A ghost digger cartoon traditionally appears on Anzac day and involves the ghostly appearance of said digger accompanied by some sort of symbolic event like a sunrise. The ghost digger cartoon invariably rises from the grave during profound moments or tragic events and is the political cartoonist’s polite way of saying “bugger it, I’ve got nothing, here’s a picture I drew.” It doesn’t necessarily require an actual ghostly apparition in the cartoon, but will run heavily to symbolism, labelling of objects and generally a great deal of crosshatching for added gravitas.

Being a huge but much anticipated and symbolic event, Obama’s election was a clear ghost digger candidate. The obvious Obama ghost digger cartoon would naturally require the invocation of the ghostly form of the great Martin Luther King along with an appropriately poignant quote.

I suppose the labelled thought bubbles of my cartoon are kind of ghost diggery, but overall, the bullet was dodged.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the ghost digger cartoon as a last resort, in fact in the past I’ve ghost diggered with the best of them, but it’s always nice to stick a fly in the ointment if you can find one. As an editor once said to me, “You really don’t do poignant, do you Jon?”

Nice one, USA, though Sarah Palin would have made a hilarious President in the weeks before the extinction of all life on the planet.

As an homage to (and possibly exorcism of) the only politician to rival Joh Bjelke for Services To Political Cartooning, I painted the big fella in his hot tub for the Salamanca Collection Art Prize (theme: Tasmania: A Sense Of Place). You simply don’t get any more Tasmanian than the ex-Premier’s ex-office, which I’m sure the new boy Bartlett is finding to be a damn big tub to fill.

Sadly, the Salamanca Collection chardonnay sipping judges who were entirely independent of the cutting edge Salamanca Collection (edited for accuracy) were nowhere near hardcore enough to put it in the exhibition, so I’ve put an image up here for Furtherance of The Good Name Of Tasmania.

The original will be on display in all its 1.8-ish square metres of canvassy glory in my own exhibition of paintings at the Sidespace Gallery starting December 5.

UPDATE: more on this at The Mercury and The Tasmanian Times.

Email Adam at Fullers or phone 62242488 to book a place, it’s kind of a small cafe, so do it now to avoid disappointment. Hey, you might learn something. I might learn something. Either way, the Afterword Cafe makes a damn fine coffee, so it won’t be a total loss.

So if you haven’t bought a copy yet, get one before they’re mulching the vegie patch. Admittedly Little Johnny has gone out of fashion in the way of Happi Pants and that’s No Bad Thing, but the book now constitutes a historical document in which you can reminisce about the Good Old Days before we believed in global warming, recessions, saving petrol by catching public transport and interest rate hikes.

Go here to buy the book while you still have ten bucks to spare on it.

STOP PRESS - THE SALE’S OVER, THERE ARE ONLY A FEW BOOKS LEFT, SO IF YOU WANT ONE, IT’S TWENTY BUCKS AGAIN. SO THERE.