Friday flip through the archives: when one thought leads to another

 

Wham the Wonder-dog. The boy-child’s constant companion since 2005. Image: Su Leslie, 2006

Sarah, over at Art Expedition, is doing a wonderfully creative series of posts this month around the daily National Appreciation Days that take place in May. I love the idea of this and thought I might be able to flavour a few of my own posts with acknowledgement of some of the things that are celebrated this month.

Today is National Cartoonists Day.

It’s also National Astronaut Day, Cinco de Mayo, National Hoagie Day, National Totally Chipotle Day and National Space Day, but moving right along ….

… I can’t think of cartoonists without remembering and celebrating New Zealand’s own Murray Ball, who died only a few weeks ago. He is known best here as the creator of Footrot Flats, a long-running comic strip series about life on a Kiwi farm seen through the eyes of a sheepdog.

A sheepdog remarkably like the one held by the boy-child above.

Image from Footrot Flats, by Murray Ball.

In 1986, Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tale — an animated movie — was made, written by Murray Ball and fellow cartoonist Tom Scott.

The soundtrack from the movie, by Dave Dobbyn, contains a couple of songs that have become Kiwi classics, which neatly allows me to include a reference in this post to another May celebration —  NZ Music Month.

So allow me to play us out with Wal, Dog and Cheeky Hobson in Dave Dobbyn’s You Oughta Be In Love.

And please visit Art Expedition to see Sarah’s creative World Day of … posts