Michael Leunig

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Michael Leunig (born 2 June 1945), often referred to as Leunig, is a noted Australian cartoonist. His best known works include The Adventures of Vasco Pajama and the Curly Flats series. He was declared an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1999, and he currently lives in central Victoria, Australia.

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[edit] Biography

Leunig, a fifth generation Australian, was born in East Melbourne, Victoria, grew up in Footscray and went to Maribyrnong High School before entering an Arts degree at Monash University. His first cartoons appeared in the Monash University student newspaper Lot's Wife in the late 1960's. He was conscripted in the Vietnam War call-up but he registered as a conscientious objector.

After Monash Leunig enrolled at the Swinburne Film and Television School and then began his cartoon career. He has noted that he was firstly interested in making documentaries before finding his feet with cartooning.

In the early 1970s his work appeared in the satirical magazine Nation Review, Womans Day, London's Oz magazine, and also various newspapers of that era.

The main outlet for Leunig's work has been the daily Fairfax press, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Melbourne) newspapers published in Australia. In recent years he has focussed mainly on political commentary, sometimes substituting his simple drawings with reproduced photographic images with speech balloons attached. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has also provided airtime to Leunig to discuss his views on a range of political and philosophical issues.

[edit] Leunig's cartoons

Leunig's drawings are done with a sparse, quavering line, usually in black and white with ink wash, the human characters always drawn with exaggerated features. This style served him well in his early years, when he gained a loyal following for his quirky take on social issues. He also made increasingly frequent forays into a personal fantasy world of whimsy, featuring small figures with teapots balanced on their heads, grotesquely curled hair and many ducks.

He has revealed in past interviews that the music of The Beatles inspired his early work, along with European cartoonists and The New Yorker's absurdist writer and cartoonist James Thurber (as well as dogs and ducks).[citation needed]

In his latest cartoons, Leunig frequently satirises Western society's core ideals; including but not limited to Americanisation, capitalism, consumerism, corporate success and more recently warmongering, in a snide proclamation against the War on Terror. Of particular note are his recent parodies of political matters, especially those concerning Australian Prime Minister John Howard and United States president George W. Bush. This has earned Leunig the title of "Political cartoonist"[1], though this is misleading, as only some of his works are political in nature and/or reference.

His work has frequently explored spiritual and religious ideas.

[edit] Leunig's popularity

Leunig was declared one of Australian Living Treasures by the National Trust of Australia in 1999.

There has also been a Leunig Melbourne tram.

The philosophical and mystical nature of his work was selected as one theme for the 15 March 2006 Opening Ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games held at the MCG in Leunig's hometown of Melbourne. The principal character was a "boy and his duck", exploring the dreams and visions of a boy, and Leunig was heard reading a stanza of his poem as a voice-over.

In 2006, a Leunig cartoon appeared on the VCE English examination as part of an exploration of the topic "Can Money Buy Happiness?"

[edit] Collaboration with Gyan

Leunig with Gyan
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Leunig with Gyan

In 2006 Australian musician Gyan released the album 'Billy The Rabbit' which was based on the poetry of Leunig. According to Gyan:

   
“

It came about through a complete labour of love. I set a lot of his poetry to music over the space of a year without really knowing what I was doing. I had no motive, no plan. A friend of mine knew him and I contacted him at The Age and sent it to him, he fell madly in love with it.[2]
   
”

—Gyan Evans, The Echo Newpaper, Byron Bay, Australia

Released to glowing reviews; Gyan and Leunig launched the album at the Melbourne Writer's Festival where Gyan sang and Leunig accompanied her whilst illustrating. The two artists' also performed together at the Byron Bay Writer's Festival.

[edit] Leunig and controversy

As his status as a national institution has grown so too has opposition to the point-of-view reflected in Leunig's works. From feminist criticism of his "stay-at-creche baby" cartoon ("I'm a stay-at-creche baby so she doesn't have to be a stay-at-home Mum.") to his anti-war stance in regards to the invasion of Iraq and to the perceived anti-Israeli slant of some of his cartoons, Leunig and his cartoons have become the subject of controversy.

[edit] The Ariel Sharon Cartoon

On January 11, 2006, the The Age (Melbourne) newspaper published a Leunig cartoon which criticised Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, who at the time was hospitalized following a severe stroke, for sanctioning an attack on an 'old Palestinian in a wheelchair' - a reference to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader and founder of the militant Islamic group Hamas. This piece attracted many letters of protest from readers.

[edit] The Hamshahri Cartoon Incident

During the Muhammad cartoons controversy, a cartoon by Michael Leunig was published in an Iranian newspaper Hamshahri as part of a competition seeking cartoons insulting or lampooning the Holocaust in retaliation for the Muhammad Cartoons.

The cartoon by Leunig showed two panels, in the first a Jewish man walks through the gate of Auschwitz which bears the sign "Work Brings Freedom" under the heading "Auschwitz 1942". The second panel shows an Israeli soldier walking through a gate in a barbed wire fence into a war zone, the gate this time bearing the sign "War Brings Peace". The second panel is entitled "Israel 2002". The editor of The Age had earlier refused to publish this cartoon.

Leunig denied he had submitted the cartoon as an entry to the competition, and said that the act was "malicious and horrible". He demanded the cartoons be withdrawn, and the newspaper removed the cartoons and apologized to Leunig. [3] It later emerged that the cartoon had been submitted as a prank by a sometime contributing writer to the satirical website of The Chaser [4].

[edit] The Gaza Cartoon

On July 12, 2006, the The Age (Melbourne) newspaper published a Leunig cartoon criticising Israel for re-entering Gaza after a six month absence after Hamas militants captured Corporal Gilad Shalit and in response to continuing Kassam rocket attacks into Israel. This cartoon was condemned by many readers as being one sided and failing to acknowledge that Israel was responding to the kidnapping and daily rocket attacks into Israeli cities.

[edit] Some descriptions of Leunig's cartoons

  • Two American cowboys on a hill looking over a campsite of some American Indians. One cowboy is saying "They've got bows and arrows of mass destruction"
  • A man plays a small guitar in an industrial wasteland landscape. A child and a woman sit on a picnic rug nearby. The child says "Gee dad, you're fantastic"
  • A waiter with hair coming out of his nose and every other orifice stands next to a diner who says "waiter, theres a hair in my soup"
  • A depressed looking man rattles a bird cage which has a heart in it. The man says to the heart in the cage "Sing, damn you, sing"
  • A Jewish man walks through a gate to a concentration camp with the words written above it "work brings freedom". In the next panel, a Jewish soldier walks through a gate with the words "war brings peace" written above it.
  • A man wheeling a pram with a baby in it is confronted in a park by another man who points to a sign which says "No wheeling baby nephews in the park".
  • A bird steals the pubic hair of a naked woman in order to make a nest in a tree
  • A series of "medals for ordinary people", such as a "medal for conspicuous weeping", a "medal for just bumbling through and not leaving too much of a mess", etc
  • A bird makes a nest, and then makes another nest and puts up a sign "nests for rent".
  • An image showing a woman being dunked in a pond by a group of people. The caption reads "While the robber barons rape and pillage, the village idiot is dunked in the pond". This cartoon appeared during the Helen Darville or Helen Demidenko literary hoax.
  • A homeless man shouts "gold, I have found it, gold" while another man looks on. In the next panel it appears that the "gold" is an Australian sausage roll
  • A man standing in the shower holds a shampoo bottle which has the label "Shampoo for very dirty hair".
  • A man with a parrot-like haircut stands staring into a petshop where there is a parrot, while in the background a group of protesters march by with a placard which reads "Defend humanity".
  • A man walks past a city avenue. There are two street-name signs. The street-name sign of the street he is on reads "The life you lead". The street-name sign of the avenue which is bathed in sunlight reads "The life you could have led".
  • A group of pets are gathered around an old woman who is drinking a cup of tea. The caption reads "The spectators watched with bated breath the finish of the Mavis Cup" (A reference to the Davis Cup tennis championship)
  • Under the caption, "Memorial Eulogy" (for Kerry Packer), Prime Minister John Howard says, "'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle ... than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.' Leftists, as usual, take a negative view of these words. Like all nay-sayers and hand-wringers, they want the camel to cut and run. But the camel will stay the course, finish the job and go through the eye of the needle. And God will be liberated as the rich men enter His Kingdom, bringing justice, democracy and economic reform."
  • An unassuming David Hicks stands beneath an obviously and exaggeratedly tall, grotesque looking United States Army general, who is clutching a missile and whose clothing bears human skulls and malevolent torture devices. Said general is menacingly bellowing down at Hicks, "DAVID HICKS! I CHARGE YOU WITH BEING EVIL, DANGEROUS AND TERRIFYING!"
  • "Certificate of No Apology": A certificate reads as follows: Hereby issued is a Ceritificate of No Apology to Mamdouh Habib by the Australian Government on the charge of False Imprisonment. Signed, John Howard and Philip Ruddock (whereby the terms in italics are handwritten/typed to fill in gaps as appropriate).

[edit] Published works

  • The Penguin Leunig (1974)
  • The Second Leunig (1979)
  • The Bedtime Leunig (1981)
  • A Bag of Roosters (1983)
  • Ramming the Shears (1985)
  • The Travelling Leunig (1990)
  • A Common Prayer (1990)
  • The Prayer Tree (1990)
  • Introspective (1991)
  • A Common Philosophy (1992)
  • Everyday Devils and Angels (1992)
  • A Bunch of Posey (1992)
  • You and Me (1995)
  • Short Notes from the Long History of Happiness (1996)
  • Why Dogs Sniff Each Other's Tails (1998)
  • Goatperson and Other Tales (1999)
  • Carnival of the Animals (2000)
  • The Curly Pyjama Letters (2001)
  • The Stick and Other Tales of our Times (2002)
  • Poems (2003)
  • Kicking Behinds (2003)
  • Strange Creature (2003)
  • Wild Figments (2004)
  • A New Penguin Leunig (2005)

[edit] Works in the Australian National Bibliographic Database

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/leun-f23.shtml
  2. ^ http://www.echo.net.au/archives/19_10/pdf/p22.pdf#search=%22gyan%20leunig%22
  3. ^ http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18142863-2,00.html
  4. ^ http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/chaser-behind-leunig-stunt/2006/02/15/1139890807095.html

[edit] External links

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