Michael Plant Atchison OAM (4 August 1933 – 16 February 2009) was an Australian cartoonist who worked for the South Australian Advertiser for over 40 years.
Atchison was born in Sandringham, Victoria, to Lesly Atchison, née Plant, and Alan C. Atchison [1] and moved to South Australia with his family in 1939. He was educated at Glenelg Primary, then King's College, a boys' school which later became the co-ed Pembroke. He attended Adelaide Teachers' College and embarked on a teaching career. He married fellow Teachers' College student Olga and together left for England in 1960, where he worked as a freelance artist, contributing to magazines including Punch as well as working as art director for a London advertising agency. They moved to Sydney in 1967.
He began work at The Advertiser in 1967 as the eventual replacement (Robert Hannaford intervened) for Pat Oliphant, who left for a career with the Denver Post in 1964. And like Oliphant, he was to illustrate the frequent prose and poetic contributions of his great friend Max Fatchen.
Fellow cartoonist John Stoneham observed that Atchison "always worked completely freehand, never following pencil lines, but drawing ink straight on to paper, an art form which is long forgotten". He acknowledged the influence of cartoonists Ronald Searle, Bruce Petty and André François. [2]
From 1989 The Advertiser carried on its daily comics page Atchison's "Word for Word" panel which explored origins and meanings of English words and phrases. Its last appearance was on 7 May 2009. [2] A series of "Word for Word" collections has been published.
Many cartoonists have a trademark which may be found in their works; Atchison's, born in 1974, was a scruffy little dog which occasionally behaved disgracefully. His personal trademark was a pair of red braces. [2]
Atchison lived with cancer from 1994, but despite pain and irksome operations never lost his affable good humour. He was forced by the pain to retire in June 2008, replaced by Jos Valdman. Michael died the following year, survived by his wife of over 50 years, Olga Atchison, two daughters Michelle and Nicola and three grandchildren Anthony, Matthew and Caillin. [2]
He was awarded the traditional artist's smock by his colleagues in 1998.
He was inducted into the South Australian Media Hall of Fame in 2004.
Michael was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2007.
He received the Jim Russell Award from the Australian Cartoonists' Association in 2007.
An original cartoon (featuring the "dog of no name") may be seen in an alleyway off the main street in the Adelaide Hills town of Aldgate. It forms part of a mural contributed by half-a-dozen cartoonists during the 2007 S.A.L.A. (South Australian Living Artists) festival.
Sir Marcus Laurence Elwin Oliphant, was an Australian physicist and humanitarian who played an important role in the first experimental demonstration of nuclear fusion and in the development of nuclear weapons.
The Advertiser is a daily tabloid format newspaper based in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. First published as a broadsheet named The South Australian Advertiser on 12 July 1858, it is currently a tabloid printed from Monday to Saturday. The Advertiser came under the ownership of Keith Murdoch in the 1950s, and the full ownership of Rupert Murdoch in 1987. It is a publication of Advertiser Newspapers Pty Ltd (ADV), a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of News Corp. Through much of the 20th century, The Advertiser was Adelaide's morning broadsheet, The News the afternoon tabloid, with The Sunday Mail covering weekend sport, and Messenger Newspapers community news. The head office was relocated from a former premises in King William Street, to a new News Corp office complex, known as Keith Murdoch House at 31 Waymouth Street.
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Oliphant is an Australian-born American artist whose career spanned more than sixty years. His body of work primarily focuses 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, and a large oeuvre of drawings and paintings. He retired in 2015.
Ben Wicks, was a British-born Canadian cartoonist, illustrator, journalist and author.
A corroboree is a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It may be a sacred ceremony, a festive celebration, or of a warlike character. A word coined by the first British settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the local Dharug language, it usually includes dance, music, costume and often body decoration.
Stirling is a town in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, approximately 15 km from the Adelaide city centre. It is administered by the Adelaide Hills Council. Neighbouring townships are Crafers and Aldgate. Other nearby towns are Heathfield and Bridgewater. Of those five, Stirling has by far the largest commercial strip, with the greatest number and widest variety of shops, and the only banks. Stirling East, a similar sized area towards Aldgate, is home to several schools.
Harry Hewitt, sometimes spelled "Hewit", "Ewart" or "Hewett", was an Indigenous Australian cricketer and Australian rules footballer. In 1889, Hewitt played for the Medindie Football Club, and so is believed to be the first Indigenous Australian to play in the South Australian Football Association (SAFA), known today as the South Australian National Football League (SANFL).
Robert Lyall "Alfie" Hannaford is an Australian realist artist notable for his drawings, paintings, portraits and sculptures. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford.
Paul Crispin Rigby AM was an Australian cartoonist who worked for newspapers in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. He usually worked under the name Rigby.
"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" is an adage and Internet meme about Internet anonymity which began as a caption to a cartoon drawn by Peter Steiner, published in the July 5, 1993 issue of the American magazine The New Yorker. The words are those of a large dog sitting on a chair at a desk, with a paw on the keyboard of the computer, speaking to a smaller dog sitting on the floor nearby. Steiner had earned between $200,000 and $250,000 by 2013 from its reprinting, by which time it had become the cartoon most reproduced from The New Yorker. The original was sold at auction for $175,000, setting a record for the highest price ever paid for a comic.
Maxwell Edgar Fatchen, AM was an Australian children's writer and journalist.
John Stuart Dowie was an Australian painter, sculptor and teacher. His work includes over 50 public sculpture commissions, including the "Three Rivers" fountain in Victoria Square, "Alice" in Rymill Park, the "Victor Richardson Gates" at Adelaide Oval and the "Sir Ross & Sir Keith Smith Memorial" at Adelaide Airport.
Andrews Farm is a northern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in the City of Playford.
George Napier Sprod was an Australian cartoonist, for many years active in England, who signed his work "Sprod".
John Charles Goodchild was a painter and art educator in South Australia who mastered the mediums of pen drawing, etching and watercolors. His wife, Doreen Goodchild, was also a significant South Australian artist.
The Milang railway line was a branch line, now closed, of the former South Australian Railways that left the mainline to Victor Harbor at the farming locality of Sandergrove, 9 km (5.6 mi) south of Strathalbyn and 89.7 km (55.7 mi) by rail from Adelaide. From there it proceeded in a south-easterly direction for 13.1 km (8.1 mi) to the riverport of Milang on Lake Alexandrina, in the estuary of the River Murray. The line was opened on 17 December 1884; it was formally closed on 17 June 1970. The route is now a "rail trail" that is popular with hikers. The precincts of the former Milang station house a railway museum that includes an innovative locomotive driving simulator for visitors to operate. Onsite is a centre for South Australian historical light railways.
Bruce Leonard Bowley was an Australian cricketer who played 30 first-class matches for South Australia between 1947 and 1952, and a World War II Prisoner of War.
Brothers Nigel B. Oliphant and R. Harry Oliphant of Adelaide, South Australia, founded a business manufacturing ultraviolet lamps for scientific, industrial and medical uses.