Dean Alston | |
---|---|
Born | 1950 (age 73–74) South Perth, Western Australia, Australia |
Nationality | Australian |
Awards | 1991 Walkley Award |
Dean John Douglas Alston (born 1950) is an Australian cartoonist who became the editorial cartoonist of The West Australian newspaper in 1986. [1]
Dean Alston was born in South Perth, Western Australia. He grew up in Mount Pleasant and attended Applecross Senior High School. [2] In 1967 he started a cadetship in cartography with Western Australia's Lands and Surveys Department. In 1980, he bought into the Carine Glades Tavern. He travelled to London via New Zealand and the US, working for British Gas as a cartographer, illustrator and caricaturist. [3] In 1985, Alston was employed by The West Australian . He took over as editorial cartoonist the following year. As of February 2016 [update] , he is estimated to have published over 14,000 cartoons. He has won numerous awards, including a Walkley Award for Best Cartoon in 1991 and Stanley Awards for Best Single Gag cartoon in 2003 and 2012. [4]
In September 1997 The West Australian published an Alston cartoon entitled Alas Poor Yagan , which criticised the fact that the return of Yagan's head had become a source of conflict among the Indigenous Australians of Western Australia, instead of fostering unity. The cartoon could also be interpreted as casting aspersions on the motives and legitimacy of named indigenous people who were humorously identified with mixed racial heritage. The content of the cartoon offended many Aboriginal people. The elder Robert Bropho levelled accusations of racism against The West Australian. Eventually the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission ruled that the cartoon made inappropriate references to Noongar beliefs but did not breach racial discrimination law. This ruling was upheld on appeal by the Federal Court of Australia. [5]
A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images intended for satire, caricature, or humor; or a motion picture that relies on a sequence of illustrations for its animation. Someone who creates cartoons in the first sense is called a cartoonist, and in the second sense they are usually called an animator.
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons or comics. Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the literary and graphic components of the work as part of their practice.
An editorial cartoonist, also known as a political cartoonist, is an artist who draws editorial cartoons that contain some level of political or social commentary. Their cartoons are used to convey and question an aspect of daily news or current affairs in a national or international context. Political cartoonists generally adopt a caricaturist style of drawing, to capture the likeness of a politician or subject. They may also employ humor or satire to ridicule an individual or group, emphasize their point of view or comment on a particular event.
Herbert Lawrence Block, commonly known as Herblock, was an American editorial cartoonist and author best known for his commentaries on national domestic and foreign policy.
Yagan was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation after Thomas Smedley, another of Butler's servants, shot at a group of Noongar people stealing potatoes and fowls, killing one of them. The government offered a bounty for Yagan's capture, dead or alive, and a young settler, William Keats, shot and killed him. He is considered a legendary figure by the Noongar.
The Illawarra Mercury is a daily newspaper serving the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. It has been published since 1855, making it one of Australia's oldest newspapers and the second oldest regional newspaper in New South Wales. It has been published daily since December 1949, and has had no local daily competition since the 1960s. It has strong links to the Illawarra community.
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Oliphant is an Australian-born American artist whose career spanned more than sixty years. His body of work as a whole focuses mostly on American and global politics, culture, and corruption; he is particularly known for his caricatures of American presidents and other powerful leaders. Over the course of his long career, Oliphant produced thousands of daily editorial cartoons, dozens of bronze sculptures, as well as a large oeuvre of drawings and paintings. He retired in 2015.
The Racial Discrimination Act 1975(Cth) is an Act of the Australian Parliament, which was enacted on 11 June 1975 and passed by the Whitlam government. The Act makes racial discrimination in certain contexts unlawful in Australia, and also overrides state and territory legislation to the extent of any inconsistency.
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Alas Poor Yagan is an editorial cartoon created by Dean Alston and published in the Australian newspaper The West Australian on 6 September 1997. The cartoon, consisting of eight panels featuring Noongar activist Ken Colbung and three Indigenous Australian children, sparked controversy due to its content, leading to a racial discrimination complaint lodged with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The commission ruled that while the cartoon made inappropriate references to Noongar beliefs, it did not violate the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. The commission's ruling, which found the cartoon to be an "artistic work" published "reasonably and in good faith", has been the subject of academic debate, with some commentators expressing concern about the broad interpretation of the exemption provided under the Racial Discrimination Act. This decision was upheld upon appeal to the Federal Court of Australia.
Robert Charles Bropho was a Ballardong Noongar Australian Aboriginal, rights activist and convicted serial child sex offender from Perth, Western Australia.
William Anthony Auth Jr. was an American editorial cartoonist and children's book illustrator. Auth is best known for his syndicated work originally drawn for The Philadelphia Inquirer, for whom he worked from 1971 to 2012. Auth's art won the cartoonist the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 and the Herblock Prize in 2005.
Glenn McCoy is a conservative American cartoonist, whose work includes the comic strip The Duplex and the daily panel he does with his brother Gary entitled The Flying McCoys. McCoy previously produced editorial cartoons until May 2018, when he refocused his career on animations after being discharged from his job of 22 years at the Belleville News-Democrat. All three cartoon features are syndicated by Andrews McMeel Syndication.
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This is a timeline of Aboriginal history of Western Australia.
The Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning is an annual $15,000 after-tax cash prize, and a sterling silver Tiffany trophy. Designed "to encourage editorial cartooning as an essential tool for preserving the rights of the American people through freedom of speech and the right of expression," it is named for the editorial cartoonist Herblock and sponsored by The Herb Block Foundation.