On Wednesday 29th June this year, deep within the bowels of Brisbane City Hall a group of cartoon lovers met to decide the fate of a nation. Well, not exactly. It was decreed that The Rotary Cartoon Awards, held annually at the Bunker Cartoon Gallery, Coffs Harbour, for the past 28 years was to be judged in Brisbane in 2016. And it was a very great honour indeed for me to have been selected as one of the Judges. When you know that you are keeping the esteemed company of some of the Judges of the past, like the late Norman (Mr Squiggle) Hetherington and Jim Russell; Bob Carr, Natasha Stott-Despoja and Peter Beattie; Barry Croker and Jon English, and many, many others, it's better than receiving a knighthood!
Joining me in this exalted task was Rotary Cartoon Awards' co-founder Tom Hamiton-Foster, Brisbane ABC radio announcer Steve Austin, and Sunday Mail cartoonist Brett Lethbridge (when his Editor was unable to attend). And overseeing the whole process, to ensure a fair vote was recorded and that no punch-ups or arguments took place, was Fran Stephenson, the Chair from the Bunker Cartoon Gallery.
Here are the complete list of Winners:
Best Cartoon with a Political Theme
WINNER: John "Polly" Farmer (see above)
MERIT: Christopher Downes
Best Cartoon with an Open Theme
WINNER: Chris "Roy" Taylor
MERIT: Tony Lopes
Best Cartoon with a Sports Theme
WINNER: Chris "Roy" Taylor
MERIT: Lindsay Foyle
Best Comic Strip
WINNER: Shane Hosking
MERIT: Alan Rose
Best Caricature of a Well-Known Person
WINNER: Xavier Ghazi
MERIT: David Rowe
Special 2016 Topic: Social Media
WINNER: Gary Clark
MERIT: Tony Lopes
Rotary Cartoon of the Year: Chris "Roy" Taylor's Open Category Cartoon