Australia Day Honours 2023: Cartoonist Warren Brown made AM

News Corp’s own Warren Brown has received an Australia Day gong not only for his contribution to the media but also military history. See why.

Lots of news veterans talk about having a ‘baptism of fire’ in their career, but in Daily Telegraph cartoonist Warren Brown’s case, the fire was not a metaphor.

When a boss on a regional newspaper managed to set fire to the then 19-year-old cadet’s desk, thanks to some late-night hijinks with a cigarette lighter, the apologetic executive offered to do anything to make it up to him.

“I said ‘I want to be a cartoonist,’ and he was like, ‘Done,” Mr Brown recalled this week.

News Corp cartoonist Warren Brown says former Liberal PM John Howard was a favourite to draw. Picture: Gary Ramage

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He got inking right away, first weekly, and then daily – and next month it will be 40 years since he first started with News.

It’s an extraordinary run, during which time Mr Brown has taken a cheeky, satirical swipe at the failings and foibles of the people who dominate the news, including nine prime ministers.

John Howard was a favourite to draw – a “lovely person to talk to,” Mr Brown said, but in a graphic sense, “fundamentally a pair of glasses the size of TV screens, with eyebrows”.

Today, Mr Brown has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his service to the media as a cartoonist, but also for his contributions to military history.

A member of the National Commission for the Commemoration of the ANZAC Centenary, for 10 years Mr Brown emceed the remembrance services at Gallipoli, and his volunteer work with veterans groups stretches back to the mid 1990s.

“I feel very strongly about veteran welfare,” he said.

“My father was in the RAAF, in Bomber Command, and he flew 31 operations over Germany, and it’s pretty amazing that I exist at all, because his squadron had the highest attrition rate of them all; for him to survive the war was quite incredible.”

Mr Brown said he was at a complete loss to know who had nominated him for the AM.

“It’s an amazing honour; I was blindsided by it,” he said.

“I received an email that was marked ‘From the Office of the Governor-General’ and I thought it was spam at first. I just wasn’t expecting it at all, and I’m still taking stock of what it means.”

Originally published as Australia Day Honours 2023: Cartoonist Warren Brown made AM