By Murray Ball (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-85286-398-2
Footrot Flats is one of the all-time classic humour strips and beloved the world over. It was created by New Zealand cartoonist Murray Ball in 1975 on his return to the North Island after many years travelling the globe drawing for everybody from Punch to the Labour Weekly via both DC Thomson and IPC/Fleetway.
Taking up farming, he never put down his pens and brushes, but turned his clearly frustrating experiences into a twenty-year odyssey of mud, charm, weather, hysteria, endurance, stark wit and tear-jerking sentiment. He captured the joy and magic of agriculture with a blend of fearsome candour and total surrealism which captivated millions (he was also sometimes a wee bit sarcastic and ironic).
The drama unfolds via Dog – a dog – and relates the life of Regular Bloke Wal, eking out a living on his small-holding (400 acres of swamp between Ureweras and the Sea with sheep, cows, a bull, goats, ducks, bugs, cats, geese and the occasional visiting relative) just trying to get by. He loves sport, has a girl-friend and would love an easy life… if only the flamin’ stock would do what it’s told.
The third volume introduced still more weird characters and as Ball hit his creative stride his brilliant cartooning reached new heights of manic zaniness. Wal’s prickly little niece Janice – known to all as “Pongo†– became a regular and the strip expanded from thrice weekly to a full seven days, which meant some episodes here are expanded from 3 or 4 panels to as many as 8 with the inclusion of Sunday Pages. Some of these are all too-rare huge single-panel gags taking up the whole page and showing the artist’s facility with zany, action-packed comedy set-pieces and his sheer cartoon inventiveness.
Footrot Flats was one of the most successfully syndicated strips in the world. It ran in newspapers on four continents until 1994 when Ball retired it, citing reasons as varied as the death of his own dog and the state of New Zealand politics. Books of new material continued until 2000, resulting in 27 daily strip collections, 8 volumes of Sunday pages, and 5 pocket books, plus ancillary publications. There was a stage musical, a theme park and a truly superb animated film Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tail Tale.
Dry, surreal and wonderfully self-deprecating, the humour comes from the perfectly realised characters, human and otherwise, the tough life of a bachelor farmer and especially the country itself. The art is utterly captivating; expansive, efficient, exciting and just plain funny. I’m reviewing the 1991 Titan Books edition, but the same material is readily available from a number of publishers and retailers. If you want to give the Dog a go, your favourite search engine will be your own friend faithful unto death…
Go on. Fetch!
© 1991 Diogenes Designs Ltd. All Rights Reserved.