But there is always room for improvement! This year, we again offer cartoonists from all
over Australia and New Zealand
some impressive prizes for their clever creations. The winner gets a cash prize
of $6000, plus there are more prizes and cash for other finalists. The
competition began in earnest on April Fools Day and has since attracted more
than 160 entries, in a wide-ranging demonstration of skill, style, media, theme
and of course, humour.
The material that drops into the cartoon inbox has been entertaining us here in
the newmatilda.com office over the past two months. The competition is open to
professionals, amateurs, students or anyone with a sense of humour and some
artistic flair and we are seeing several key players regularly vying for the
big dollars and putting their pens to the task at hand.
The global financial crisis has been a popular subject for interpretation,
with Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan appearing variously as the generous guys with
pockets full of money or the ones with the world’s biggest burden on their
undeserving shoulders. The short-lived panedemic that nearly killed us all
propagated a number of pigs in many poses. And where would we be without the
seriously contemporary, seriously hot topic of global warming, inspiring
budding cartoonists week after week?
Entrants this year have also taken to depicting the US President, Barack Obama, as the
tall, skinny, sartorially distinctive, black guy. The Pope makes regular
appearances too — often as the tall skinny, sartorially distinctive, white guy.
He’s not actually skinny though is
he?
Back on Australian politics, targets for the sharpened pencil include Peter
Garrett (as ever) and the reunion of his former band Midnight Oil for the
Sound Relief concert, Kevin Rudd’s mid-flight hissy-fit, Malcolm Turnbull
turning everything Chinese, general panic about boat-people and Peter Costello
just being himself.
Congratulations to the winners of heats so far: Matt Boulton (Heat 1) for the Peter
Garrett-Penny Wong show, Ian Martin (Heat 2) for his poker face-off between
Turnbull and Costello, Matt Bissett-Johnson (Heat 3) for Peter Costello’s
political strategy in interpretive dance and Oslo Davis (Heat 4) for his satire
on practical ways to cope with the financial crisis. Recent winners are Luke
Watson (Heat 5) for Kevin stimulating the Big Bear economy and Lukas’ (Heat 6)
depiction of Rudd serving up Industry Aid with the ETS pie. You can view each
of these and all other entries on the competition site.
Each heat winner receives $250 cash and will go into the final round for the
$6000 grand prize. The finalists will go before a panel of judges including
Sydney Morning Herald sketchwriter, Annabel Crabb and cartoonists Peter
Broelman and Bill Leak. Keep the entries coming, the competition doesn’t close
until early June.
One question. Where are all the women cartoonists? Fiona Katauskas
has a theory on that but we are still surprised so few women have entered the
competition. Could now be the time to change this perplexing tradition, ladies?
Of course the other burning question is who will win? We’ll let you be the
judge, but it seems our readers are shy critics. Come on, it’s not only the
cartoonists who can get to have all the fun — register and vote for who you
think has got talent and win yourself a neat entertainment package that
includes books, film passes and DVDs. Heat 7 is now open for voting.
See all the entries and find out how you can enter a cartoon
and vote at the official cartoon competition website.
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