Mark Knight has been satirising tennis brats since 1984

MARK Knight’s belated critics might like to know that the first cartoon he had published in a daily newspaper satirised one of a long line of tennis brats to disgrace themselves with tantrums on court, writes Andrew Rule.

Andrew Rule

3 min read

September 11, 2018 - 10:20PM

Cartoonist defends controversial Williams picture

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BIAS is all right as long as you own up to it immediately, a wiser man than this one once wrote.

I first met Mark Knight when he arrived in Melbourne in 1987 to draw for this newspaper’s forerunner The Herald, and have admired him and his work ever since.

Knight was outrageously talented and young and reasonably good looking and soon very successful, a combination that could easily get you hated if you came from Sydney.

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But he was blessed with dodgy spelling, which saved him from being too bloody perfect. Had a weakness for horses and dogs, too. Fallible, after all.

In fact, he was that rare thing in life, let alone in a newsroom: a decent, kind person as well as a crackerjack professional. The two do not always go together.

His work was both touchingly Australian and somehow borderless — like The Castle or Hamish Blake or Ben Quilty. He was the Australian everyman, a tradie’s son who could mix with anyone, anywhere, and draw like an angel. He could make us laugh and, when it was right, he could bring a tear to the eye with that touching touch.

Many people were drawn to him, some of them still prominent in the media. Some of those — no names, no pack drill — would do well to reach out to him this week.

Because when Knight and his family woke up on Tuesday morning they faced the worst thing that has happened to them since the Black Saturday fires threatened their home in the bush east of the city.

Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight at his home studio following the negative reaction to his cartoon. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

This time it was not a firestorm but something just as hard to predict or to outrun — a twitter storm. You know how it goes: a tiny spark is fanned by a gust of hot wind then takes hold and, in no time, your world is in flames.

We can’t relay the foul obscenities and vile threats directed at the family on social media and if we could, we wouldn’t. Suffice to say that by noon, a shaken Knight and his lifetime partner Sophie were sitting at their kitchen table wondering what had just happened.

Three television news crews had just left and Knight sounded strained after facing an “all-in” interview. He was defending himself from a global attack over a cartoon he drew on Sunday for Monday’s Herald Sun.

The cartoon that started it all.

His depiction of the shameful bad loser behaviour of Serena Williams in the US Open had sparked a bushfire in American social media after the cartoon was seized on by the likes of mega-millionaire author J.K. Rowling and the rapper Nicki Minaj … or perhaps hirelings paid to tweet “virtue signalling” content to their millions of followers on their behalf.

Knight, typically enough, had backed the (relatively) powerless against the posturing bully in his cartoon.

The victims were the polite umpire Carlos Ramos and the humble new US Open champ Naomi Osaka, reduced to tears by Williams’ vindictive rant.

Knight’s cartoon depicts a rampaging Williams “spitting the dummy” — smashing her racquet while her intimidated opponent whispers to the umpire “Can you just let her win?”

The cartoon, like all good ones, was direct and disarmingly obvious: the one most of us reckon we could draw if we happened to be world-class cartoonists.

Interestingly, it apparently met little but approval in Australia all day Monday.

Unsurprisingly, the reaction among local sports fans was strongly against Williams.

The reaction among local sports fans was strongly against Serena Williams. Picture: Timothy Clary/AFP

Oddly, some observers apparently unconcerned about it on Monday had a change of heart by Tuesday, paddling to catch the tidal wave of international condemnation sparked by Americans wilfully interpreting it as an example of an historical persecution of black sports champions.

Maybe in the land that gave us the Ku Klux Klan and Black Power that might be true. But it has nothing to do with Knight, whose record is spotless.

His belated critics might like to know that the first cartoon he had published in a daily newspaper satirised one of a long line of tennis brats to disgrace themselves with tantrums on court.

That was 34 years ago. The brat was a young John McEnroe, infamous for abusing tennis umpires.

The speech bubbles went like this.

McEnroe: “Of all the people, I get stuck with a moron like you?”

Umpire: “ … funny, I was just thinking that myself.”

McEnroe’s juvenile raging was already predictable in 1984 at least it wasn’t considered beyond satire. If he copped a serve for his appalling behaviour, he deserved it. Just like Serena Williams deserves it now.

A point no doubt appreciated by the black African family Mark and Sophie Knight sponsored to come to Australia five years ago.