News location:

Canberra Today 17°/20° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Hawke, the cartoonist’s dream

POLITICAL cartoons have a long history in Australia enriched by the luxury of having politicians with great features and personalities for a cartoonist to draw.

Hawkie by Paul Dorin… “You only needed to draw his eyes and eyebrows to recognise who you were drawing.”

Labor’s longest-serving prime minister Bob Hawke featured in thousands of cartoons during his four terms in parliament. A survey of the nation’s cartoonists once revealed Hawke as the most popular Australian prime minister to draw.

Since 1983, when Hawke became prime minister, he has been my all-time favourite character and political figure to draw.

He provided plenty of “inspiration” for material. I loved drawing him; he could be created from a simple line drawing to a detailed caricature. I could draw him with my eyes shut.

Hawkie had great cartooning features, his mouth had this permanent scowl and eyes lay aggressively beneath his eyebrows. You only needed to draw his eyes and eyebrows to recognise who you were drawing. The other distinctive feature was his immaculate silver hair.

One thing that annoyed Liberal politician John Howard was that cartoonists, even me, would draw him as tiny because whenever he stood next to the then-prime minister Malcolm Fraser he looked small by comparison. In later cartoons, Howard hated being depicted as being smaller than Bob Hawke when, in actual fact, Howard was taller than Hawkie.

A joy for cartoonists. RIP Bob Hawke.

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Paul Dorin

Paul Dorin

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews