Michael Leunig

By LatAm ARTE

Michael Leunig was born on June 2, 1945. He is mostly known as "Leunig" (his signature on his cartoons). Leunig, a fifth generation Australian, was born in East Melbourne and grew up in Footscray, a suburb in the inner west, where he attended Footscray North Primary School. He then went to Maribyrnong Secondary School, but as the school was not finished, he first had to attend classes at the nearby Royal Melbourne Showgrounds in Ascot Vale. He failed his senior exams twice. After working as a laborer in a slaughterhouse, Leunig enrolled at the Swinburne School of Film and Television, where he first became interested in making documentaries. He was drafted into the Vietnam War, but registered as a conscientious objector, he was turned away on health grounds when it was revealed that he was deaf in one ear. Leunig began his cartooning career while at Swinburne in 1965 when cartoons of him 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 in mainstream publications such as "Newsday" and "Woman's Day". ”. The main means of communication of Leunig's work have been the newspapers "Fairfax Media", "The Age of Melbourne" and "The Sydney Morning Herald". In more recent years he has focused primarily on political commentary, sometimes replacing or supplementing simple drawings of him with reproduced photographic images with attached speech bubbles. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has also provided airtime for Leunig to discuss his views on a variety of political and philosophical issues.