The Penguin Leunig

Michael Leunig was born in 1945 in Australia. He is a cartoonist, poet, and cultural commentator. He is known for works such as The Adventures of Vasco Pyjama and the Curly Flats series. He attended the Swinbourne Film and Television School, where he studied how to make documentaries. He began his cartoon career while at Swinburne in the late 1960s when his cartoons appeared in the Monash University student newspaper Lot's Wife. In the early 1970s his work appeared in the radical/satirical magazines Nation Review, The Digger, and London's Oz magazine as well as mainstream publications including Newsday, and Woman's Day.

Leunig has frequently satirised concepts such as Americanisation, greed, consumerism, corporations and warmongering, in a personal proclamation against the War on Terror. Of particular note were his parodies of political matters, especially those concerning former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and former American president George W. Bush. This has earned Leunig the description of "political cartoonist". In 2015 his title Musings from the Inner Duck, made the New Zealand Best Seller List.

030