Michael Leunig
Michael Leunig
Michael Leunig, typically referred to as Leunig, is an Australian cartoonist, poet and cultural commentator. His best known works include The Adventures of Vasco Pyjama and the Curly Flats series. He was declared an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1999...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth2 June 1945
CountryAustralia
became sort
I became a cartoonist because I'd sort of failed at everything else, really. I mean, it was by default.
australian jokes male sort
Making jokes is about the most wrong and stupid thing a bemused, middle-aged, white heterosexual Anglo Saxon sort of Celt Australian male can do these days.
sorts
In my journey as a cartoonist, I seem to have accidentally stumbled into all sorts of traps, damnations and blacklists.
appearing easygoing explained laws pleasant point sort trouble
To be a pleasant person, you would at least need to see the point of being a pleasant person, or have it explained to you at some sort of 'finishing school' where you could actually learn the laws of propriety and the skills of appearing well-adapted, easygoing and attractively trouble free. But where do you learn these things? I don't know.
courts landed marks paper recall sorts
Over the years, my marks on paper have landed me in all sorts of courts and controversies - I have been comprehensively labelled; anti-this and anti-that, anti-social, anti-football, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-science, anti-republican, anti-American, anti-Australian - to recall just an armful of the antis.
across heart liberal member morning tattooed warn woke
I must warn you right here and now that I am a 'wet leftie,' a 'leftist' and also a member of the 'bleeding heart liberal left.' I had no say in it whatsoever. I woke up one morning, and these things were tattooed across my forehead.
art branch careers clever good looks planning political practice public relations schools science strategic taught
In contemporary art culture, where good looks and clever strategic planning of art careers have become a feature, professional practice may be taught in art schools like a branch of public relations or political science.
concern discuss easily fear instead later life nicely polite primal seems talk
In later life, we don't easily talk of fears, but instead we discuss our 'concerns.' Fear seems too primal and hysterical, but concern is polite and intellectual and nicely under control.
constant fear fearing finding huge humans might people perhaps state whether wonder
I increasingly wonder whether most humans are in a constant state of unconsciously fearing each other. Perhaps they fear how intimately different other people might be to them, and the problem is that there is no real way of finding out just how huge that difference might be.
cartoons older people radical spiteful
I have sometimes done cartoons that are hurtful to people - immature, spiteful stuff. Some are so self-indulgent, and some have just failed. I look back and sometimes cringe. But one regret as I get older is that I haven't been radical and wild enough.
bright creeping lights love unless
I have not much love for the bright lights - unless it's the sun creeping up over the horizon.
religion
I never had a spirit-breaking, soul-destroying religion drummed into me.
understood
I never really understood who the Magi were as a child. What is a Magi? Not a word I would use, but a magpie I could understand.
totally
I'm totally deaf in my right ear, yeah.