Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ)
It is a sad day for Australian cartooning when an artist as good as Fiona Katauskas has not had her contract renewed. But that is what has happened at the Guardian Australia.
Katauskas is among the top daily political cartoonists in the country, with her cheerful visual style beautifully in tension with her salty satirical commentary.
She is at the top of her game, with her acerbic observations on national and international events a fine window on the passing parade of absurdity that passes for public life in the third decade of this increasingly silly century. Her great service has probably been to add some playfulness and wit to a publication that can be earnest, even ranty.
Katauskas is the only latest casualty in a cartooning industry still struggling to adapt to the 21st-century media business model. She joins other cartoonists, at home and abroad, who find themselves reliant on freelancing.
Emma Cook was let go from Stuff in New Zealand after eight years. Colin Wicking was never replaced at the NT News when he retired in 2022. It’s not a stampede of cartoonists leaving newsrooms, but the traffic is all in one direction.
The era of the permanent staff cartoonist is almost over.
What do cartoonists do?
Cartoonists, like Katauskas and her Guardian Australia stablemate First Dog on the Moon, are integral to the look and critical ethos of a paper, even one solely online.
They lighten the load of words with humour and occasionally spear you with satirical perception.
Australian cartoons moved from weeklies like the Bulletin into dailies during the early 20th century as an appeal to tired commuters to buy and read an afternoon paper. From the 1960s, they spread into the morning broadsheets to operate as satirical commentary as well as fun.
But newspapers are not doing well. Does anyone remember an “afternoon” paper or a “morning” broadsheet? When was the last time anyone felt the grime of newsprint or leafed through flimsy pages to find the cartoon?
But in the age of online publications and shrinking newsrooms, there are a few reasons to hang onto political cartoonists.
At a time when concentration spans are shrinking to evanescence, a picture with a pointed caption really can tell a thousand words.
Good cartoonists are court jesters who inspire loyalty in readers – something legacy publications are losing now that the platforms cannibalise their journalism.
Rupert Murdoch learned from his father, Sir Keith, that any newspaper worth the name needs cartoonists – in their days, Will Dyson, the Lindsays and Paul Rigby were all close to the Murdochs, father and son.
NT News aside, the metropolitan stable of Mark Knight, John Spooner, Warren Brown and Johannes Leak seems as solid as ever, and News Corp Australasia’s executive chairman Michael Miller has been steadfast in supporting the “immense skill” of his cartoonists.
It’s a pity the individually brilliant artists News employ lack diversity as a group. It has been a while since only white guys were funny, and News has never had a woman in the role of regular cartoonist.
Australian cartooning more broadly had been progressing in the opposite direction, diluting the “boys club”. Cathy Wilcox, the cartoonist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, has been the great leader in this, and of the whole profession.
With Katauskas and Megan Herbert, also at the Nine papers, the Australian media was beginning to capitalise on a long tradition of Australian women cartoonists stretching back to May Gibbs, through the McCrae and Paterson sisters, Alice Solly on Aussie, Mollie Horseman, Joan Morrison and Jean Cullen on Smith’s Weekly, and the great Fairfax cartoonist and Walkley winner, Jenny Coopes.
What will live on
Cartoonists have to draw a joke that works, so they are always in danger of introducing witty and divergent perspectives to a publication. And we need these perspectives to be local – generated by humans, not artificial intelligence.
A cartoon has to speak to its immediate context to engage with the readers and the issues on the ground. Cartoons from London cannot cover the blood-sport of Australian politics competently. We need Australian artists reflecting on local and international events from within our own pre-occupations.
AI visuals can certainly be pretty (even though they look like Watchtower or Awake illustrations), but it’s unlikely “slop” will ever be witty. The large language models are designed to generate seamless mediocrity – the most likely word or image available to address a prompt. By contrast, cartoons often show their seams, and they only work when they subvert mediocrity.
AI cannot be programmed to be zany like Brown, edgy like Katauskas, or subtle like Wilcox.
Without gigs in newspapers, the cartoon function will nevertheless live on in Australia. Talented artists won’t be able to resist the temptation of drawing our would-be emperors in their glorious mental and moral nakedness.
But it’s a shame it is currently so hard to make a decent living in this important public service.
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.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/03/newspaper-space-for-political-cartoons-is-shrinking-but-we-need-these-artists-as-much-as-ever/