More than in any other way, Australian humour has evolved and found its greatest expression not through the nation’s writers, entertainers, or film makers, but by the means of cartoonists drawing for the Australian press. This humour had two significant periods of development - the first beginning with the founding of the Bulletin a little over a century ago when the editors of this illustrated publication, notably J.F. Archibald, encouraged and fostered native talent, especially those artists of the day with comic graphic skills.

As could be expected and as we now acknowledge as part of our lore, the favoured subjects for comic ridicule (apart from the politicians, Queen Victoria, and Asians) were based on our rural origins and economy, on some aspect of ‘outback’ or bush life as it affected drovers, shearers, bullock-team drivers, bush parsons, cocky farmers – and Aborigines.