The perfection of a good cartoon
Photo by Eduardo Casajús Gorostiaga on Unsplash
When I think about my top 5 dream jobs, the occupation of ‘political cartoonist’ always makes the list. It’s not because I have a talent for drawing (I don’t). But I love the idea of being paid to come up with a witty and thought-provoking image that succinctly sums up the issue of the day.
I’m sure that, as with most jobs, the reality of a political cartoonist can be somewhat mundane, not to mention the daily pressure of coming up with a funny image to a deadline. Still, it must feel pretty good when you nail it.
I suspect that part of the appeal is having licence to poke fun at anyone and everyone. There aren’t too many jobs where you get paid to ‘speak truth to power’.
Some of my earliest memories of The Age newspaper as a child were Ron Tandberg’s single-panel (or ‘pocket’) cartoons that accompanied articles, opinion pieces and letters to the editor. Even if I was too young to understand many of the articles themselves, I could usually make sense of and appreciate the humour of his brilliantly simple images.
Tandberg’s successor, Matt Golding, has given a behind-the-scenes overview of his standard workday, including how it feels to wake up to an ‘empty box’ each day. While he doesn’t shy away from the mundane aspects of his work, such as spending a lot of time listening to news bulletins, it’s clear that he loves the job. And, as he says, ‘… if I don’t quite get it right, that’s ok, because the news cycle has already moved on.’
An important platform for political cartoons remains the daily newspaper, online versions included. As Golding noted, the churn of the daily news cycle means that the impact of these images can be somewhat short-lived. In Australia their creators mostly work for state-based publications, so much of their satire focuses on local issues. As a consequence, some of the best cartoons and cartoonists rarely get national coverage.
One way to explore the work of Australia’s best visual satirists is to visit the Behind the Lines annual exhibition at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House in Canberra. If you can’t make it to Canberra, Behind the Lines 2023 is currently touring Australia, or you can check out images from previous exhibitions on the museum's website.
