Water Birds?

As I've mentioned here before, my first cartoon blog was hosted by an 'over 50s' web-site called
GOT (for Good Old Talk) located in Brisbane. I had been a member for a year or so before the site owner suggested I might like to author a Blog based on daily cartoon posts. Always up for a challenge, I agreed and the blog commenced on January 01 2011. The hot topic of commentary at the time was a monster flood event affecting Queensland as the aftermath of a horrendous storm which occurred during late December 2010. A whiff of Deja vu considering the storm related flood trauma now being suffered by Queensland and N.S.W. in the wake of cyclone Debbie?

In the event, my cartoons for Jan.1st and 2nd tried to inject an element of humour into the general atmosphere of horror, loss and frustration being experienced by thousands of people in the affected areas. I should also repeat advice that the space reserved for blog illustrations was limited to 8 x 8cms... so the following illos have not been reduced for this post...

Was the bird reformed as ordered?  Evidently not!

Early Learning?

I guess I'm very much old school when it comes to identifying my ingrained social inclinations with many of the habits demonstrated by public figures in the 21st century.

When my son (now in his 50s) was at preschool, (or kindergarten as it was then known universally), I would've been appalled if I came upon him being fondled and/or slobbered upon without my permission by some upstart political figure trying to animated a legislative program aimed at reforming 'early learning'. I could be wrong, but I don't think Bob Menzies would've thought that was an essential part of his campaigning either. He, of course, was renowned for his ability to paint recognizable word pictures without the need to wear funny hats, safety vests, or utilize children as policy props!

Had I ever stumbled upon my son being thus employed... I guarantee that no matter how inarticulate the miscreant might be... he/she would have no difficulty in understanding my view of the procedure!

Ham and Cheese...

... an idea for a single panel cartoon series which emerged from my filing cabinet circa 2011 after languishing for about a decade whilst I was either engaged with contracted cartooning work or recovering from major illness.

Today's offering was among a few ideas I had put together as a possible 'pitch' to one of the U.S. comic syndicates once I convinced myself the idea had 'legs'. Before that happened though, I stumbled over the fact that one of America's favourite strips at that time happened to be one which featured none other than a pig and rodent.

Back into the dungeon and quickly forgotten was thus the lot of my duo. Here's a taste of the theme.

Foyled?

Browsing through 'kept' cartoons today, I came across a photocopy of a Bulletin page (108) of August 11, 1981. Among other things, a cartoon by the inimitable Lindsay Foyle took pride of place at the top of the centre column.

A day or so ago, I was lauding (not for the first time) the simplicity of Frank Winter's cartoons. I've always admired 'toonies who are able to carry a gag with the absolutely least quantity of drawn lines. Now I realize my admiration of that talent goes back at least 36 years, because this example of MR. Foyle's work would only have been kept for that reason.

Thus, this post is a tribute not only to the brevity of Lindsay's art, but also the fact that his style of drawing then is virtually the same as today's work. In that same frame I've had more drawing style changes than square meals. Great work Lindsay!

St. Paddy's day 2012.

With limited time available today, no time to dream up new Irish gags.  Thus, here's the 'toon published in my 2012 blog which hopefully the Emerald Isle reader will have forgotten 5 years later.

Laughing Gas?

Remarkable how our political chieftains have apparently bungled the exploitation of Australia's natural gas assets. With almost the entire volume of recovered gas being sold and exported overseas, our Prime Minister has to go virtually 'cap in hand' to beg processors of OUR energy resources to please allow some of the product to be supplied to meet domestic needs in the shadow of massive shortages predicted to descend upon us in the next couple of years.

Why are these 'Gas Companies' not operating under the shadow of imminent nationalisation of Australian energy resources unless they DO AS THEY'RE BLOODY-WELL TOLD or get the hell out of our gas fields?!

The KAT in the Hat.

A week or so ago Bob Katter's name popped up in a media piece about the crumbling state of the coalition Government in the House of Reps. I used to have a blog hosted by a website in Brisbane... so was fairly familiar with the 'doings' of Bob. However, he doesn't cross my path very often these days.

Yesterday I was lost in the search for a current event to cartoon, so naturally fell back on the bog-standard idea of invoking something 'from this day' in the past. Voila! Who should emerge but the KAT in the Hat up to something or other on March 14, 2012! Obviously to do with 'pulling a rabbit out of his hat'... but I couldn't find the accompanying text so the viewer will have to think up a scenario appropriate to Bob's usual modus operandi.

Whatever, here is Bob as he was then with my only tinkering being to enlarge the original and change the background colour to better highlight the caricature.

One Notion does not a nation build.

I'm sure Ms Hanson must've thought the preference swap deal with W.A. Liberals was a good idea at the time of its floating. Most successful people learn from their mistakes.

Can Ms.Hanson emulate that trait?

The 'WHY' of W.A.

Having steered clear of W.A. throughout the state election campaign and particularly the day of reckoning... PM M.T. has revealed a lot about himself as a practical leader.

For better or worse, the image of George W ignoring the plight of storm-ravaged New Orleans during his tenure as POTUS comes to mind. But maybe that's a tad over-blown (pun intended) as no entity suffered grievous loss in yesterday's political debacle... except perhaps the Liberal party who now face years of re-building credibility in Western Australia at least.

 

To WALK or not to WALK.

In the shadow of World Womens' day, someone has suggested that Melbourne's WALK/ Don't WALK
traffic signals should be made less gender specific by introduction of a figure more akin to the shape of a female than the ubiquitous 'little man' currently in use. IMO this is over-bloated trivia which has no real basis of need. If Melbourne authorities go ahead with this silly scheme... first ponder the plight of trans-sexuals and/or limb amputees etc, who may also feel ignored in the 'little figure' solution now under consideration.

Or, if something HAS to be done, why not forget the 'figure' design and look at cross-gender shapes which are recognisable... or should be understood by all people. As I understand it, the thumb UP thumb DOWN signal has been in use since the Roman empire was at its zenith TWO thousand years ago. Since then, Latin has influenced just about all major languages currently in wide use... so how about the signs below as a lasting settlement of the currently perceived gender problem?

Economic Fish?

This cartoon is a reworked version of one originally posted in my first blog during February 2011. It was an 8 x 8 cm graphic dealing with the core of a proposition floated at the time by Economist Ross Garnaut. Sadly, the text of the earlier blog is temporarily out of my immediate reach (it's on the HD of an old computer which ceased operating recently)... but with a change of speech balloons, the cartoon still sums up the current state of our 'liberal' economy in Australia?