Petty's Parallel Worlds
Bruce Petty

Bruce Petty is the closest we've ever come to producing our own Picasso and I love him.
— Bill Leak

Format: hardback
Extent: 192pp
Size: 200mm x 180mm
RRP: $39.95
High Horse, September 2008

  For nearly half a century Bruce Petty's anarchic and brilliantly incisive art has enlivened the pages of our newspapers and magazines. This rich compilation — much of it previously unpublished and edited by Russ Radcliffe — showcases the range of Petty's artistic styles as well as his intellectual and moral concerns.

Whether in the directness of his editorial cartoons, the immediacy of his street sketches, the ambition of his films, or the sophistication and beauty of his recent printmaking, Petty is an acute observer of our ambitions and our follies who has never been afraid to engage with the big ideas of our time and the complexity of our condition.

From the inanity of the internet to the genius of Mozart, from the chicanery of Australian domestic politics to the global manoeuvrings of superpowers and the clandestine world of international finance, from first world consumerist excess to global environmental degradation, Petty's unruly pen traces the deep and unexpected interconnections between things to reveal the inner workings of the world.

 Bruce Petty is one of Australia's most loved artists. Though he is best known in Australia for the political cartoons he has contributed to Melbourne's Age since 1976, Bruce's work has appeared regularly in some of the world's most prestigious magazines such as The New Yorker and Punch. Bruce is extraordinarily prolific in a wide range of artistic pursuits from etching to filmmaking. He won an Academy Award for his film Leisure in 1977, and several AFI awards for his satirical documentary Global Haywire in 2007. Bruce's previous books include An Australian Artist in South East Asia, The Money Book, and The Absurd Machine. Bruce lives in Balmain and has 4 children.

 

'Radcliffe is Australia’s leading archivist of political cartoons ... and he gives us all a laugh. More importantly, he gives us a record of our political life in a manner accessible to very wide audience.'

Haydon Manning, Australian Review of Public Affairs

 

Best Australian Political Cartoons 2007
edited by Russ Radcliffe

Published by Scribe
ISBN: 9781921215568
RRP: $27.95

Our sharpest and wittiest political cartoonists turn their attention to a momentous election year.

With Dean Alston, Michael Atchison, Mark Knight, Jon Kudelka, Bill Leak, Alan Moir, Peter Nicholson, Vince O’ Farrell, Bruce Petty, David Pope, Geoff Pryor, David Rowe, John Spooner, Ron Tandberg, Cathy Wilcox, and many more …

At the beginning of 2007, after a decade of grinding disappointments, four successive election defeats and the prospect of a fifth, even the Labor faithful were afraid to imagine that the light at the end of the tunnel might be something other than a Coalition train. But Kevin from Queensland really was here to help, and the punters seemed more than willing to give him a go. At last, the political pendulum seemed to be swinging back.
— Russ Radcliffe, from the introduction

Best Australian Political Cartoons - past editions
edited by Russ Radcliffe
Published by Scribe, $27.95

An indispensible annual guide to Australian politics and society

Best Australian Political Cartoons 2003	Best Australian Political Cartoons 2004	Best Australian Political Cartoons 2005	Best Australian Political Cartoons 2006

The year-in-review as witnessed by our funniest and most subversive political cartoonists. With Dean Alston, Michael Atchison, Mark Knight, Jon Kudelka, Bill Leak, Alan Moir, Peter Nicholson, Vince O’ Farrell, Bruce Petty, David Pope, Geoff Pryor, David Rowe, John Spooner, Ron Tandberg, Cathy Wilcox, and many more…

Man of Steel
a cartoon history of the Howard years
edited by Russ Radcliffe

Published by Scribe
ISBN (13): 9781921215537
RRP: $29.95

After more than a decade in government, Australia’s poltical cartoonists have had plenty of time to examine in minute detail not only every aspect of John Howard’s philosophy and public policies,but also a goodly portion of his power-walking anatomy — from his quivering bottom lip to the swish of his rat-tail.

War on the waterfront, the GST, Pauline Hanson, black armbands, East Timor, children overboard, Tampa, 9/11, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, Bali, and IR reform — it's all there in this full-colour alternative history of John Howard’s premiership, as interpreted by Australia’s finest political cartoonists.

Bill Leak’s Rattus, with his snaking rat tail and Pinocchio nose, discloses what is perhaps the most dubious legacy of the Howard era: the decline and fallof notions of accountability and responsibility. The vaunted ministerial code of conduct of Howard’s first term was quickly abandoned, replaced by a parade of cabinet refuseniks led by the man of — apparently stainless — steel. Children overboard, countless immigration cock-ups, the so-called ‘intelligence failures’ preceding the invasion of Iraq, and the AWB scandal are only the most obvious examples. Dishonesty and dissimulation might have been electoral kryptonite at any other time, but particularly after 9/11 they seemed to impose no cost.
— Russ Radcliffe, from the Introduction

Moments of Truth
Bill Leak

Published by Scribe
ISBN (13): 9781920769536
RRP: $39.95

Australia has had a long and proud tradition of political cartooning and Bill Leak, the daily editorialcartoonist for The Australian, is one of our most potent and exhilarating. This collection is a superbiconoclastic survey and counter history of the past five years, which Leak describes as an‘unprecedented period of bumptiousness, self-importance and stupidity’.

This deluxe, full colour edition presents an extraordinary insight into the working process of one of Australia’s finest creative talents, as Bill’s unique images of Australian and international affairs take shape from rough ink sketches through to brilliant finished colour artwork.

BILL LEAK is one of Australia's leading satirists and most respected portrait painters. He divides his time between ridiculing his subjects mercilessly in his cartoons or immortalising them in oils. Leak has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize on ten occasions; he has won eight Walkley Awards, and nineteen Stanley Awards including eight Gold Stanleys for Artist ofthe Year.