Victorian election.

So far,  it seems the Victorian election has led to a more or less ignominious defeat for the one-term Coalition government. Though he's been Labour leader since the fall of the last ALP administration, Dan is a relatively unknown and somewhat colourless politician. So obscure was he, that either he or ALP nabobs thought his given name of Daniel Andrews was unknown to the extent that people had mistakenly reversed his given names to 'Andrew Daniels 'occasionally. So, in mid-campaign he became DAN Andrews.

I only heard a few of his campaign utterances... but, he was saying the 'right' things in terms of being primarily a man for the people, not corporate interests etc, He survived a tirade of desperate invective from the government alleging he was an associate of big union interests and, by implication, corruption and thuggery. Although I don't think the ALP ever latched on to it... the name change opened up a field of advertising/propaganda slickness that cartoonists' would've loved to access...

Witness Dan the Van (see above)... Dan the Man... Dan CAN!... Dan fan...Dan Plan and, any others you can think of havng some kind of political connotation?

Pidgin Pie #1

The genesis of this 'toon was my noticing the word pigeon repeatedly spelled with a 'd' before 'g' in a recent facebook post. I later noted that Webster's 20th century dictionary does allow a 'd' as an alternative to the generally accepted English version... but, my interest focussed on the other 'pidgin' with a legitimate 'd' which sprung from the fracturing of general english expression by colonial subjects during the empire period... chinese and south pacific native populations in particular.  The 'pidgin' word has come to mean fracturing of anything by either omission or mispronunciation of the subject item's salient components... be it language or 'things'. In that regard... pidgin seems to me to be an apt description of cartoonists' stock in trade... exaggeration and/or selective simplification.

Plenty laughter in dat pella, I reckon...

Recycling....?

... or a tentative bid to start all over again with a clean slate?

Barnacles must be removed!

When blame for government haplessness is attributed... any available sucker will do...

Barbed Canoes?

Loudly expressing his expertise on the subject of small water-craft... David Johnston is perhaps also airing knowledge of barbed-wire gained during his custodianship of the defence portfolio?

The Great Gugal #1

This an experimental new panel vehicle for illustrating my reaction/attitude to unfolding current events dealt with in this blog.

BTW... you can make what you will out of the word Gugal. It is actually of Hindi origin for a number of fragrant plant resins which form the basis of incense ( not to be confused with common sense or any other sense of the word sense as far as I know!) Its use here stemmed from a fleeting thought of mine about the old adage... 'A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet'. It just sounded like an appropriate name for a cartoon Oracle or Guru.

Honestly.

Bailing out into what?

So, Senator Jacqui Lambi has 'jumped' from the P.U.P. vehicle to be a lone drifter... on the surface anyway?

Will the 'bail' turn into 'bait' for political predators?

New Senate P.U.P.pet Master?

Odds are that Nick Xenophon will become top cock of the 'C.O.C.S.' bloc being formed in the senate after apparent fracture of P.U.P. unity.

And, that's all from ABC Regional news for now...

... BTW, don't tune in tomorrow. Our next bulletin time is 'TBA'.

Obama hits a Reef!

Poor guy. Makes a fairly innocent remark about hoping the Great Barrier Reef remains a unique world heritage attraction long enough for his children to visit and enjoy its amazing beauty.

I think he innocently hit a raw nerve in the Australian Government's fantasy attitude to environmental problems like climate change in general and man-made pollution of the reef in particular!

Exceedingly thin skin comes to mind with Bishop the younger's outburst.

Nation of One?

Just when you thought federal and state politics couldn't become any crazier...?

Can Do?

Yesterday whilst welcoming the Indian P,M. Modi, Tony Abbott mentioned the presence of two Can Do prime ministers in the House.

Presumably, Mr. Modi is one.

???

Turnbull the Tumbler?

Back on January 30th.  this year, I wrote the following about Malcolm:

Fabric fraying?

At last, a seemingly intelligent comment from someone in the federal government. Malcolm Turnbull's defence of the ABC against Abbott's ill-framed and stupid recent tirade, is a welcome breath of fresh air amidst the dank atmosphere created by the secretive 'tell 'em nothing' stance taken by this apparently 'out of its depth' group since the election.

There are probably other shadowy figures who aren't all that happy about this little act of defiance though?

But, now Malc. is toeing the line drawn by his new Tory brothers in applying the sword to ABC funding. Perhaps he has given up his former guise of 'small L' liberal?

If so, then perhaps I can remind them all of an addendum to my Jan 30. post? Especially the reference to 'following savage budget cuts dealt it (the ABC) by the Fraser Government in its dying days.

Nothing new under the sun?

As an addendum to today's blog entry... the ABC is probably well and truly inured to being the whipping post for just about every Australian federal government of the past 3 or 4 decades?

Witness, the accompanying cartoon which appeared in the November 1985 issue of Graphix, (a printing industry newspaper), as an illustration in support of an article chronicling a 'troubled' ABC reeling in its efforts to regain credibility as the 'national broadcaster'... following savage budget cuts dealt it by the Fraser government in its dying days. Many elements of society were critical of the resultant programming dilution as the ABC's top man Geoffrey Whitehead struggled to make ends meet.

Strangely, the press reaction was the opposite of recent times. The Australian had commented ... the cultural calibre of ABC TV's prime-time programming has become as imaginative, varied and worthy of the offerings that come from BBC2 or from the public service Channel13 in New York. That's pretty good in world terms...' On the same day, the Age said...'the corporation's television offerings remain effete, bland and deplorably foreign. They also represent an abrogation of the corporation's charter.'

Being the 'national broadcaster' clearly isn't as simple as ABC?

Yikes! Y-yellow Pupperil?!

As I recall, a propaganda catch phrase of the post WW2 era was "Beware of the Yellow Peril' which was (I suppose?) a bit of cold war anti-communist sloganeering aimed at the then great unknown... China.

Today... judging by some of the social media squawks arising from Clive Palmer's launch of his P.U.P. campaign ahead of the up-coming Victorian state election...  that same slogan may confuse our Chinese friends into thinking the hub-bub is aimed at the imminent announcement of the long awaited Australia-China trade agreement?

ACA's Annual 'big dance'... The Stanleys awards

Last night was the pinnacle of Australian cartoonists' year with awards presentations being given for the best (and fairest?) 'toonies in various categories of the craft as adjudged by their peers.

Top dog with two Stanleys*, one in the best Caricaturist category and another (the 'biggie') for Cartoonist of the Year overall... was David Rowe.

Goodonya Dave. And well done to all the other winners.

* Statuettes honouring the late, great Aussie cartoonist Stan Cross of Wally and the Major comic strip fame (and, much,much more of course)

G20. Gee whiz!

This comes from a collision between my distrust of politicians in general and reading a back-ground piece on the design elements brought together for the G20 logo so brilliantly by Riki Salam.

Lambie lost?

Jacqui Lambie MP has hit the headlines again... this time for rattling Clive's chain and possibly upsetting the PUP senate apple-cart(?)

A strangely diverse group... in this case, the alleged serpent is also a 'messenger'.

Stop the boasts!

Another challenge for the turner-round of boats? A Russian fleet bearing down on Australian waters?

If our fearless leader does undertake this possible task... may we hope he doesn't preface his act with any reckless out-burst like "I'll keel-haul 'em!"

The Shirt-front explained?

The planted key-hole camera performed well... but, the microphone bug failed miserably.

Sooo... judging by the captured image alone, it seems Mr. Rabbit's interpretation of the term 'shirt-front' doesn't quite equate with the general public's anticipation of the promised leadership confrontation?

Rememberence Day.

I don't object to children being taught the significance of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month observation... as long as it's not accompanied by the reverence some people show for the alleged glory of war in general and the bloody mess of stupid futility which was WW1 in particular.

A studied detachment by children from the attempted purification of WW1, would be a healthy and intelligent attribute to be encouraged in developing young minds IMHO.  

Time machines?

As I've written here before, I was once very keen on drawing caricatures of older forms of rail transport still running during my lifetime. Come to think of it, Boeing 747s have now been flying for in excess of 50 years... but, never 'grabbed ' me like old rail-borne transport did. Perhaps that was because I 'moon-lighted' as an airline employee for 32 years whilst building a career as a pro-cartoonist...(or. was that the other way around?)

Whatever, here are some more 'rattlers' from the early 1980s. The originals were quite small for my usual output. About 10 x 10 cms on white bond paper (notice the varying degrees of paper yellowing in these scanned examples). It was a time when I perhaps enjoyed drawing for drawing's sake more than at any other period of cartooning endeavours. I was using a 'common or garden' variety of pen for practically everything I did then... an el-cheapo Pentel 'Roller-ball' R50 ... available at any news-agency and/or supermarket stationery section. They were incredibly versatile for thick/thin line-work, fine detail
and even fairly sweeping lines in larger works on hot-pressed surfaces. Images made with the pen dried
as virtually water-proof (insofar as adding coloured ink shades to original drawings is concerned anyway)... another handy attribute.

I only know of one other well-known 'toony who used those pens for repro work... the late, great Michael Atchison... who was long a 'fave' of mine before I learned of our similar 'choice of weapon'.

Sadly. they are apparently no longer marketed by Pentel(?)

Another great wall of China?

APEC kicks-off  in Beijing co-incident with the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's demise.

If you liken APEC to a massive wall, it also has some developing cracks which need to be mended asap. China together with it's regional neighbors (eg. Japan and South Korea), share historical disputes with each other which, if not promptly buried once and for-all, could upset the ability of APEC to fulfill its role as moderator of cordial international relations in what is widely touted as being the 'Asian century'.  

Black Moose syndrome

A few days ago during a faceBook comment, I mentioned a cartoon character from an experimental comic strip (Animal Instincts) I was fooling with back in the late 1980s/early '90s. It just so happened that this earlier figment of my imagination... Misery Moose - a depressed elk-like critter, had the initials 'M-M' which suited the fB discussion topic.

Teamed with a more recent evocation of my weird mind, Rimbaugh the Rat (whose cunning 'street know-how' has graced this blog not too long ago), I thought a recollected image of the stressed Moose would not go astray as a weekend confection for friends and acquaintances?

Bi-Polar?

Goin' south?

Is there a mouse in the house?

To an outsider, it seems the U.S. electorate has no memory. George W. Bush?. Tea partiers?  The Republican shambles which brought the US government into world-wide disrepute necessitating a sweep-out six years ago?

Ah well... it's none of my business. You make your bed... you have to lie in it!

Off with the Pixies?

Once upon a time in a land called OZ...

Guy Forked?

Due to an alleged planning stuff-up by Matthew GUY, Victoria's Planning Minister, Fishermans Bend... a mostly desolate former industrial area... is no longer looking like it will ever be the government's 'jewel in the crown' of their 4 year reign, which officially ends pending a state general election later this month.

Archival 'Cup' reference

I'm not much into the 'GGs' ... so, haven't bothered to do anything special to note today's famous race at Flemington.

However, something I did circa1988 to illustrate a mag. piece about the impact of the great event on productivity in work-places unable to enjoy the Melbourne public holiday... remains readily fresh in mind. Not because of the race itself, but rather the job involved scribbling a 'rough' in response to a telephoned request for the illo at short notice. The accompanying pic is the original 'rough' drawn immediately using a standard 'sharpie' bullet-tipped marker... without much prior thought...  pencilled guide-lines or any correction fluid. The only colour was applied directly to the jockey's figure to emphasise the usual blandness of computer work-rooms.

So what? Well, it was delivered to the publisher by hand and processed for print exactly as it was first
conceived. The rarity of such an occurrence is what made it memorable as a lesson for cartoonists that often the first 'go' at a project produces the freshest and best version you're going to achieve in the long run.

Playing the percentages?

The government is adamant they will not increase ADF salary rises above 1.5% per annum despite an inflation rate at +/- 3%. Let's hope the armed forces don't misunderstand the government's fondness for 'direct action' and take a little of their own .

And, of course, it's probably a given that the bloody politicians are about to deeply cut their own levels of remuneration?!

The worm turns?

Looking desperately to avoid drowning at the next election, Dense Napthalene and crew are fishing for support from the not inconsiderable numbers of potential voters among the sport-fishing community of Victoria. Promising to ban commercial netting of popular table fish stocks in both Port Phillip and Corio bays, they in the sinking ship of state are obviously hoping the prospect of Snapper, Whiting etc. stocks  once again being freely available to recreational fisher-folk will have them manning the figurative life-boats to save Dense and Co. at the polls?

Of course, the thinking element among anglers are experts at bait identification. They will perhaps ponder this question... If promising to ban commercial activities in both bays seems such a good idea now the ship is sinking... why wasn't it one of their favored desires during the past four years spent asleep at the tiller?

Marital blltz?

From observations scribbled down and stored awaiting verbal twists opening the portal to gagdom.

Intermission...

Unless something compelling happens in National, State or World affairs over the next week or so, I want to have a spell from what is becoming the monotony of politics. Also. I need to hook up and become familiar with a new computer intended to provide vastly up-dated access to the web.

Sooo, mostly gag 'toons or examples of archival stuff which aren't fighting a daily deadline for the next week or so.