John Spooner B.Juris,

LLB A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

( Monash) (born 1946) is an Australian journalist and illustrator who regularly contributed to ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'' newspaper. John Spooner was born in Melbourne in 1946. He practised as a lawyer for three years before he commenced drawing for ''The Age'' in 1974, finally leaving the law altogether in 1977 to draw full-time for the newspaper. Spooner's works are represented in the collections of the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

, the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...

, the

State Library Victoria State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in th ...

, . His publications include the book ''A Spooner in the Works'', published in 1999 by

Text Publishing Text Publishing is an Australian publisher of fiction and non-fiction, based in Melbourne, Victoria. Company background Text Media was founded in Melbourne in 1990 by Diana Gribble and Eric Beecher, along with designer Chong Weng Ho and oth ...

, comprising cartoons, prints and paintings; and ''Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies about Climate Change'', which he co-authored with Robert M. Carter, William Kininmonth, Martin Feil, Stewart W. Franks and Bryan Leyland; published by Kelpie Press in 2013. Spooner has received various awards. Between 1985 and 1986 Spooner was awarded five

Stanley Award The Stanley Awards, also known as The Stanleys, are an annual comics award issued by the Australian Cartoonists' Association which recognize the best of Australian cartoonists and cartooning. They are named after Stan Cross and were first organi ...

s, including the Black and White Artist of the Year Gold Stanley Award. In 1994 Spooner was awarded two

Walkley Awards The annual Walkley Awards are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. They cover all media including print, television, documentary, radio, photographic and online media. The Gold Walkley is the highest prize and ...

for Best Illustration and Best Cartoon. He was the joint winner of the 1986

Fremantle Print Award The Fremantle Print Award is Australia's longest-running, most prestigious and largest printmaking award, and is awarded by the Fremantle Arts Centre, who also acquire the winning work. The award was established in 1976 with the support of Shell ...

as well as the 2002

Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award The Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award, often known simply as the Graham Perkin Award, is one of Australia's pre-eminent prizes for journalism. It was established and named in honour of Graham Perkin, who was editor of ''The ...

. He left ''The Age'' in May 2016 along with others made redundant by

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media (communication), media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The ...

. In 2018 he published ''What the Hell Was He Thinking? John Spooner's Guide to the 21st Century'', a collection of his 21st-century work annotated with his own commentary. In 2019 he joined ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...

'' as an

editorial cartoonist 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 ...

References

External links

"Artwork by John Spooner"
chrysalis.com.au

27 June 2004, short Q&A, ''

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Spooner, John Australian editorial cartoonists 1946 births Living people Australian journalists Australian printmakers The Australian journalists Stanley award winners