It was slim pickings in the State Library today, not their fault, I was really actually truth be told just looking for a few skerricks to prop up some bigger ideas-studies-papers, so that's all fine. But while I was waiting for my order to come in (I just missed the 11:00 retrieval by minutes, and had to wait for an hour) I scrolled through a few weeks of the Sunday Observer in late 1970, which was quite a paper. And Michael Leunig was working for it, doing what I am going to propose was possibly some of the most groundbreaking work of any cartoonist of a mainstream newspaper anywhere in the world (or at least the anglosphere) at that time.
Here he is having a go at the Libs:
To be fair I don't really know the full context of this snipe at Gorton, but I love the set up of the viewer 'pulling back' from Gorton in the studio in the first two panels, to him being on tv in the second, the pullback continuing, and the dog attacking the tv leg:
Not 100% sure of all the fine details of 'La Bonzer' but that's OK. This is pretty nifty as a piece:
This one is atypically detailed and structured, I think ML has really enjoyed all the elements and the slight reference to renaissance perspective is excellent. 
1 comment:
"Noel Ferrier's Australian A To Z" was pretty much what it said on the box - a sketch comedy program where the sketches were loosely connected by being about something starting with the nominated letter of the alphabet. Noel F was the urbane, glass of wine-bearing host linking the sketches, with the odd mini-monologue of his own. No idea if they managed the full 26 episodes, but the ones I saw were quite funny, which probably means they would show their age if seen today.
Feel free to show more of the Sunday Observer - ABC National had an interesting doco a few years back about its founder Gordon Barton - now THERE was a character.
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