Oz Guardian Lets Katauskas Go
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The Guardian Australia is not renewing their contract with editorial cartoonist Fiona Katauskas.
From Fiona Katauskas’ Bluesky account:
So, I found out on Friday that my gig at the Guardian is coming to an end in late August.
Needless to say I’m rather bummed by this development AND in need of a new job so if anyone’s looking for a cartoonist HMU.
Fiona has been The Guardian Australia’s premier cartoonist since 2023, that year her cartoons for The Guardian earned her Museum of Australian Democracy’s Cartoonist of the Year honors. She appears regularly as part of Mike Peterson’s Comic Strip of the Day columns – most recently today.
Richard Scully and Robert Phiddian at The Conversation comments on the situation surrounding Katauskas in particular and the state of the art in Australia generally, which is much like that in the USA.
It is a sad day for Australian cartooning when an artist as good as Fiona Katauskas has not had her contract renewed. But that is what has happened at the Guardian Australia.
Katauskas is among the top daily political cartoonists in the country, with her cheerful visual style beautifully in tension with her salty satirical commentary.
She is at the top of her game, with her acerbic observations on national and international events a fine window on the passing parade of absurdity that passes for public life in the third decade of this increasingly silly century. Her great service has probably been to add some playfulness and wit to a publication that can be earnest, even ranty.
Katauskas is only the latest casualty in a cartooning industry still struggling to adapt to the 21st-century media business model. She joins other cartoonists, at home and abroad, who find themselves reliant on freelancing…
As they say, “The era of the permanent staff cartoonist is almost over.”
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