John Ryan (Pan by Panel) it was the w Australia’s most successful. Syd Miller set the pa strip its’ direction for others to follow.
worlds’ first daily advertising comic strip and ace drawing and writing the scripts and giving the
Miller also was a founding member of the Austral Australian Cartoonists Association—https://cartoo hospitalised with scarlet fever where he soldiered before going to press.
lian Black and White Artists’ club 1924 (now onists.org.au). At one stage Miller was d on drawing the strip which had to be fumigated
As long as he had his Bond singlet on Chesty was ships and submarines, catching enemy shells and Emperor Hirohito. Miller stopped drawing the str until 1950, then Virgil Reilly briefly took over pass who drew Chesty until it finished in 1964.
invincible and unstoppable, ripping apart enemy d throwing them back, humiliating Hitler and the rip in 1945 and Francis ‘Will’ Mahoney drew it sing it on to Cec Linaker and finally to John Santry
Chesty appeared in shops as a life sized manneq icons. The strip promoted Bonds’ products more cause it was allowed to be a comic strip first and a around. Chesty lasted 26 years as a strip and lives .
quin (torso only) which now are prized Aussie effectively than any other type of hard sell bean advertisement second, not the other way s on as a promotional icon, still flogging singlets.
The author of the article always felt stronger an Chesty Bond singles. Not bad for an Aussie super advertising (or comic strips?. ) Sources: Panel by Panel by John Ryan and symb Inked in image by Vane Lindesay and t
nd tougher as a small boy whenever he wore his r hero in a plain white singlet, AH, the power of
bols of Australia by Mimmo Cozzolino the Australian Cartoon Museum Archive Jim Bridges
Syd Miller, 1938
Unkown Artist—1956
Unklnown Artist—1980
MELBOURNE VE
Separated by 1,000 kilometres and 180 years of s got off the blocks when all that gold rolled into M bourne economically had replaced Sydney as top
ERSUS SYDNEY
Tony Edwards-30.09.1986– Sydney Morning Herald
sniping Melbourne and Sydney rivalry probably Melbourne during the Gold Rush, so by 1858 Meldog.
Opinion as to which is better eternally swings back and forth like Poe’s sharpened pendulum which is powered by the cost of living, the Harbour, civilization, traffic, food, sport, Arts, weather and who has the biggest.
Sydney is a cat—sleek, aloof Melbourne is a dog—solid, d a loud bark at its’ head ….
In this article it’s great to see Sydney and Melbourne born Cartoonists trashing their own city as well as each other. The best thing about Sydney and Melbourne is that they are different. The worst thing about them is that they are the same.
f and open to bribes down to earth, with Deidre Macken
Richard Collins—The Good Weekend—31.05.1997
Sydney is the one town in Australia where crim
In Melbourne a Sydney pedestrian is called sport—
me is a major spectator sport—Bob Ellis
—Deidre Macken
Jenny Coopes—Sydney Morning Herald 2.04.1986
Date & Publication unknown
Shorts to a Melbournian are the best part of the film festival. Shorts to a Sydney Sider are worn all year round (Except when it says a black tie) A green “walk” sign in Melbourne means you can cross the road. In downtown Sydney it means your odds have just improved marginally. At the birth of a baby Melbourne makes a booking at the MCG for Membership and at the right schools. Sydney parents check out the kids’ star sign. All quotes from— Deirdre Macken
Ron Tandberg—Sydney Morning Herald—23.10.1985
Going to bed with Melbourne is like snuggling down with an old man—warm, familiar, not too strenuous and in the morning, liable to be a bit cranky.
Bunking down with Sydney is like bedding a tart—wild, unpredictable, a possible health risk, and, likely to ask for the taxi fare home. Quotes by Deirdre Macken
Patrick Cook—The National Times—date unkown
Dining in Melbourne, is way of life. Dining in Sydney, is a fashion statement. Sydney is all about the Harbour. Its’ finest restaurant, Quay—I think it’s Australia’s best, too—in a killer location at Circular Quay, between the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. That’s not what makes it great, but it doesn ‘t hurt. Sydney has mediocre restaurants that get away with it because you sit back and take in the views while they rifle your wallet. To make up for it, the Emerald City excels at the flash high— end.
Melbourne on the Art and Culture wit livers solid mid-ran Sydney is bright su diners with money to seen splashing a Melbourne is cloud around the tan.
Matt Davidson—9.01.2010—The Age
other hand, seems to meld together a sense of th food, a sort of renaissance dining chic that denge restaurants. unshine and ostentatious headlands. Melbourne y spend it more discretely than Sydneysiders keen around their cash. d-covered introspection and philosophical walks Simon Thomsen
Ron Tandberg— The Age 7.03.2008
A North Shore girls’ idea of natural child birth? No make up. Rock Hunter
Ron Tandberg— Sydney Morning Herald 23.10.1985
Matt Golding Melbourne Weekly 18.12.2008
Andy Joyner-17.05.2009—The Sunday Age
Mark Knight—Herald Sun—8.06.1998
Mark Knight—5.03.1994—Herald Sun
Ron Tandberg—Sydney Morning Herald—22.10.1985
Mark Knight—Financial Review—date unknown
Bruce Petty—T
The Age—2.10.1993—Sydney Olympic bid
11.12.2010—The Australian
EXTENDED VERSION AVAILABLE
A TRIBUTE TO GEOFF HOOK AT THE MUG CLUB Dimattina’s Restaurant, Carlton Tuesday 8th March 2011 My criteria for great cartoonists are to say the least personal and a little off the wall. 1. The cartoonist must be funny 2. The cartoonist is generally left handed. 3. Must contain lots of comic detail in the cartoons 4. They definitely have to come from Tasmania 5. They must nearly be as good as Geoff Hook 26 years ago in the Adelaide hills on a bus filled with cartoonists (who were all filled with Wolf Blass) trying to outdo each other in coming up with the funniest joke, Geoff towered over all of them with his height and his humour and I realised that one of my all time cartoon heroes didn’t have feet of clay.
This generous man who has filled our lives with laughter and fun is here tonight because we all owe him for the pleasure and pain and frustration (it’s those bloody hooks!) he has given us over the years. All around these walls (which were filled with a retrospective of his work) are the reason we are all here tonight. Most of us grew up and got old laughing and enjoying his work. Geoff is a deeply conservative man but his pen and brush have brushed and pricked against all walks of the political spectrum. But, what he is loved for is not his politics, or even his well thought out opinions. No, what the man/woman on the street likes is his attention to detail. God and the Devil and Jeff Hook are all in the detail. I gave a talk last Friday at Broadmeadows U3A using Geoff’s cartoons, and people in the class were all convinced that in one cartoon the background was in Kensington “No” said another “it’s Braybrook Railway yards” ..
“No” said another “it’s between Newmarket and Kensington”. All these people think they are right because Geoff puts enough recognisable detail in his drawings to convince them that they have all been there before. Geoff’s cartoons are funny and sometimes two or three gags pile up in the same cartoon, like a combination of graphic punches by a professional fighter. His cartoons all come from a foundation of common sense and his work always laughs along with us at what it is to be human. So whether it’s a depressed Collingwood supporter or a flat footed weary worker coming home on foot during a tram strike, or a drinker complaining about the pubs going on strike and denying him his beer at Christmas, Geoff is always on our side! Along with Mick Armstrong and Mark Knight ‘s cartoons, Geoff’s work represents the man or woman on the street trying to come to terms with football, politics, strikes and every other thing that human nature is subject to!
Geoff can really draw too. Just look at those penciled lines on those footy, wine and bowls cartoons around the walls. His line is so loose, but experienced and his characterisation so spot on, you would think he’d worked in animation all his life.
Having footballs stuck up on roofs, political graffiti on railway brick walls, the worn shoes of his strikebound pedestrians walking home on train tracks. His train graffiti is more graffitied than what it is based on. Vietnam War
The cigs hanging out of the tight lipped footy supporters, the shut eyes of politicians as they prattle on in Parliament,
but most of all the many human expressions on his characters as they somehow steer their way through this life.
The use of his surname hidden in the cartoon waiting to spring out with the “I’ve got you now!!” feeling, as he has made us look all over his cartoon,
thereby taking in all the detail along with his comic and political metaphors, whilst looking for that elusive damned hook!
My twin nephews, now in their 40’s, would be out in the street in their PJs fighting at the letter box at two in the morning waiting for the paper to be delivered to make sure that they got to see the hook first, hours before the paper boy even got out of bed. The readers of Jeff’s cartoons doesn’t know or concern themselves with newspaper deadlines, or care about the king hit metaphor that cartoonists’ daily work towards. What they care about is that the cartoon is funny and makes them laugh, and to do that (the cartoonist) must be truthful, and generally on the side of the reader
I hope they name a railway station after your “Doowrub�! station (Geoff lived near Burwood station) and I hope that what you built up over so many years is learnt, appreciated and incorporated into the up and coming cartoonists work. God, the Devil and Jeff Hook are all in the detail. Not bad for a left handed Taswegian .
Thanks Geoff for all the pleasure and the humour and all the hooks you have given us over the years. Standing Ovation Jim Bridges, President The Australian Cartoon Museum .
“Move over up there— you’re blocking supply” (Whitlam Govt. Reference?
Left to right: -Clyde Holding, Gough Whitlam, Bob
Hawke, Front Row:William McMahon, Vince Gair
Left to Right: Margaret Whitlam (Japan visit), Clyde
e Cameron, Gough Whitlam, Jim Cairns, Bob Hawke
Timor - Portugese Man-O-War - Malcolm Fraser, G Issue and runni
Gough Whitlam running away from the Timor ing on water at that!
“Fair Dinkum. I wouldn’t like to b
be in Gough’s shoes just now”
Fraser in landslide against Labor
Whitlam is snuffed out
Extended version available
HIGH STAKES (6 PAGES) INKSPOTS NO. 2 (JULY 1981) PUBLISHER – MINOTAUR BOOKS EDITORS – PHILIP BENTLEY, GREG GATES & COLIN PARASKEVAS
One of my favourite comic stories of all time just happened to be done by Australians. High Stakes appeared in “Inkspots” No. 2 (not to be confused with the Australian Cartoonists Association Magazine “Inkspot”.) The story was written by Russell Edwards and the wonderful dark Black and White art was by Greg Gates. With only 6 pages, I thought they used the comic medium to tell their story so brilliantly and in an original way.
Page 1: The title “High Stakes” and a large estab beams as panels dividing up the characters. “Hig are the stakes and why are they high? One of th night. Just the four gamblers and the Gypsy wom doorway and the bar-keep and one lonely custom
Page 2: An extraordinary page filled with 32 pan reading from left to right as is per usual. The top blers in close up bookended by the saloon girl an ond line, you know you are going the wrong way cally links the cards, so we now know whose card cards on the vertical right on the page. We then then we realise we are seeing what she sees in th (which she) we can’t see.
blishment shot from above using the cross gh Stakes� H’m, Love, Money or Death? What he four panels is empty telling us it is late at man with her cards and the saloon girl in the mer at the bar.
nels roughly the same shape and size. You start p line introduces the characters – the four gamnd the Gypsy woman. Half way across the secas the Artist has a ribbon like device that vertids these are and this is backed up by the Tarot go back to the first panel of the saloon girl and he vertical panels, which are mostly the cards
The last two panels are of a gun (whose?) and th Her cards are always different on each page exce up the top setting up this fateful story. The card far has the best cards and finally we notice that t bottom left panel, giving it a mental framing effe page 3 and we are back to normal comic panelin that. We now notice that three of the gamblers cause of the shadow.
he Gypsy woman trying to understand her cards. ept for the wheel of fortune card which is always ds also tell us who is winning. The first man so the Gypsy has the top right hand panel and the ect. She is also telling us the story. We turn to ng – left to right – and dark beautiful ones at have hats on and we can’t see their eyes be-
The hatless man looks straight at us with his open face as he takes a drink. One man throws in his hand and leaves breaking the silence and starting the dialogue in the comic. The dealer deals the cards, he looks like a sleazy Zorro with his cigarette smoke trailing through the panels which link them up and somehow suggest the presence of evil. Page 4: And we are back to the vertical layout again but the saloon girl and the departed gambler don’t have panels anymore which leaves a
larger central panel which moves the story along and the other hatted man checking their cards an Panel 3 the hatless man pours himself another d catching the hatless man’s eye. Panel 5 – close u man returning her smile, suddenly we realise tha hearts cards which are next to Tarot cards that re back to the central lowest panel and connect the at the cards, it’s a very close game?
g vertically. Panel 1 & 2 have the shady dealer nd money. drink, Panel 4 has the saloon girl coming forward up of girl smiling Panel 6 – close up of hatless at left to right these last 3 panels are next to ead Justice, the Lovers, The Fool. We then go e smiling hatless man to the fools card. Last look
Turn the page and it’s back to left to right, but t vertical. Her cards are all changed except the top down the page are the Devil, Force, Judgement a
The hatless man raises the dealer ten dollars, the then we get a close up of his eyes, are they fearfu of gambling too high? As he throws in his hand a seems to say that gambling is evil?
the Gypsy cards are still on the right side and p Wheel of Fortune card. The others reading and the Death card.
e dealer raises ten and the other man hesitates, ul? He has three aces in his hand! Are the stakes and leaves the table the Gypsy’s card the Devil
The hatless man and the dealer in close up look straight at the reader and the Force card of the G on the table. The hatless man has a full house – t has a flush – all hearts. As he pulls his money in h win you tonight eh Rosie” and next to him are the being the last on the page. Page 6: Erupts with hatless man yelling “Son of a bitch”. Next panel in previous panel.
at each other, the hatless man looking as usual Gypsy tightens the tension as they put their cards three kings and two sevens. The grinning dealer he glances at the saloon girl and says “Looks like I e Judgement and Death cards. The Death panel a large L shaped panel with a close up of the n the rough shape of a gun dovetails into the
This panel has a close up of a gun being pulled from a holster (whose gun?). The next panel shows saloon girl open mouthed, paralysed with fear. Then a central large panel going from one side of the page to the other of the hatless mans’ gun going off and the dealer scattering his hat cards, money and table all in suspended state as he’s shot through the heart. We notice he’s not wearing a gun. Next panel hatless man returns his gun still smoking to his holster as saloon girl grabs his arm and he says to the barkeep “Sorry about the mess Joe. Take the damages out of my winnings?” Last panel hatless man with his hand firmly around the waist of saloon girl leaves with the rest of the panel framed
with the sad and weary Gypsy woman who saw it all happen before anybody else did, including the reader, in her cards. Wow! What a comic – but what about the dead guy? Why leave him there? Hang on! The second last panel – the man has a small star on his chest! AH! he’s the Sherriff, I check back through the pages and notice that the star has been used in four panels, but in such a way as to not draw attention to it! And it looks like it has been drawn smaller just for that reason. I have only barely touched on how this complex comic tells its’ story and as usual it’s pointless to go on describing all its’ intricacies when all you have to do is read the comic.
Spending all these words trying to figure out what goes on in the comic reading process is a bit like trying to analyse a joke. There is just so far you can go, the rest, as Shakespeare said is silence. The silence of the magic of words and pictures, panels, inking, timing and best of all putting into the work the unconscious and the unexplainable stuff which is what real magic is all about. There are other questions that need answering with this comic, but that’s the quality of the writing, leaving you up in the air with only the beautiful dark inked panels of Greg Gates to linger in your comic memory forever. Jim Bridges
THE FOLLOWING CONDENSED ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY DAVID MARR AND PUBLISHED IN THE NATIONAL TIMES, 29th JUNE to 5th JULY1984 JURY MILD ABOUT HARRY One Sunday a couple of years ago, this paper carried drawings on the inside back page from the familiar universe of Patrick Cook. Reading the paper that Sunday, 15th August 1982, Harry Seidler , the foremost modern Architect in Australia, virtually a household name with a reputation unparalleled within Australia, was appalled by a drawing on the page captioned HARRY SEIDLER RETIREMENT PARK. He was sickened, outraged, anguished. His barrister and brother-in-law Clive Evatt later described the cartoon thus: “It shows around a very deserted, arid landscape a number of dwelling houses, ugly, box-like, with no roofs on some of them and no doors.
A nurse is feeding them meals on wheels. The man there is removing the excrement by his shovel and is putting it into a large drum surrounded by flies and filth ……. “Far from being a place where the retired can enjoy the autumn years of their life in comfortable and decent surroundings, it is like a prison, worse than Changi jail …. Seidler saw the cartoon as an unwarranted attack on his life’s work, coming out of the blue, suggesting his architecture was worthless and incompetent and ugly, and that he built inhuman structures, buildings and houses that degrade humanity which “is the very opposite of that which I have devoted my life …” Seidler took it that Cook was being quite literal, that he had actually built a house with no roof, no door, able to fit only one inhabitant who had to be fed sandwiches through a slot. Seidler asked for no apology, but in early September 1982 he and his company sued John Fairfax and Sons Ltd. Publisher of the National Times and Patrick Cook.
Not since the wartime Archibald case, when William Dobell defended his portrait of Joshua Smith, have the courts seen such an important clash between two artists. And in essence the issue was the same between Cook and Seidler as it was between Dobell and the painters who attacked his work: the question of representation. Portraiture was at stake then, but here it was the future of cartooning in Australia, for on trial was Patrick Cook’s style, the elegant drawings by which he aims to say the most with the least, a style that relies on allusion and assumes a reader’s informed curiosity about the world. A good joke is no defence to an accusation of defamation, but the law recognises the right to make honest, even trenchant comment with this technical complication: the comment must be based on material sufficiently identified to the reader.
Clive Evatt, Seidler’s Barrister and brother-in-law said “A cartoon, he argued, is “the most dangerous, deadly way of defaming. Words are cheap, words are forgotten, but images stick in our mind. They are hard to erase.” He cited the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Cooks’ cartoon, he said, carried three defamatory imputations. First that Seidler is brutal and anti-social. Second that he is unaesthetic, with no interest in beauty and good design. Third that he is incompetent, “that he doesn’t put roofs on, or doors.”
Patrick Cooks’ QC, Neil McPhee said: “This is not a fight about whether Seidlers’ Architecture is good or not, nor whether readers agree with Cook. At stake is Cooks’ right to comment.” To the argument that Cooks’ cartoon was not comment but a statement of literal fact, McPhee said: “Nobody looking at a cartoon thinks he is looking at other than a fiction….. …..a cartoon by definition is a comment”. If the jury found against Cook because someone might take a cartoon literally, then “That is the end of cartooning.” ….
…. Seidler, he noted, claimed never to have been criticised in his life. “You may have thought it was time for Australia’s leading Architect to roll over and waive one Patrick Cook cartoon.” He left the jury with this reflection: The future of cartooning in Australia, a long and vigorous tradition, was in their hands.
QUOTE: Asked w toons don’t cha dolefully that de Government, it cians, for examp a point in critici you for the orig
why he had earlier said that carange people’s minds, Cook replied espite his cartoons of the Fraser survived eight years. “And politiple, when you think you have made ising their behaviour, will often ask ginals. It can be a bit discouraging.
Harry Seidlers’ Barrister, Clive Evatt said, “The po is immeasurable. Similar and other factors were the other persons who have gone under from ab didn’t even follow the funeral cart. He was lost in buried.” “They pick on the greats in this country.
oint is that the damage done by this sort of thing enough to finish Utzon here. Look at some of buse. Mozart ended up in a pauper’s grave. They n the fog. They don’t even know where he was .” Evatt praised Seidler’s buildings, condemned Cook’s view and lamented that the cartoon had deprived not only Australia but the world of new Harry Seidler houses. “We never heard Mozart’s 41st symphony.”
The jury re-entered and declared it had a verdict ‌ the cartoon carried the imputations that they wer proved, however, that the cartoon carried the imp and this was held to be defamatory. But the jury found the defences of comment esta the cartoon to be an expression of Cook’s opinion might have held upon the material itself was prop was enough to identify the facts. Labels were not
‌. Seidler and his company had failed to prove re brutal, anti-social and incompetent. They putations that they lacked aesthetic sensibilities
ablished: the ordinary reader would understand n, which opinion was one which an honest man per material for comment. Cook’s allusive style t required. Seidler lost. EXTENDED VERSION AVAILABLE
I wrote and designed Abra for children, with the hope that their parents would find it entertaining enough not to mind sitting through it – like the pixar formula. I started with the Pied Piper story, set in space, and added some boo – hiss villians; a back story about how the Piper acquired his magical skills; and some funny songs based on familiar traditional tunes. We had a real production company. Adams Packer Film Productions was in full swing, we had real stars. John Farnham was a charismatic pop star at the peak of his power. Hayes Gordon was huge in musical theatre and Jackie Weaver was the darling of stage and screen.
Then two legends of the film industry with whom I’d worked for years, Mike Browning and Volk Mol, appeared on the doorstep and offered first go with their newly invented Triangle 3D process. Like other 3D systems, theirs needed tinted glasses to achieve th required effect.
The huge difference was that the images still OK in 2D when viewed without them. Other systems required two different overlapping polarised images, but Triangle needed only a modified lens to build the 3D information into a single image. Phillip Adams a 3D fanatic since childhood, was very excited by all this, and sold the idea of a 3D Abra to Kerry Packer,
along with the prospect of an entire 3D Channel 9 Network – nearly 30 years ahead of the current 3D TV phenomenon. So Abra Cadabra became a 3D production, and things began to go pear shaped. They Triangle demos had involved photographic Images. We discovered that creating the 3D effect using small, flat drawings set on planes a few inches apart required a dramatic focus shift between the sharp, primary image and those in front of, and beyond it. Producing Art work in different sizes for different planes presented enormous technical problems. Worse still, without the glasses the images looked iffy. We’d have to release only in cinemas.
We decided to enhance the films potential by doing it in Panavision, which meant we needed a purpose-built Rostrum camera, a computer controller, a specially modified Panavision lens and more. Time and budget were tight. Too tight. We soldiered on.
In some ways it was a relief when Alan Bond bought Kerry Packer’s Channel 9 Network, including Adams Packer and all its’ productions, complete or in progress, which was shipped off – lock, stock and barrel – to the Bond headquarters in Perth, never to be seen again.
I’d started to have serious doubts about how well the film would be received. At least I would never have to find out whether my fears were justified. The film was never released or digitised. Abra Cacabra was dead and gone.
Or so we thought. In April 2011, Paddy (my wife) discovered the entire film uploaded on the obscure Animations Channel on Youtube. The quality of the images, copied from a bad copy, is dreadful, but you can hear the songs.
According to Patrick Robinson’s the Guiness Book of Film Fact and Features, Abra Cadabra was the first animated feature to be released in a 3D viewing format. It seems that nothing is permanently lost in the age of the internet.
The songs for Abra Cadabra were new lyrics set to melodies familiar to kids, Peter Best set the songs and wrote the incidental music. This one (song) was to the tune of Good King Wenceslaus: “Father’s not himself today”
FATHER’S NOT HIMSELF TODAY “Father’s not himself today Something is the matter Since I saw him yesterday He’s grown five stone fatter His complexions’ always been Rather pale and sallow Now it’s somewhere in between Chartreuse green and yell-ell-ow Father’s not himself today I know I’m his daughter Since I saw him yesterday He’s grown two foot shorter Yesterday his eyes were grey Now they’re red and shiny Funny how you notice things Even when they’re tie-ie-ny” Taken from Stitt’s Autobiographics 50 years of the Graphic Design Work of Alexander Stitt
OFFICIAL ABRAGOGGLES PROPOSED DESIGN FOR 3D GLASSES
DEAD CARTOONISTS SOCIETY
JOE JONSSON (NILS JOSEF Halmstad, Sweden and died of cardiovascu 19.08.1
At 18 he went to sea, sailing before the mast in windjammers for 9 years, jumped ship in New Zealand then landed in Australia in 1917.
Sourc
/ GAGS
F JONSSON) was born in n on 13.12.1890 ular disease in Sydney 1963.
ce—all cartoons from 1930’s—1940’s Smiths Weekly
Studied at Johns Watkin Art School (1918-1920) and became an instructor there within a year.
HOUSE AGENT; Yes, I'll admit the place is a bit k a hammer he'll soon fi
knocked about; but if your husband is handy with fix that
Joined Smiths 1924 and wa man (artist) when it folde Rupert’s Dad, doch the hired a colour comic became the ve “Uncle Joe RADIS According Lindesay, Joe J one of Australi cartoon drau who’s cartoons they were dra toothbr He had a pho memory, and visual refe
s Weekly in as the last standing ed in 1950. Keith Murd him to do c strip which ery popular e’s horse SH”. to Vane Jonsson was ia’s greatest ughtsmen, s looked like awn with a rush. otographic never used erences.
He was short, sandy haired and hump backed, but terribly strong with an enormous chest for a man his size. His cartoons were mostly filled with shipwrecked sailors, low life crooks of all types (including stranglers) and natural and unnatural disasters, but mostly he drew drunks and ‘blottos’. He apparently drew more cartoons about drunks and drinking than anyone else in Australia.
His strong robust wiry style had more lines in his work than Melways maps. His humour was basic, but funny, as low life burglars woke up their victims to find out if the watch they were stealing from them kept good time. Ridiculous and unbelievable situations which added to the comic chaos! His characters inhabited mean streets where muggers cracked jokes as they cracked skulls with iron bars.
Drunks making the long and winding trip home, with crayfish stuffed in one pocket and a bottle in the other, philosophically jousting with coppers out to get them. Stranglers (Garrotters) commenting to their victims about red and swollen tonsils as they go about their work.
Jonsson was a founding member of the Australian Black and White Artists, the oldest still existing cartoon organisation in the world (now called the A.C.A. – Australian Cartoonists Association.) https://cartoonists.org.au J. Bridges
BURGLAR; Excuse me for waking you up
p, but does this watch keep good time.
FAC Wil
CETIOUS WARDER; (to released regular offernder) ll I wait up for you or will I lend you a key to let yourself in?
BURGLAR: ‘You’ll have to excuse me for striking matches and waking you up. I’ve left me torch at home.’
VICTIM; why did you leave 2 bob in my pocket! FOOTPAD; The bloke at the next corner gets nasty if I don't leave something for him.
DRUNKEN FISHERMAN; Struth! That'sh
h the biggesht zip fastener I've ever seen
MATE; Struth, the Skipper will be annoyed about this.
OFFICER; Hi, you! take some of this crowd in yo
our boat. LONE PASSENGER; No. I'm a recluse.
'Martha, wake up! There's som
mething under the bed'
'Whosh hic, fraidsh of big bad wolf'.
SHEILA; What long fingers you've got GARROT
TTER; Yeah, they take seventeen 'an a 'arf neck
'Well 'Orace, which will you 'ave - th
he upper or lower berth'
WARDER; What yarn would you like to hear tonig
ght PRISONER; Tell us about the one that got away
EXTENDED VERSION AVAILABLE
LAT He has been named many things: National Treasure, Malaysia’s Favourite Son, Cultural Hero, a Malaysian Institution. In 1994 he was also bestowed the honorific title of “Datuk”, which is the Malaysian equivalent of a “Sir”. As a child at home he was affectionately called “Bulat”, which was shortened to “Lat” at school. “Bulat” is Malayan for “round”. On photos he still is kind of chubby – the word “cherubic” has in fact used to describe him. And “LAT” is the name by which all Malaysians and Indonesians know and love him.
Australian cartoonists are still waiting to check him out in person. He promised to visit us, and we still hope that he does one day. He visited Australia before and recorded his observations with the same eye for detail that characterizes all his work. His real name is Mohammad Nor Khalid and he was born in 1951, delivered by his own grandmother, and he spent his early childhood in that typical village, in Kampung Lalang. He is on record as saying “Everything I do is for Malaysians. Whether I’m known in Japan or Hong Kong is not important to me.� But apart from Australia, he has visited many countries: the United States, the Netherlands, England, France, New Zealand, Japan and Egypt. Germany invited him for an all expenses paid tour of that country, one can only hope that some day in the future an Australian government will develop a similar generous
appreciation of neighbouring countries’ artistic institutions. Malaysia, like all South-East Asian countries, has long and rich artistic traditions, but the idea of gag cartoons or strips was introduced from Europe. This often led to outright imitation. Not with LAT. From the beginning he developed his own unique and unmistakable style: off-centre noses, limbs that contort like snakes, warped expressions – and apart from the comical effect, we get satirical yet affectionate depiction of life in Malaysia, impressions that draw from his own experiences: growing up in a village, then being transplanted into the Big City. His father was in he military, and the family moved several times. The “Kampung Boy” is LAT, and his observations are recognised by city folk as much as by country people.
And for us foreigners there is no better way to be introduced into Malayan culture and mores than to look at LAT’s books. Success came early to LAT, and deservedly so. He published his first cartoons at the age of 13 and never looked back. He recalls that the movie magazine that published his first cartoon, sent him a free pass to see a film, made out to Mister and Mister Lat. Being a child still, he took his father along. He even did a stint as a crime writer for a Malaysian paper, which must have given him an insight into the region’s seedy life. And being over-all talented, he plays music as well, guitar and piano, which he learned by ear. I must listen to music when I work,” says Lat. “Preferably instrumental. Indonesian gamelan is terrific while drawing fine lines or doing detail work; “
I played country music when drawing Ronald Reagan; Paul McCartney songs are great if I’m drawing fashionable girls; and I like old Malay numbers when drawing kampung scenes.� In 1979, his first book Kampung Boy was published. It is an autobiography of his young life. It was a best seller bought by many who normally would not be buying comics. Among the signatures of his work was the way he draws the nose, which looks like a "w". .
Lat's formal education began at a local Malay kampung school; these institutions often taught in the vernacular and did not aspire to academic attainment. The boy changed schools several times; the nature of his father's job moved the family from one military base to another across the country, until they settled back at his birthplace in 1960. Moving to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpar, Lat applied for a cartoonist's position at Berita Harian.
Ex
He was told there was no vacancy, but the paper's editor, Abdul Samad Ismail, offered him the post of a crime reporter. Lat was later transferred to Berita 's parent publication, New Straits Times. Moving throughout the city to report on crimes gave Lat opportunities to observe and interact with the myriads of lives in the urban landscape, enabling him to gather material for his cartoons and increasing his understanding of the world. While ordinary Malaysians will always remain his main subjects, Lat is also known for articulate political cartoon commentary. In this area, he gets away with things other cannot – though not all the time. “You can always tell when a drawing has been thrown out,” he says. “They fill the space with a neat little patch of copy that fits exactly where my cartoon should have been.” Rolf Heimann (Lofo)
xtended version available
www.theaustraliancartoonmuseum.com.au