Julia Gillard's Christmas Carol

Last weekend, I got the pleasure of attending the Stanley Awards in Newcastle.

You know that saying, "never meet your heroes"? Well it must depend on who your heroes are, cause EVERYONE there was great to meet. I got to spend long hours talking with people whom I've admired for years - like David Pope (who won Cartoonist of the Year and also traded some original art with me!), David Rowe and Anton Emdin.

And so, I came back home with a fire to improve my own work. And this cartoon is the result. It took me all day. And I had to use copious amounts of white-out to correct and re-correct Julie Bishop's face. It almost looked like a relief sculpture once I was finished!

Demographics are a B!+<#.

Today's cartoon was a bit of a lesson in boundary pushing for me. The Mercury's demographic is a few decades older than what I had expected. Apparently, not too many younger kids go out and buy newspapers nowadays. So the line, "All your tuna are belong to me" just falls flailing on the ground like a dying fish when someone who doesn't know their internet memes reads it.

I also found out that a letter of complaint was published in the Mercury about my Forestry Peace Deal cartoon! What were they complaining about? They were offended that I used only an "F" and various punctuation symbols/dingbats to disguise an otherwise distasteful adjective and therefore wasn't oblique enough with the word I was referencing.

To that person, I would like to say, "F#@K YOU and the demographics you wrote in on."

Some Mysteries Will Never Be Answered

No matter how many times you try to heave them back into the ocean, they just find their way back to the dirty shore. And what's worse is the smell if you leave them for a few days in the sun!