Your favorite Australian comic strips and cartoonists

I'm a huge fan of comic strips and cartoons, and I would really like your recommendations of your favorite Australian comic strips and cartoonists. I'd like to expand my knowledge and collection and where better to start than with the advice of fellow LTers?

So, what do you recommend?

As soon as I could read I became a fan of Colonel Pewter, every morning in "The Age".

Australia has always produced great political cartoonists. The current crop include Ron Tandberg, Michael Leunig and the amazing First Dog on the Moon (AKA Andrew Molton) who is published in the online journal "Crikey" - google them.

I only purchase the Sydney Morning Herald on a Monday (for my TV Guide) there is always a wonderful topical work of art enclosed, I cannot name the artist, I shall take note next week!!!

Oh, lovely! Am adding to my wishlist.

Well, Helcura, do you want modern cartoonists or will you accept any era? And only Australian?

If you look at my profile page you will find a link to, IMO, a great cartoonist. But as I say there, I might be biased :-) I do have several Histories of Australian Cartoonist, I can look them up if you are interested and post the links.

Guido.

ETA. Oh by the way dajashby, my website is all about 'Colonel Pewter'.

Any era is fine - though I may have trouble understanding political cartoonists from older eras. Definitely not limited to Australia, just said it because this is an Australian thread.

Limited to English, though. I don't read French, Spanish or Japanese well enough to get the subtleties that comic strips and cartoons entail.

Am checking your profile page right now! :)

The cartoonist and wonderful artist whose work is in the SMH is Michael Mucci another is Peter Moir. Oh so clever, also if you tune into the last few minutes of the Insidersiders on ABC at 9am Sundays there is a great collection of the best cartoons of the week.

I grew up reading Ginger Meggs every Sunday. It is a real Aussie comic icon and has been around since the 1920's (I think) The original creator, Jimmy Bancks passed away in 1952 and there have been several who have carried on this tradition since. I believe Swamp Tales, Snake and even Staria are also Aussie comics. Hope this is of some assistance.

Thank you, Aussiewoman - I will look for them. :)

I have to admit I have recently been drawn to David Rowes political cartoons in the Australian Financial Review. They are somewhat repelling at times, but always works of (disturbing) art!

>10 Bushwhacked:

Interesting - I wonder if I'd be able to understand them without annotation. I do okay with ongoing political comic strips like Madam and Eve from South Africa, but individual political cartoons often have so much local knowledge compressed into the image that I have more trouble.

What do you think? Are they accessible to non-Australians?

Hi Helcura... unfortunately you probably do have to be a bit of an Australian political junky to comprehend David Rowes cartoons... I only just checked your page and note you're from Denver... I'm guessing that for most US news services Australia is the other end of the earth and you only get the occasional kangaroo / rogue crocodile story, the nuances of Australian politics being possibly quite errr... peculiar... from your perspective... (and ours, sometimes)...

As a starting point you need to know that our current prime minister (leader of the lower house and of government) is a middle aged male liberal (which means conservative in Australia) fitness fanatic, who once studied to be a Catholic priest, is a monarchist (a supporter of the Queen of England, who is also separately the Queen of Australia, our Head of State) and former pugilist and Oxford Rhodes Scholar, who became renowned in opposition for being photographed in his red speedos (bathers) whilst doing life saving duty... he likes blue ties and is married with three adult daughters... He is also fanatical about bike riding.

How does that translate? It should be a good enough primer for a reasonable proportion of David's cartoons, should you choose to Google them! Good luck!

>12 Bushwhacked:

Thanks - with your help I'm going to give it a try! :)

... and whilst I'm here, I'd agree with the comment above that you check out Michael Leunig. He's left of centre (liberal, in the American sense), and covers pretty much everything from politics to social issues to imaginary friends. His cartoons are more broadly philosophical, and you don't need to know as much about Australia to appreciate them. He has probably managed to offend everyone at one point or another, which is probably the mark of a good cartoonist. He's had a few books of his cartoons published over the years, which should be readily available at a reasonable price from online booksellers.

# 12 .. ajmlibrary.

Thanks for the mention of David Rowe, oh what a brilliant artist he is!! Poor Julia and Tony!!
I googled Images and scrolled thru, an amazing site!!
The one(of many) that stood out for me was a very simple one of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

BTW on the Images site I enlarged for a better look, oh what a hoot of a collection.