Giant Squid Captured

I received a note from David Pope on Twitter, that read “Will plead guilty for this [redacted]. Will plea bargain with this [redacted]”, I will leave it up to you to decide which was guilt, and which redemption.

The first is a response to the proposed mining tax in Australia (and unfortunately gutted - and I say this as someone who works in the mining industry). The second uses images associated with Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility (what a spectacular euphemism).   

The first cartoon, even though it uses a familiar trope, does it is a knowledgeable way. It takes the symbology of the octopus/big business and uses it as a continuation to saga, not a repeat. Or, to put it another way, takes advantage of the trope and gives it a novel twist.

Or maybe I’m just besotted with the idea of a planet-sized octopus smoking a cigar.

(Many thanks to David Pope for letting me reproduce these images).

“Old policies! Old values! No future!” - 2002 via State Library of Victoria

Howard Government refers to Australian Federal Government. They were re-elected.

They introduced several policies such as removing student union fees (that supported a whole raft of services such as counsellors, advocacy for students etc as well as social events) while massively increasing university fees, and making universities more reliant on business for funding.

(Source: maybestreet)

Cartoon by Geoff Pryor, published in the Canberra Times on 6 June 1979.

The octopus has its limbs tattooed as “Narc[otics] Bureau”, “Police”, “Politicians”, “Traffickers”, and “Pushers”. The only players not part of the octopus (or complicit) are the dealer(?) and buyer.

Relates to the Australian Federal Police Act of 1979. This later (October 1979) resulted in the formation of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) by merging the Commonwealth police, Narcotics Bureau and the ACT police (1). The Narcotics Bureau was disbanded with duties relating to drugs and terrorism split between the newly formed AFP and Customs (2).

Footnotes:

(1) “Australian Federal Police”, Wikipedia (Accessed: 6th June 2010)

(2) McKenna, M. ‘AFP to tackle drugs, terrorism’, The Australian, Jan 1st, 2010.

Claude Marquet, ‘Fighting the Octopus’, Worker (Sydney), 12 November 1904. Reprinted p6.32 in ‘All the world over’, Dyrenfurth, Nick; Quartly, Marian, Drawing the Line 2009 1:1, 6.1-6.47

Octopus represents American Tobacco trusts with hat called ‘Greed’. It grasps a North American ‘Factory Hand’, ‘Consumer’, and ‘Retailer’ and South American ‘Planter’, and is reaching towards Australia. Sword held by Australian (farmer?) is labelled ‘Nationalisation’

“What the Socialist Prime Minister aims at by his Referenda scheme.”
Brisbane Courier, Friday May 23rd 1913 p4.

Octopus with the head of Andrew Fisher. Cartoon was published about a week prior to the general election on May 31 in which the newly renamed Labor party lost by one seat. 

The “Referenda scheme” refers to the 1913 Referendum also held on May 31. It covered: Trade and Commerce, Corporations, Industrial Matters, Trusts, Nationalisation of Monopolies and Railway Disputes.

Labels read:

• ‘£54 per week with “exes” and “perks”’
• Car: “Made by France”
• “Farmer”
• “Railways”
• “Industry” and “Industrialism”
• “Commerce”
• “Trader”
• Unable to decipher last one.

The Mongolian Octopus – His Grip on Australia (1886)

Artist Phillip May, Published in The Bulletin on the 21st August 1886. The arms labelled: “Customs Robbery”, “Fan-Tan“, “Opium”, “Small-Pox”, “Immorality”, “Pak Ah-Pu“, “Cheap Labour”

This cartoon was apparently reworked to demonstrate demonisation of ethnic groups in modern cartoons:

Geoff Pryor, editorial cartoonist for the Canberra Times has recently (6 September 2001) used the racism of nineteenth-century cartoonists as a vehicle for critique of current racial politics. Under the title ‘Recycling’, he reproduced the famous ‘Mongolian octopus’ cartoon by Phil May, first published in the Bulletin in 1886. Pryor annotated the cartoon, suggesting the addition of a turban and other features to turn the Chinese menace into an Islamic one.¹

Footnotes:

1. Sawer, M. (2001) “Cartoons for the Cause: Cartooning for Equality in Australia”, EJournalist, http://ejournalist.com.au/v1n2/SAWER.pdf, Accessed: 21st May 2009 [↩]
2. Image source: “The Mongolian Octopus” Multicultural Research Library, General Reference Library, State library of NSW. (Accessed: 21st May 2009)