Cranking-up the Way-way back machine...

It was originally a week-end habit of this blog to feature older archival 'stuff' dragged back into the light from dusty drawers and folders as a change of pace from non-stop current affairs lampooning. I've let that slip a bit lately... so, let's go right back almost to the beginning of my scribbling career to see what evolved from my introduction to a 'mapping' pen and india ink.

This piece was done sometime towards the end of WW2 when I was perhaps 7 or 8 and living in the central Gippsland town of Morwell, where my dad was one of the two local police members. It was published in the kids section of the now long-defunct Melbourne Argus. The only evidence I now have is a battered c.1980s photocopy from the then badly age-browned and tattered remnant torn out of the original newspaper by my Mum. Poignantly, the original had a pencilled comment in my late Mum's hand-writing ... 'Rob got 5/- for this.'

Five bob was quite a 'princely' sum for a kid under 10 in those days. Woo-hoo! My professional cartooning career was up and away!