‘Unfailingly big-hearted and generous': Beloved Herald cartoonist John Shakespeare dies after cancer battle

The Age

2 days ago

Shakespeare was born in Brisbane and grew up devouring the cartoons in Mad and Cracked magazines – a fascination that later made Tony Abbott, in whom he saw Mad 's Alfred E. Neuman, one of his favourite prime ministers to draw. 'Probably the greatest political cartoon character of all time,' he once said of Abbott, 'from his ears to his Speedos.'
A gig fixing photocopiers at the Courier Mail led to a job in the art room, despite no formal training. He moved south to work at Fairfax's Sydney Sun in 1985, hoping to become a political cartoonist, and when it closed was transferred to The Sydney Morning Herald. The paper didn't need a political cartoonist, so he was told to draw caricatures instead.
Wilcox started a few years later. 'He was cool but not too cool, he always had his shoulder-length hair, and he liked to ride a motorbike,' she recalls.
Letch says the always-affable Shakes transformed when he climbed onto two wheels (he gave up when his son was young, given the dangers of motorbikes): 'He's like an athlete, he can do wheelies, change gears – on a pushbike, he can go through the gears on one wheel,' he said.
Shakespeare was prolific. His work ranged from intricate front-page budget illustrations to pocket cartoons on the letters page and a caricature of nearly every departing Herald staffer over decades. He and Letch both hated drawing the cryptic racing tip for the form guide and, as the number of artists on staff dwindled, Letch recalls refusing to do it any more, but Shakespeare 'did it up until the end,' he says. 'He put the same amount of love into that as he would into anything else.'
A little while ago, Letch helped move some drawings into Shakespeare's attic. 'There must have been about 6000 there,' he says. Shakespeare estimated he worked on 15,000 to 20,000 drawings in his career. 'He had a massive output, and no job was too small,' Letch says. 'He gave everything the same attention.'
Wilcox said his willingness to say 'yes' and do his work graciously, with good humour, was part of what helped him leave 'such a big mark on the paper,' she says. 'You do it with grace and good heart, and that's him – that's the way he rolls. It's made him extremely beloved.'
To the end, Shakespeare agonised over the creative process. 'I always say cartooning is fun when it's done,' Shakespeare once told the Queensland Law Society newsletter Proctor, for which he drew early in his career in Brisbane. 'The process of creating a funny cartoon can be quite excruciating – I actually don't enjoy that part. Once I have the idea, I can relax a bit and draw it, which I enjoy.'
His political favourites grew, although it took time for him to develop an affinity. 'When Scott Morrison first gained prominence, I struggled with his likeness; he just didn't strike me as good cartoon material,' he once said. 'Now he's one of my favourites.' His top five, he told Proctor in 2023, were Morrison, John Howard, Dan Andrews, Gladys Berejiklian (his personal favourite) and, of course, Abbott.
They loved him too. The warmth with which he approached his work meant many famous Australians are proud to have been his subjects. Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has a cartoon of himself and wife Vicky Campion hanging in their living room, while there is a Shakespeare of Albanese walking Toto the dog on the wall at The Lodge.
The country's richest person, Gina Rinehart, also has a Shakespeare in Hancock Prospecting's office. It's a portrait of Margaret Thatcher wearing a Joh (Bjelke-Petersen) for PM badge, with the famous Thatcher quote, 'There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty'. The portrait combines 'two brave and sensible leaders', says Rinehart's spokesman.
In a recent Five Minutes with Fitz interview, Shakespeare was pragmatic about his cancer diagnosis, saying his mantra was 'accept, adjust, adapt'. 'Once I know that something is irreversible, I have no choice but to accept it. There is a certain sense of peace that comes from acceptance. It eliminates the need to ask 'why me?' and 'if only',' he told FitzSimons.
Shields said Shakespeare's 'trademark positivity, optimism and ability to see the humour in everything – including his own health battle – was with him until the end'.
Cartoonist Lindsay Foyle said Shakespeare would be remembered as a talented cartoonist and as a lovely person. 'One of the nice things about John's caricatures is they nearly always have a touch of whimsy about them, not like some caricatures where they make the person grotesque and ugly,' he said. 'Even when he didn't like the person, it was always humorous.'