Caring about the environment should be fun
This series was based on a few articles I had read about robots being used to study all kinds of things in our oceans.
I only got away with this because my editor assumed Oscar had burped...
There is a lot of plastic in the ocean
Artificial intelligence
I don't think anyone in Texas reads Arctic Circle...
It's hard to think about getting old
I was recently floored by a question that I have never had from a client in 11 years of full time cartooning:
Do you have a superannuation fund (Australian pension)…?
and even more surprisingly:
…because we would like to pay into it.
I replied that cartoonists don’t retire – we keep working until we die at the drawing board. The client persisted:
Would you like to consider setting up a [superannuation] account…? It might not add up to an awful lot, but it’s an amount you are entitled to. Hopefully you’ll be with us for a while and we can keep contributing to it.
(I really love this client). So that made me think… and search on the internet…and find that it might really work out to have a superannuation account as I could claim it back against my tax, or have the government pay into my pension (getting money from the government is always a persuasive prospect).
A search online showed only one superannuation company that was really worth considering: Australian Ethical. They invest in truly environmentally sustainable companies that care about people as well as profits. Coincidentally, one of their (recycled paper) leaflets showed up in the ACF’s Habitat magazine. And they were launching a new fund called the Climate Advocacy Fund, a joint venture between Australian Ethical and the Climate Institute. I went to a presentation by one of their directors, James Thier, last night. It’s a weird new thing. They aim to effect change by investing in the Australian Stock Exchange (including companies they wouldn’t previously have touched with a barge pole) and then tabling resolutions with some of those companies to try and get some of the most carbon-intensive ones to change their game. From the AE web site, the aim and objective of the Climate Advocacy Fund is to:
- Provide returns consistent with the broad Australian share market index and provide an avenue for active engagement with the companies included in the index.
- … track the return of the S&P/ASX 200 share market index
- … improve the corporate behaviour of companies through engagement on climate change issues.
I like the idea that this company, having invested in ethical, sustainable companies for 20+ years is now prepared to try another tack – to take on some of the companies who would make a bigger difference to our future, if they would only change the way they operate.
I’m going to get myself a pension plan.
Tags: australian, cartoonist, climate change, ethical, pension, retirement, self-employed, superannuation
My good friend, Jason Chatfield, reminded me of an exhibition we have contributed to (he does the legendary comic strip, Ginger Meggs). It kicks off this week and you can read more about it in this Australian Cartoonists Association blog post.
Tags: cartoon, cartoonist, exhibition, one fine sunday
I’ve been writing this incarnation of Arctic Circle for over three years and despite being a female cartoonist, the main cast of seven are all male (it’s sort of a default setting for animal characters without eyelashes). When I wrote the Antarctica series, I had great fun with the introduction of a female character, Gwen. So I’ve brought her back. I’m not sure if she’ll stay – I’ve been writing more strips with her in this week – we’ll see how things work out.
My editor thought some of these strips a little sexist, but there are differences between men and women (in general) and the amount of luggage they take is definitely one of them.
I have a whole lot of facebook friends I don't even know and I'm petrified of deleting them
So this is my approach for a lot of my Facebook "friends" whose witterings mean nothing to me
Gwen moves out of the bachelor igloo
My mum actually did this to Dad's shirts once.
Inspired by the Gondola in Christchurch. A pointless apparatus, if ever there was one - you can walk or drive to the top of the hill it goes up!
Tags: cartoon, cartoonist, female, women
I loathe junk mail. It is responsible for so much wasted paper and energy. All the mailboxes in our block have “no junk mail” notices and yet we still get leafleted (though not as badly as without the notices). I’ve got fed up of emailing and calling the perpetrators, as they seem to have the same attitude as spammers – as long as they get a couple of customers out of it, it’s worth alienating a whole lot more.
Howard tries a bad approach for stopping junk mail
Howard becomes uncharacteristically violent
Howard is arrested for going postal
TV arbitration
How I'd like to deal with junk mail.
Being syndicated doesn’t cover all my bills (eg. traveling to the Reubens), so I do a fair bit of freelance work on the side. One of my favourite new clients is Scientriffic magazine, who gave me a whole page to have fun with. The result is “Midge Bristol Investigates” and the first episode is in the Jul-Aug issue. I can’t put the full thing up here yet, but you can see the black and white version (and colour it in!) on the CSIRO website.
Part of the first Midge Bristol cartoon
The Tim Burton Exhibition at the ACMI
I never really thought of Tim Burton, the film director, as a cartoonist, but the guy definitely shows the symptoms in his ACMI exhibition. Masses of drawings, a vivid imagination and the desire to tell a story, even in just one panel. You couldn’t take photos, so I had fun trying to sketch some of what I saw.
This started as a sketch on a doodle pad and then became one of his more effective acrylic paintings
There were a lot of fantastic creatures
NB. The exhibition was packed. Even first thing on a Wednesday, a couple of weeks after the exhibition had opened. Despite a $19 entrance fee. This would be unheard of for a cartoonist’s exhibition. Just goes to show that moving pictures are the way to go…
Tags: acmi, cartoonist, cartoons, exhibition, melbourne, tim burton
The boyf sent me an article from the New York Times about the desalination plants that are springing up in Australia. Despite recent rains, Australia is still a country that suffers from drought and has to plan for providing water for a growing population. Unfortunately, more effort is going into making drinking water from the sea than into conserving the water we have (or collecting it from rain). The target water use is 155 litres per person per day and it’s a target a lot of people miss. Why? We use about 40 litres a day. For the two of us. Clearly, behavioural changes could save a lot of water.
This part of the article really resonated with me:
Many environmentalists and economists oppose any further expansion of desalination because of its price and contribution to global warming. The power needed to remove the salt from seawater accounts for up to 50 percent of the cost of desalination, and Australia relies on coal, a major emitter of greenhouse gases, to generate most of its electricity.
Why aren’t we powering the plant that is being built for Melbourne with wind and solar? This is Australia, for crying out loud – solar power should be EVERYWHERE.
Tags: desalination, drought, water, water conservation
Paper wasting original layout
I’ve sold a few originals recently and it is always good to do swaps with the few cartoonists who are still working old school, but most of my originals are shoved in cardboard boxes *ahem* neatly archived, never to be seen again. Lemon (see previous post) rightly pointed out to me that I could squeeze two dailies onto the one page, saving trees (and space and a fair bit of cash – Canson illustration paper doesn’t come cheap), even though it would make the cartoons more difficult to frame. There could be a few more inking accidents, but it is saving time in printing and scanning too.
new layout (no spoilers)
Tags: original cartoon art, paper, waste reduction
One of the great things about this US trip was consolidating several cartoonist friendships I’ve made over the internet. I had a hunch that I was really going to like Jonathan Lemon – he is another expat Brit and his cartoons have a wonderful quirky but friendly sensibility that comes from exactly the same traits in him. He and Julia made the boyf and I very welcome and we were sorry to leave.
One of Lemon's recent Rabbits Against Magic strips
He works down in his basement, which is a real treasure trove
Where Lemon works when he isn't in the library
I also owe him an original strip (though sorry, mate – I ain’t water-colouring mine!)…
Tags: cartooning, cartoonist, magic, rabbits
