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cartoonist, was 'an Adelaide man’ for most of his life. In 1907 he was a major contributor of cartoons to the Gadfly (Adelaide), e.g. Rule Japania 'The Monkey of the Future./ “You’ll have to dance to my tune, little man”’, showing Japan as the organ grinder and little boy 'Australia’ as the monkey (ill. Lindesay WWW , 68). In September 1909 he was recruited from the Adelaide Critic to be chief cartoonist on the Barrier Daily Truth at Broken Hill (Dunstan, 26, ill. plates 38-51). Hired mainly for his knowledge of the new zinc printing process recently installed to assist in the battle for circulation against the opposition’s Barrier Miner (Dunstan p.28), he replaced an unknown, crude and apparently self-taught local cartoonist who signed his work ' L. J. E. ' Examples of Koch’s Broken Hill cartoons include: Fooling the Unemployed (four young men only are wanted by the foreman from a large crowd of unemployed men) and Darling’s Dream (the workers will not submit, says Darling to a dream figure of Wade, despite his offer of as many police as are wanted to break the strike), both 1909 (ill. Dunstan, plates 7 & 8, p.37). 14 of the 51 cartoons included in Dunstan’s exhibition and catalogue on the strike are by Koch, most specific to a person and/or event apart from an early one that includes a self-portrait and Political Action – By the Capitalist Class (capitalists rejoicing on the roof of a prison with four men inside), Barrier Daily Truth 1909 (ill. Dunstan plate 40, p.29).

Koch later returned to Adelaide. Between c.1921 and 1946 he occasionally had cartoons published in the Sydney Bulletin , e.g. Scotsman joke re tram fare 11 March 1926. 10 originals dated 1921-40 are in the ML Bulletin collection. His address for a cartoon showing a lad in pyjamas speaking to his father, paid 6 March 1936 and published 11 December 1940, was 47 Seventh Avenue, St Peters SA (ML Bulletin original Px*D472). Although it was published with the caption “Jonesy called me a Dago mongrel. I’m NOT a Dago, am I, dad?” Koch’s own caption was “A great big boy like you, afraid to go to sleep in the dark.”/ “Yeh, but you got mum to protect yer.” An editorial hand scribbled this out and noted: 'this gag has been published in the Women’s [ill. Mirror?] in a Bertie & Blub stuff’ (prints of both front and verso of the original and a reproduction are in the Koch file). The xenophobic tone, appropriate enough for a wartime gag when Italy had entered the war on the German side, was nevertheless entirely editorial.

There is a self-portrait in front of easel with mini-biography, Gadfly 18 December 1907, 15, and another self-portrait in “Truth’s” Expansion with additional caption 'Improving the Equipment and Installing New Machinery:

The Adelaide “Critic” says – 'Up at Broken Hill, the “Truth” is waging war with the old-established “Miner”, and there just hasn’t been any newspaper rivalry like it anywhere for years. Editor Jones, of the “Truth”, has just returned to the Hill with a new block-making and engraving plant under one arm, and an artist under the other. The artist is Mr. Frank Koch, of Adelaide, a skilled brushman, who has occasionally helped to adorn the pages of “The Critic”’ ( Barrier Daily Truth [September?] 1909, ill. Dunstan, 40)

The text appears under an image signed 'F. Koch/09’ showing Jones following a sign 'To The Barrier Daily Truth’. Tucked under one arm is a little man holding a camera and brief-case labelled 'zinc block process’, while under the other is a man with a pipe holding a portfolio labelled 'drawings cartoons sketches’.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007