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Mike's Pith & Wind - Tintintabulation
I’ve always had a soft spot for cartoons. My great aunt Emily used to get the Australasian Post and as a young chap I used to particularly enjoy checking out its quota of cartoons – as well as the busty young Australian lasses in their bikinis on the cover. I used to enjoy reading the comic strips too, but my appetite for those has diminished over the years and I don’t have time for comic books these days.
I occasionally go to the New Yorker on-line to survey their cartoons. The New Yorker has a particular style which I find droll, but I know that some people find it annoyingly inscrutable. I seem to remember there was a Seinfeld episode about Elaine Benes writing an ‘understandable’ joke for the New Yorker. Either way, I’m sure it’s not as easy as it looks.
Such is the coded nature of cartoons that finally cracking the humour particular to some cartoonists has been part of my coming of age. The now defunct Punch magazine was another of my favourite cartoon reads and I think I may have mentioned the pivotal Paul Crum (Roger Pettiward) and his ‘I keep thinking it’s Tuesday’ cartoon, (first published in Punch in 1937), which, on puzzled reflection, revealed a whole realm of philosophical thought. (Coincidentally I discovered some years ago that Ross Ryan similarly admired the same cartoon and had it pinned on the wall of his GI Studio).
Hergé’s comic book character Tintin has been brought to the screen under the twin auspices of.. read more

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Dick's Toolbox - December 2011
That was the year that will be.
I’d like to begin 2012 on a mildly upbeat note, but I find myself unable to. Apparently the world is still more or less in one piece but only just. Apart from saying that there are far worse places than Australia to be at the moment that’s about it. A large flat, arid plain of mediocrity and listlessness seems to have enveloped this obscenely over-populated planet as we gravitate from one crisis to another, pausing only briefly to make things worse. Was it ever thus?
Fortunately, there is alcohol and other substances of abuse to take one’s mind off it until the next morning. But it may not be enough to stem the general malaise which will deepen until all memories of New Year, Christmas, and their overly sanguine celebrations, are past.
Over four years ago when John Howard was dismissed by the electorate in an.. read more