Ned the Bear turns up late

Cross-posted at Club Troppo

Jam session

Dire predictions last week that Darwin will soon experience crippling traffic jams if governments don't stop arguing about road funding and actually start building stuff like overpasses etc. Anybody who knows Darwin will also know that a traffic jam can currently last a horrendously long five minutes or so. If they get longer, of course, speeding along city roads will become a thing of the past, thereby depriving the NT government of desperately-needed revenue from speed and red light cameras. A frightening prospect, I'm sure.

Cartoon copyright © Northern Territory News. Please don't pinch it.

Build-up blues

Getting verrrrry hot and sweaty around here now with the build-up delivering higher temps, rising humidity and melting cats (not to mention smudgy cartoons). There's been a bit of rain around, and a bit of lightning, but nothing too spectacular for Darwin itself just yet. As usual, the weather boys predict the monsoonal stuff won't happen until around Christmas, so we're in for two months of dripping sweat, grinding aircons, rotting mangoes and general yuck, which - for some strange reason - most of us are quite happy to put up with.

The Weather Bureau, meanwhile, has revamped its cyclone info web page and also issued its outlook for the season. It could be a busy one, they reckon, largely thanks to La Nina. The Top End's cyclone season officially starts on Thursday.

I do a lot of cartoons about underpants

And why not? They are funny.

This one's a pre-GST Tombstone Territory from 1999 on the great which-foods-should-be-exempted debate. It cracked me up when I came across it the other day. Yes, I do laugh at my own stuff sometimes. My optometrist once caught me in his waiting room laughing my head off at one of my own books, which was only slightly embarrassing.

Cartoon copyright © Northern Territory News. Please don't eat it. Click for a larger version.

Bloody cartoonists

For anyone interested SBS will be airing a documentary on the violent 2005 Danish cartoons crisis tomorrow night at 8:30. Bloody Cartoons examines the crisis from both sides, the West's dedication to free speech and the 'sacredness of Mohammed to Muslims'. Looks like they managed to get hold of some of the main players so it should be an interesting piece of television.

Only in the Territory

Road rage has hit a new high in the Territory with two blokes hurling ceremonial spears at a fleeing car. No-one was injured. This is the sort of news story that makes me thankful I'm a cartoonist here and nowhere else.

Full story

Under construction

Lots of crashing and banging and welding and grinding underway at our place at the moment as the Taj Mahal of back decks slowly but surely takes shape. This is a pic of our back wall as of five minutes ago. All the noise has made it a little hard to blog sensibly (which would be a change, wouldn't it?) so there won't be that much on offer around here for a day or two...

Book work

Time to get serious. I've been a bit slack in getting started on my new book, which is due out in August next year. At least I've got a cover. That's always a good start. At the same time I'll be ratting through my files (I've got 20 years worth!) to select around a 100 pieces for a retrospective exhibition to coincide with the book launch. It's all happening.

Ned the Bear and the great worm debate

Cross-posted at Club Troppo

"Dan Dingo is stupid"

Well I'm back at work and not a moment too soon judging by reader reaction to my Dan Dingo comic strip. As you may recall Dan was designed to fill up the holes in the paper while I was away on holiday and give everybody a good laugh. Going on SMS messages and Letters to the Editor over the past four weeks good laughs were few and far between. The overwhelming reaction was positively negative. A sampling:

Dan Dingo is stupid - Not a Dan Fan, Darwin

Dan Dingo is slower than a 6 week election campaign. Bring back Old Wicking - Anon

Wicking has caught some chronic debilitating disease... - Col Friel, Alawa

What's happened to Wicking? Please bring back Wicking of old. Dan Dingo is a shocka - Deb, Malak

...this Dan Dingo stuff is way below par and, for the first time, I find myself skipping Wicking altogether. Old Wicking reruns would be preferable... - The Lone Ranger, Bees Creek

Thankfully a reader going by the name of Boomer from Alice Springs actually liked Dan:
To the person whinging about Dan Dingo. It's a running cartoon, you nark. I luv it. It's cute. Wicking, you've done it again.

There you go. I'll still be posting the strip here throughout November for posterity's sake, so feel free to tell me it's the best thing you've read anywhere ever :-)

Holiday Report #3: Ned the Bear and the holiday snaps

Big mistake taking Ned the Bear on holidays with us. Apart from all the whinging and whining he was also extremely rude to the locals. It. Will. Not. Happen. Again.


Ned fails to comprehend why on earth animals, especially rabbits, are forbidden in certain bits of Malaysia.


Ned gets his photo taken by a bemused tourist on the Petronas Towers Skybridge, high above the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Then he looks out the window:



Ned spent much of his holiday searching for decent toilets. He is now contemplating writing a comprehensive Lonely Planet-style guide to toilets in Southeast Asia.


Ned shouting at a local blocking his view of a giant billboard featuring Uma Thurman. Kuala Lumpur is a city of giant billboards.

The funniest thing that happend on our whole trip. Ned accidentally fell into a tiger enclosure at one of Malaysia's biggest theme parks, The Lost World of Tambun, which is near Ipoh. Despite our pleas for him not to be rescued he was.

Holiday Report #2: Meeting Jango

Apart from flitting around Malaysia for ten days we also spent a bit of time in Bali, where I caught up with friend and fellow cartoonist, Jango Pramartha. Jango is Chairman of Pakarti, the Indonesian Cartoonists' Association. He's also the driving force behind the monthly Bog Bog - Bali Cartoon Magazine which features the work of cartoonists from across the country. (There are a few there. Pakarti has around 600 members.)

Jango recently shifted to more spacious offices above his Denpasar shop and was kind enough to give us the grand tour. That's him in the hat, me on the left, the top of the apprentice's head at the bottom, and one of the Bog Bog cartoonists at the computer. Jango's also opened a new retail outlet in the Centro Department Store in the Discovery Shopping Centre in Kuta. It's really worth checking out if you're in Bali and on the hunt for high-quality T-shirts, souvenirs and such.

Readers with long memories may recall our plan to bring an exhibiton of cartoons about Bali - initially put together by Jango in response to the Kuta terrorist bombings - to Darwin at some stage. Looks like it will be a goer for around Australia Day next year. Jango and his team will travel over and we're hoping to organise some talks and a few workshops (for kids and adults) etcetera. Given Darwin's close relationship with the holiday island I think it'll do okay here. I'll keep you posted on how it's coming together.

Holiday Report #1: Meeting Lat

Okay, so the absolute highlight of our holiday, for me at least, was getting to meet Lat (Datuk Mohammad Nor Khalid), Malaysia's superstar cartoonist. Lat lives in the city of Ipoh, not far from the small kampung where he grew up. It's about a two-hour bus ride north of Kuala Lumpur. Luckily Mrs W has rellies there who knew somebody who knew somebody else who could get Lat's phone number from some other bloke he knew from walking his dog in the mornings. Or something like that.

Anyway, Lat was gracious enough to invite us into his home, where we spent a couple of hours chatting about all manner of things, including cartooning. He's a very laid-back guy and sports one of the cheekiest grins I've ever seen on a human face. The next day he was due to fly to the States to attend a cartooning conference in Washington and launch his second American book, Town Boy, in New York. (The American version of Kampung Boy, an autobiograhical collection of cartoons first published in Malaysia in 1979, was released there last year.)

Even though he's looking to retire, Lat's still doing three cartoons a week for Malaysia's New Straits Times. He complained they won't let him say goodbye, which is understandable. He's a national treasure. And he couldn't believe I've been doing around 12 cartoons a week for the last 20 years or so. "You must work very hard," he grinned. Mrs W, who has in her possession ALL of his books, laughed her head off at that.

Pictured: Lat and I admiring a couple of newly autographed books. He's published 30 since 1979. I've published four since 1990. Oh well.

More on Lat here.

Home

...and we're all still in one piece. Stay tuned for some holiday happy snaps in a day or so.