Bill Leak explains the funny side of newspapers — cartooning

In his own words The Australian’s cartoonist explains the funny side of newspapers.

The Australian's cartoonist Bill Leak depicts himself being threatened with a Twitter lynching.

In celebrating The Australian’s 40th year, Bill Leak in 2004 explained why the funny side of newspapers — cartooning — is a very, very serious business. These are his own words.

Like playing cricket and swimming fast, taking the mickey is something Australians do well.

There are good reasons we excel in this heroically ignoble field of expertise. It’s a tradition that began with the understandable and healthy contempt for authority that was common among the convict settlers and which blossomed over the next 200 years, thanks to the inspiration provided by a succession of governments, both federal and state whose antics and tactics — with some aberrant exceptions — have rarely risen above the farcical.

As a subspecies we have adapted by developing in-built bullshit detectors that are the envy of less fortunate humans the world over. But the things we satirists are more grateful for are our risible libel laws that make telling the truth not only risky — as it is everywhere — but actually illegal. Being a clown is a serious business; only in Australia could a cartoonist, the great George Finey, say “the truth is always libellous” and not be joking.

So, just as our genetically inherited cynicism has made Australia hell for serious artists, enfeebled their traditions and driven most of them to despair or other countries, it’s made the place a paradise for cartoonists and enabled our tradition to become robust and respected. We’re the ones who can be forgiven for telling unacceptable truths because, after all, we’re only doing it “in jest”. And nobody, least of all a politician, wants to be singled out as the only wowser in our larrikin-loving country who can’t take the joke.

The Australian’s first cartoonist was the incomparable Bruce Petty, who set a standard the rest of us — including Aubrey Collette, Larry Pickering, Bill Mitchell and Peter Nicholson — have been trying to live up to ever since.

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The Spanish-born American philosopher George Santayana wrote: “To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.” It’s a safe bet that if George had migrated to Australia instead of the US — and been able to draw — he would have had a wonderful time, just like my fellow cartoonists and I do here: working on a newspaper, reading it while it’s being written, and keeping a close watch on what our leaders and the leaders of other countries are up to as they mould each day’s little addition to history with treachery, hypocrisy and the lies they try to feed us.

All it feeds is our frustration, of course, but we have an outlet for it, a weapon with which to retaliate: humour. We wield it in “the drawing done in jest” that we hope might contain a little bit of truth and shed a bit of light while it lightens someone else’s day. We marvel at our own luck for being paid to keep ourselves sane by poking fun at them, cutting them down with a sharp nib or a soft brush — a deep delight of the blood.

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