An oldie, but a goodie!

With neither inspiration nor inclination to draw an original cartoon today, I've fallen back on the bludger's routine invocation of 'this day in .... '(fill-in whatever year is appropriate to your post).

In this case it will be 2011 when I was doing postage stamp-sized illos to support a daily blog. I even have the blog entry which explains the cartoon background.

Tributes.

By rim on 30 November 2011 - 5:54am

Last night I was browsing through the monthly magazine published by the Apple Users Society Of Mellbourne (AUSOM, a pretty clever anagram if nothing else) ... and, came across a letter to the editor on the subject of Steve Jobs recent passing.

Apparently, the member had been in South Africa on business when Steve died. He was intrigued by a large number of tributes in the form of 'sticky notes' which he noticed adorning the front window of an Apple Centre close to his hotel. He reproduced a number of them as attachments to his letter. The one which amused me the most forms the meat of today's cartoon.

I hadn't seen it before. Hope you haven't either.

Sunday Strips

Here's the third instalment of my Small Potatoes strip which appeared fortnightly in TravelWeek c,2004.

Scott Morrison

Until recent years when he ascended to the federal government ministry... I thought I had never really heard of Mr. Morrison as a national identity. Wrong.

A week or so ago I was going thru some old TravelWeek archives when I caught sight of a vaguely familiar face. None other than the c2005 version of S.M. in his then role of Tourism Australia Managing Director... and caricatured by me as the Cover Story subject in the TW issue dated January 19 of that year,

I may have the hide of an elephant,,, but evidently not the memory.

Shirt-fronting

You've talked the talk Tone. Now let's see you walk the walk.

Better still... just WALK!

Boats NO! Boots YES!

Presumably Tony's boots were NOT 'made for walkin'?

Yobbos!

Australia was never owned by, nor meant for, the rough-neck renta-crowd idiots demonstrating and creating chaos in country Victorian towns about issues which have absolutely nothing to do with them directly.

Crawl back to the rat-holes you apparently emerged from!

Sunday Strips

Last week I posted the 'pilot' of Small Potatoes, a strip in 'sunday' format which ran in the magazine TravelWeek on a fortnightly basis for approx.12 months c 2004-5. It replaced a single panel op/ed cartoon titled 'Mason's view' which had lampooned the travel industry from the B & W days of 1979 and in colour from 1993.

I relished the change because it afforded the opportunity to introduce mini story-lines into the act of lampooning.

Here's the lead-in 'trailer' dated April 14 2004.

Friday Doodle

After tossing and turning thru last night's latent heat... then being suddenly awoken by a single clap of thunder rattling our tiles at 5.30am, I was feeling a bit wobbly for the early part of the day.

The future of understanding I.T.

Lost most of yesterday due to having the car serviced early in the afternoon. That, the heat and other trying circumstances combined to extend my lack of cartoon ideas malady until the onset of a mild cool change late this arvo.

Last 'Mason's View' in TravelWeek.

I intended to post this cartoon yesterday as a comparison with the 'Strip' version of the same subject posted on Sunday.

However, the only digital file I could find in the 2004 archive refused to open correctly so I.ve had to revert to scanning the actual printed op/ed page of the TW issue.

Brett Godfrey, then CEO of Virgin Blue, had made an apparently 'off the cuff' remark that he would be prepared to give away 'free seats' if it would encourage 'Joe Public' to patronize Virgin rather than Qantas in a fierce fare-war  in train at the time.

Sunday Strips

My comic-strip out-put suffered a decade of severe drought from the demise of Rarebits during 1995 to 2004 when it was decided that I could substitute a 'Sunday' format strip for the op-ed type single panel type of cartoon I had been doing for TravelWeek for years.

Here's the prototype I ran past the editor to show the difference in approach between the two formats. (A traditional single panel 'toon ran in the TW issue of that date... but this sample gained the green-light for the change to be adopted in subsequent issues.)

The 'Stans'.

This week-end the Australian Cartoonists' Association is holding its annual Stanleys* awards conference in Melbourne.

* named in memory of the late great cartoonist Stan Cross

The Oracle.

This character was invented to serve up witticisms for my original 2011 blog. In the event, he only contributed once ... so here's another of his previously un-published professional secrets of success.

Remembrance?

November 11th. A fateful day in the calendar of many.

























november 11th.

Gotta start somewhere.

In the beginning it is wise to lay down a basic parameter for the task at hand...

Young Guns beware...

... the woods are full of predators just waiting to suck you in, feed off your talent, then offer only a one-finger salute (if that?) in recompense.

Back in 1989, ABWAC was approached by a supposed regional media figure seeking contributions from pro-'toonies to illustrate a comical book about wedding day tribulations. In those days, ABWAC (fore-runner of ACA) could only pass-on job-ops. to members by 'snail'-mail or irregular issues of Ink-spot. Certainly, e-mail was still in the future for most (if not all) of us! Whatever, I learned of the requirement from our association so thought it must be 'cosher'. I immediately scribbled out a few roughs plus my contact details and a 'per cartoon' quote on a single A4 sheet of bond paper (land-scape) using a Rotring-type cartridge pen... and off it went to the seeker of help.

Months passed and a follow-up letter to the commissioning personage remained un-answered so I figured the job had been grabbed by other 'toony' brethren,,, and. good luck to them. Some time later, I was in Sydney to finally wind-up my 'real job' career with Qantas when I strolled into a COMIC shop in the CBD precinct to kill time with a bit of a browse. (Don't know if it was the one Comic Kingdom lately reported to be closing down, but that event certainly prompted this memoir.) In the remaindered book section, I came across THE bloody book! Both the front and back covers where adorned with the 'roughs' I had sent off as EXAMPLES of my work only. The book itself had a large quantity of work by other well-known 'toonies' ... and, I assume they were paid the same amount as me *Zilch*?!

Did I buy a copy of the 'book'? No fear! Why would I want to contribute more to the coffers of this thieving bastard?! I reported the event to ABWAC who I think had, by then, been acquainted with the rip-off. If memory serves...I think I also sent off a par for Ink-spot.

The cartoons in question are rearranged in the piece accompanying this, Only my contact details have been dropped.

Be very careful out there comrades, The same thieves are still at large... but now shielded by 'social media'?

Sunday Strips

The conclusion of this series of strips also reflects the real end of Rarebits during 1995 when the publication Pacific Computer Weekly surrendered... not the comic strip,

The Excision re-visited.

Another day of clashing commitments has precluded a new cartoon post... so, back into the archives to see what was grabbing my attention on this day in 2012, I'm also posting the accompanying blog text from 3 years ago.

Nothing I am aware of has happened during the interim to change my opinion.

Excision.

By rim on 4 November 2012 - 12:02pm

If ever we needed a concrete example of the moral turpitude inherent in contemporary Australian politics, the excision of our country from the so-called 'immigration zone' is it!

If I had the power to do so, I know what I'd excise from our legal an cultural landscape!

And, should Australia ever find itself in circumstances similar to those currently blighting countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, et.alia ... no prize for surmising who'd most likely be first 'in the boats', if there were no other ways out of the fix.

Fascinations?

This is a re-run (pun intended) of a 'nag-gag' from my blog in 2011.

Meat lovers special?

I used to like Bacon n Eggs...

Sunday Strips.

Long, long ago in a place far, far away...