cartoonist, illustrator and animated filmmaker, contributed to many periodicals in Melbourne in the 1890s, including Melbourne Punch and the Champion (a radical Melbourne paper published 1895-97). He also drew cartoons for the Adelaide Critic (1897). He was the best of the artists who drew for Free Lance: “A White Paper For White People” (April-October 1896), a Melbourne weekly cycling journal with theatrical news and lively social and political comments like the Bulletin or Table Talk set up by Lionel Lindsay with funding from a condom (?) manufacturer. The SLNSW holds a collection of 'Sketches of Theatre people owned by Lionel Lindsay’ by Alec Laing et al. (DG Px 72), although CJ says they are not good. As well as its caricatures, he also did many of the cartoons (all signed 'Laing’), ranging from large political ones to small joke blocks on 'city’ and 'commercial’ topics, miners, winos and swaggies. He often drew the Free Lance cover cartoon. A notably cynical one, The Deed That Won The Empire 1/12 (9 July 1896), shows a man carrying rum and the bible to South Sea Islanders and relates to Deeds that won the Empire , a set of six poorly-drawn, small stick vignettes by 'Squid’ in the previous issue that included men being hung and flogged and a cat-o-nine-tails (2 July, 9). Both were parodies of a jingoistic English bestseller of the time about British naval battles called The Deeds that Won the Empire (see J. Kerr, Artists and Cartoonists 1999).
A later Free Lance cartoon by Laing shows Queen Victoria in full widow’s gear, with her black skirts and white petticoats flapping about her knees and veil flying behind her, winning a bike race for long-living monarchs (Juliet Peers). He also drew a lengthy series of cartoons for Free Lance based upon the newly-invented X-rays, which are mildly amusing (according to Peers), e.g. X-raying politicians etc. to find representations of the 'true’ but hidden beliefs inside them. Other examples include The City of Dreadful Stinks – Melbourne as a stinking sewer – Free Lance 2 July 1896, a well-known representation of the city (reproduced Michael Cannon?). ML has a big original cartoon, Truth , drawn in Melbourne in 1904.
Laing married the Australian Pansy Montague , a 'living statue’ who worked the music halls as 'La Milo’ (see Anita Callaway in Heritage , Past Present and Visual Ephemera ). They moved to England where La Milo displayed her perfect classic proportions and Laing drew caricatures under the cheeky pseudonym 'Cruikshank’ that had apparently adopted in Australia; 'George Cruikshank’ did fashion illustrations in Sydney’s Town and Country Journal of 24 December 1881, 1220. An original Bulletin caricature by Harry Julius (ML) shows 'Cruikshank’ many years later as a US pioneer filmmaker of early Disney-style animated cartoons of animals.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
