As beautiful as they were powerful: Jon Kudelka’s political cartoons were made with true conviction

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Brookes, Senior Lecturer, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University

The media and cartooning world shifted mightily between Jon Kudelka’s earliest contributions to The Mercury in Hobart in the early 1990s and to his last regular gig at The Saturday Paper, before the diagnosis and treatment of his glioblastoma sparked retirement in April 2025.

In contributions to these publications, and The Australian and The Age, Kudelka’s cartoons have been published for readers across the political spectrum, resisting the polarisation of the contemporary Australian media.

The award-winning cartoonist died in Hobart on Sunday, aged 53. Alongside the cartoons, he had a flourishing creative career evident to anyone who wandered into the Kudelka Gallery in Salamanca Place that was envisioned as a “retirement policy”.

The national conscience

If cartoonists are the persistent voice of the national conscience, then Kudelka’s was superficially quizzical but often searing in its conviction.

He turned his attention to hypocrisy, political grandstanding and manipulation; or to deep-seated social and political inequality in cartoons as beautiful as they were powerful.

In 2016, Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, was valued at A$350 million. Coalition Senator James Paterson – either mischievously or out of proper philistinism – suggested we might now sell the painting and bank the profit.

Kudelka’s cartoon invites you in, almost sweetly, with the classic cliché and the childish-looking “suits”. He then skewers the reductive economic thinking with the punchline and exposes the violence inherent in the system with the small but savage chainsaw. But look how beautifully, how affectionately, he copied the great artwork.

The man himself knew a lot about art, and he could really paint.

When Kudelka won his first Walkley Award in 2008 for Welcome to Brendan, the members of the judging panel pointed to the way the “wistful, beautiful drawing” has a subtle power. It offers insight into the isolation of then Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson, as he struggled to decide on a position on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s upcoming apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples.

A decade later, Kudelka won a second Walkley for a cartoon with a sharper edge. From the Heart calls for a visceral response, reimagining the shape of Uluru as a raised middle finger to capture response to the Turnbull government’s dismissal of the main recommendations of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Kudelka’s cartoons paid attention to the issues, large and small, whose many threads make up the fabric of national life. They invited readers in, while laying bare the true shape of power and influence.

On 14 October 2023, the day of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, his cartoon in The Mercury pushed back against those political slogans that played on voters’ feelings and fears rather than the facts, reminding them it wasn’t too late to inform themselves.

A willingness to think publicly

Kudelka’s contribution to Australian cartooning is larger than the cartoons he leaves behind. It lives in his willingness to think and reflect publicly about the profession: the licence editorial cartoonists are afforded to contribute meaningfully to the life of the nation, and the (mundane as well as exceptional) sacrifices this requires.

We interviewed him late last year for our research on Australian editorial cartooning. Surrounded by the Tassie-inspired artwork that fills his gallery, he reflected on his career with unusual openness, wit and warmth.

His somewhat accidental spearheading of a cartoonists’ boycott of the 2023 Walkleys offers a powerful insight into his convictions.

In a blog post, Kudelka explained he was choosing not to enter a cartoon that year after a review of award categories failed to introduce a new category on climate reporting, and the ongoing sponsorship of the Walkleys by Ampol.

He argued:

Whether this sponsorship influences journos or not, people seeing a bunch of allegedly well informed media types hobnobbing on a fossil fuel company’s dime makes people think well they must think this isn’t so bad so maybe it isn’t (spoiler alert: it is).

Some cartoonists followed suit. Others disagreed. This sparked a range of conversations about the changing culture within cartooning and, more broadly, about the history of the awards and their founder.

Change followed: the Australian Cartoonists’ Association instituted a new award for a climate-change related cartoon; the Walkley Foundation moved both to change its sponsorship policy and distance itself from the racist views espoused by W. G. Walkley in a 1961 newspaper column.

The issue continues to frame – if not define – Kudelka’s online presence. The front page of his blog now reads:

I mostly use this blog for causing trouble with the Walkley Awards and selling calendars these days, but mostly the latter.

In April 2025, Kudelka retired after more than three decades of professional cartooning. He reflected in a wry piece for The Saturday Paper that being an Australian political cartoonist had started “feeling a bit like Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill every day”.

He was happier, he realised, taking his time “making things”, with the weight of the daily deadline lifted from his shoulders.

‘Not today’

Kudelka left us with two self-portrait cartoons.

In the first, the cartoonist stares into the “abyss” for inspiration as a deadline approaches.

In the second, he potters about his studio, looking for his pen.

Meanwhile, on the wall hangs a gentle phrase laced with the honesty, humour and satirical sharpness that characterised Kudelka’s creative and cartooning life: “Not today”.

Stephanie Brookes receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is an Associate Member of the Australian Cartoonists’ Association.

Richard Scully receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an Associate Member of the Australian Cartoonists’ Association.

Robert Phiddian receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an Associate Member of the Australian Cartoonists’ Association.

– ref. As beautiful as they were powerful: Jon Kudelka’s political cartoons were made with true conviction – https://theconversation.com/as-beautiful-as-they-were-powerful-jon-kudelkas-political-cartoons-were-made-with-true-conviction-275538