WITH AND WITHOUT MALICE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 166, 28 August 1942, Page 5

WITH AND WITHOUT MALICE

Books By Two New Zealand Cartoonists

CARTOONS. By "Kennaway," H. W. Bullivant, Christchurch. AREN’T WE ALL? By Ken Alexander. Hutcheson, Bowman & Johnson, Wellington. N his foreword to " Kennaway," ] David Low condemns "the absurd misconception. that it is the cartoonist’s business to be amusing." But Low himself is amusing nine times out of ten. When "Kennaway" is amusing it is by accident. You don’t feel that he was himself amused before he grabbed his pencil or his pen. Yes " grabbed" is deliberate. You feel that "Kennaway " rushed into the fray each week-all these cartoons are from the late, and now generally lamented, To-morrow-white with passion and bent on torture first and then murder. Most of his drawings are savage, or sneering, or both, and even the exceptions are seldom intended to arouse laughter. He is in fact so determined that we shall not merely laugh that he adds bitter little sermons in print-often against editors, but in other cases against parsons, rotarians, and politicians. And inevitably in the case of reprints, much of the strongest work now "dates": the Baldwin foxtrot following the abdication, for example, or the two-headed Fascist thug burning his fingers in Spain. It is in fact a striking proof of " Kennaway’s" sincerity that he has risked this publication in these times. He knows the world of print too well to suppose that he can make money out of such a venture, admirably though it has been edited and produced, and if it is not money he wants it must be converts. Every cartoon, and almost every line, is a blow for political and economic freedom,

delivered by an evangelist who can’t cajole. You admire the skill, you are humble before the passion of righteousness, but you can’t help wondering how long it is since " Kennaway" smiled. * * * EN ALEXANDER makes you wonder where all " Kennaway’s" thugs come from. There is not a harsh illustration in his whole collection, or a suggestion anywhere that the Beast still rampages through our world. It is a collection of jests, some clever and some just amusing, assembled by a man who takes humour seriously (sometimes). Therefore he refuses to take misfortune seriously, and the reader who can’t laugh with him is probably taking himself seriously and a the worst joke of all.