Editorial: Murray Ball kept it real

Anna Wallis PHOTO/FILE

Cartoonist Murray Ball neither patronised nor antagonised farmers.

That's quite a feat. The Footrot Flats creator, who died this week, managed that tricky line between appealing to a wide audience and not sanitising farm life.

Thankfully Dog, the anti-hero of the strip, was never Disneyfied by Ball. He was a working dog with a thought bubble.

Most farmers have conversations with their dogs, not all of them deep and meaningful.

However, Ball recognised it was an extraordinary relationship that was worth expanding on.

Ball's cartoons were universally understood but were also a wink and a nudge to his neighbours in rural Gisborne. They were also inventive, warm and, fortunately, witty.

Farming can be equal parts frustration and funny.

Well, perhaps more frustration, but he caught both parts of the equation with his original characters which grew and matured in the 20-plus years he drew Footrot Flats.

Ball was from that hothouse of cartooning, the Manawatu.

He had international skills, drawing cartoons for Punch early in his career and selling his work to Australian and Scandinavian papers as well.

While Footrot Flats centred on a farm, there was the worldly social and political aspect to Ball's other work.

He was avidly anti-apartheid and spoke out against the Springbok tour, a big call for anyone living in a rural community in the 1980s.

He also had a run-in with feminists.

But it is Footrot Flats, Dog, Wal and crew that Ball will be remembered for most.

The struggles of farming, battles with machinery and weather and stock, the parade of characters and the absurdity of life were all well drawn.

Thanks, Murray, you always seemed like a very nice man. And your cartoons were the best.