Murray Ball

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Murray Hone Ball (born 1937) is a New Zealand cartoonist. He was born in Feilding in the Manawatu, and is best known for his Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero, Bruce the Barbarian and the long-running Footrot Flats comic series. In 2002 he was created officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for his services as a cartoonist.

1 Life and work
2 Footrot Flats
3 Other works
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Life and work

Ball grew up in New Zealand before spending some years in Australia and South Africa. As a young man he worked for the Dominion newspaper in Wellington and the Manawatu Times before becoming a freelance cartoonist and moving to England, where he found work with publishers DC Thomson, of Dundee.

He developed his character Stanley and had it published in the influential English humor magazine Punch. Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero featured a caveman who wore glasses and struggled with the neolithic environment. It became the longest running strip in Punch's history and was syndicated in other English and non-English speaking countries. He continued to be published in Punch after returning with his family to New Zealand.

[edit] Footrot Flats

In 1976 Ball first published a new strip called Footrot Flats in Wellington's afternoon newspaper, The Evening Post. The strip follows the adventures of a working sheep dog called "Dog", his owner Wal Footrot and the other characters, human and animal, that came into their lives. Dog's thoughts are voiced in thought bubbles, though he is clearly "just a dog" rather than the heavily anthromorphised creatures sometimes found in other comics or animation. Dog also had alteregos including The Grey Ghost.

Ball's Footrot Flats has been syndicated in international newspapers, and been published in over 30 books. Footrot Flats inspired a stage musical, a theme park^{[citation needed]} and it became New Zealand's first feature length animated film, Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale in 1986.

Ball says he has always wanted his cartooning to have an impact "The heart of a cartoon is the idea, an artist can create a painting, hang it on the wall and be satisfied with what he has achieved even if no-one else sees it. In cartooning you must get a human reaction to the idea. The task of the cartoonist is to translate his idea into a drawing that will have impact". ^[1]

[edit] Other works

Ball's other works include the books The People Makers', The Flowering of Adam Budd, Fred the (Quite) Brave Mouse and Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest a satirical look at New Zealand Rugby.