Ron Cobb b. 1938

  • Artist (Screen Artist),
  • Artist (Painter),
  • Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator)
Late 20th century American-Australian cartoonist, artist, writer and film designer. Has worked on many blockbuster films including 'Star Wars', 'ET' and 'True Lies'. He is married to Australian screenwriter Robin Love.
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cartoonist, artist, writer and film designer, was born in the USA and was an underground press cartoonist in Los Angeles in the 1960s. His cartoons of the 1960s and 1970s are found in RCD-25 (1967) and Mah Fellow Americans (1968), published by Sawyer Press, Raw Sewage (1971) and My Fellow Americans (1971), published by Price Stern Sloan. Cobb visited Australia in 1972 and settled in Sydney, where he joined the independent publishers Wild and Woolley and drew cartoons for Digger, e.g. 'Imperialism’s Best Friend’ (ill. King, 202) and 'Trespassing’ re irony of evicting people from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy (ill. King, 214). Senyard (107) illustrates a cartoon about the devastation of nuclear war ('There’s a rumor going 'round that we won…’) published Scope (Melbourne Labor paper), 9 December 1976. He contributed to Overland , including a cover of Death proffering money, “I’ll buy all the uranium you’ve got…” (no.67, 1977), and 'Right to…life’ (a very crowded scene) (no.66, 1977, 48).

In 1986 he was working as a film designer in the USA. His work includes Alien and Conan the Barbarian (Adams). In 2003 he was still living in San Francisco with his wife, the Australian screenwriter Robin Love, but continuing to visit Sydney regularly. The Wild and Woolley website includes a short biography in conjunction with advertising his book Cobb Again , published by Wild and Woolley in 1978, which has only one Oz image, the Wild and Woolley mascot atop the Opera House à la King Kong. His previous anthology, The Cobb Book , published by Wild and Woolley in 1976 (out of print), consists of 12 Digger drawings, including a devastating drawing on the cover, 'Australia 1972’, that shows an Aborigine and a kangaroo run over by a road-truck (ill. Swain, 15), first published Digger 9 September 1972 as 'Casualties’ (included by Christine Dixon). Colorvision (Wild and Woolley, 1981), a large format monograph in full colour now out of print, included much of his work for the films Star Wars and Alien and Conan (for which he was art director). Since the 1970s he has contributed to many films, including ET , The Last Starfighter , Back to the future , True Lies , Abyss and the Australian film Garbo , which he directed. He was developing an animation project for Disney c.2000. Recent SciFi work includes US TV series Firefly (2002).

Writers:
Kerr, Joan
Date written:
1996
Last updated:
2007

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Date modified Sept. 25, 2020, 7:18 a.m. Oct. 19, 2011, 12:56 p.m.
References [<ExternalResource: Adams, Phillip (1986), 'Arrest that Cartoonist!', Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin.>, <ExternalResource: Cobb, Ron (1976), 'The Cobb Book', Sydney, New South Wales: Wild & Woolley.>, <ExternalResource: Cobb, Ron (1978), 'Cobb Again', Sydney, New South Wales: Wild & Woolley.>, <ExternalResource: Dixon, Christine, Adelaide, South Australia (exhibition catalogue).>, <ExternalResource: King, J. (1979), 'The other side of the coin: a cartoon history of Australia', Stanmore, New South Wales: Cassell Australia.>, <ExternalResource: Senyard, J. (1991), 'Labour in Cartoons: Cartoons of the Australian Labour Party in Victoria, 1891-1990', Hyland House Publishing.>, <ExternalResource: Information sourced from Swain.>, <ExternalResource: Information sourced from Riddler, Eric.>, <ExternalResource: Williams, Robyn (21 April 2005), 'ABC Radio National interview with Ron Cobb', ABC website.>, <ExternalResource: Jacey Fortin, "Ron Cobb", obituary. New York Times, 23 Sept, 2020>] [<ExternalResource: Adams, Phillip (1986), 'Arrest that Cartoonist!', Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin.>, <ExternalResource: Cobb, Ron (1976), 'The Cobb Book', Sydney, New South Wales: Wild & Woolley.>, <ExternalResource: Cobb, Ron (1978), 'Cobb Again', Sydney, New South Wales: Wild & Woolley.>, <ExternalResource: Dixon, Christine, Adelaide, South Australia (exhibition catalogue).>, <ExternalResource: King, J. (1979), 'The other side of the coin: a cartoon history of Australia', Stanmore, New South Wales: Cassell Australia.>, <ExternalResource: Senyard, J. (1991), 'Labour in Cartoons: Cartoons of the Australian Labour Party in Victoria, 1891-1990', Hyland House Publishing.>, <ExternalResource: Information sourced from Swain.>, <ExternalResource: Information sourced from Riddler, Eric.>, <ExternalResource: Williams, Robyn (21 April 2005), 'ABC Radio National interview with Ron Cobb', ABC website.>]