Comic Commentators: Contemporary Political Cartooning in Australia

234 Book pages APR 24(2)domain of the historian and not that of the political scientist. The agonizing aboutthe impact of political cartoonists stems perhaps from the focus on how much theyinfluence individual opinion or behaviour and whether this can be measured insteadof what cartoons can tell us about the world in which we live. Phiddian’s chaptertracing the first half of Bruce Petty’s career at The Australian is a wonderfulexample of the latter, i.e. the value of looking at a period of history through itscartoonists’ eyes to draw out the passions and problems, the diversity and thediscord, which may sometimes be misrepresented, misunderstood or glossed over inthe official histories, or histories written by those who were not there. This isparticularly true of situations and societies which are not free.In ‘Comic Commentators’ Alan Moir gives cartoonists credit for the achievement ofthe free press in the West, Ward O’Neill records their impact in war and theinfluence they had particularly in pushing the boundaries through the sixties, andLindsay Foyle, in his history of political cartooning at The Australian, reminds usthat editors-in chief, too, appreciate their impact. Why else, he suggests, would PaulKelly in this role give ‘diligent attention’ (p. 228) to the selection of cartoonists if itwere not for the incommensurate impact they have in proportion to their numberand in contrast to that of the many more journalists who graced its pages?Foyle also focuses on Petty as cartoonist of perhaps the greatest influence on bothhis art and his peers, as do Phiddian and Thomas. Robert Phiddian tells us that Petty‘has tried to prick our consciences and make us a more inquisitive people (p. 193).He argues that ‘the satirists’ aim is to jolt the … public out of automated assent tothe activities of the knaves and fools who wield power’ (p. 192). And this is surelywhat so many of them do. Though Thomas for one concludes it changed nothing,the cartooning of such contemporary greats as Moir, Pryor, Rowe and Leak as wellas Petty around Tampa, refugees, the Iraq War, Weapons of Mass Destruction andso on, surely make the point? This was strident, this was angry and this was not justreflecting back what is, but demanding what should be. Editorial cartoonists pointout to the punters what governments are doing in their name — to provoke them tothink about it.Influence, then, editorial cartoonists certainly have. H L Mencken, for example, wasof the view that ‘the contents of the little black box to the right of the editorial oftenhave a more profound impact on public perceptions of people and events than domany column inches of considered argument’. 19 And Lucy Shelton Caswellconcludes that ‘the North American tradition is to treat editorial cartoons aspersuasive communications with the rhetorical force of editorials or op-edcolumns’. 20 Virginia Bouvier said that they ‘reflect and contribute to the formationof political attitudes’ and, in his foreword to Best Australian Political Cartoons2004, Russ Radcliffe, that ‘if the primary role of the news media is to provide a19 In the promotional blurb inside flap of Best Cartoons 2003.20 Quoted in Sleuter and Wills…