'Footrot Flats' (1977).
Murray Ball was a New Zealand cartoonist, known for his newspaper comic 'Footrot Flats' (1976-1994). The series offered a witty but naturalistic look on farm life. It was translated into many languages, adapted into an animated feature film and inspired a theme park. Earlier in his career, Ball was more notable as a political cartoonist in regional New-Zealand newspapers. When living in the UK, his political-social opinions were equally prominent in comic series like 'Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero' (1970-1981) and 'All the King's Comrades' (1973-1974) in Punch and 'Bruce the Barbarian' (1971-1978) in the house magazine of the British Labour Party. In the 1970s, Ball also drew various children's comic features for British children's magazines The Dandy, The Topper, Bunty and Cor!!, most notably 'Tor Thumb' (1972) and 'Ghastly Manor' (1974-1977). In the mid-1970s, he also created short-lived gag comics for New Zealand magazines, namely 'The Doctor' (1975-1976), 'The Kids' (1976-1979) and 'Nature Calls'.
Early life and career
Murray Hone Ball was born in 1939 in Feilding, a small farming town in Manawatu, New Zealand. His father Nelson Ball was a meat inspector for The Department of Agriculture and, between 1931 and 1936, also a member of the All Blacks rugby team. Murray Ball started cartooning during his childhood, copying Walt Disney characters and Hanna-Barbera's 'Tom & Jerry'. Another strong influence on his later work was the British cartoonist Carl Giles. Like his father, he had a strong interest in rugby. He often listened to radio reports of rugby matches and then visualized what was told in imaginative cartoons.
Murray Ball spent the early years of his childhood in Hastings, until his family moved to Lower Hutt in 1945. In 1947, they moved to Sydney, Australia. A year later, the family settled in South Africa, first in the capital of Johannesburg, later in Durban, where Ball's father worked in an amusement park. There, Ball played for the South Transvaal rugby team and in 1957 set a national junior pole vault record. To further pursue his ambitions in both rugby and cartooning, Ball returned to New-Zealand in 1958, leaving his family behind. In 1959, he played with the New Zealand Juniors, but was not selected for the national team, the All Blacks. This disappointing news made him give up his rugby career to fully concentrate on cartooning. Over the next couple of years, Ball returned to live in South Africa on several occasions, but left after a short period of time because of the country's apartheid system. Ball became a staunch and lifelong opponent of this unjust, racist system.
Cartoon from 1963.
Early cartooning career
Back in his home country in 1958, Ball spent three months as a cadet reporter on the night shift of the Wellington-based newspaper The Dominion, while also submitting cartoons to the Manawatū Daily Times in Palmerston North. Between 1958 and 1960, the latter newspaper hired him as their sports and political cartoons, as well as their weather map artist. However, disappointment over his failing rugby career made him return to South Africa, and then move to London with his brother. Based in the British capital in 1961, Ball wrote and illustrated a children's book, but failed to find a publisher. A year later, he returned to Wellington, New Zealand, where he picked up drawing political cartoons for The Dominion again.
In the fall of 1963, Ball learned that his mother was at death's door and traveled to South Africa to see her one final time. In 1964, Ball got married near London to his British wife, Pamela Maureen Bennett, with whom he had two sons and one adopted daughter. When The Dominion expressed no further interest in his cartoons, Ball's drawings found a new home in The New Zealand Truth. To gain extra income, he moved to Hamilton to take a one-year training course to become a teacher. Between 1966 and 1969, Ball taught math at the Mercury Bay District High School in Whitianga. Yet, according to his wife, most of his "lessons" consisted of making blackboard drawings and playing sports with his pupils.
During this period, Ball also published two satirical cartoon books with the A.H. & A.W. Reed publishing house in Wellington: 'Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest' (1967) was about rugby, and 'The People Makers' (1969) gave an equally witty look on education.
'Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero'.
Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero
In 1969, Murray Ball decided to leave New Zealand and find fortune in the United Kingdom. Together with his family, he settled in a cottage on the edge of the Exmoor National Park. At first, none of the magazines and papers took interest in his drawings, until he was finally accepted by the prestigious satirical magazine Punch. In their pages, he launched the gag comic 'Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero' (1970-1981), effectively one of the longest-running comics in Punch. Set in an anachronistic Stone Age, Stanley is a self-important caveman who is always put in perspective by his fellow cavedwellers. The satirical comedy tackled many modern issues, such as royalty, religion, colonialism, labor, capitalism, feminism, war, inequality and psycho-therapy. The series was also syndicated in the United States, Australia, New Guinea and Italy. Between 4 April 1977 and 8 September 1979, 'Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero' was distributed in the USA by Universal Press. According to his wife, Ball considered the 'Stanley' strip his personal favorite out of all series he ever drew.
Ball also drew another comic in Punch, titled 'All the King's Comrades' (1973-1974). Another anachronistic historical gag comic, it was set in the Middle Ages, where a group of peasants interact with a medieval king. Much of the satire comes from the fact that the serfs act like modern-day employees, complete with a union, asking for worker's rights within a feodal system.
Bruce the Barbarian
By appearing in one of the oldest and most enduring satirical magazines of the world, Punch, many doors now opened for Ball. His newspaper comic 'Bruce the Barbarian' (1971-1978) was published in The Labour Weekly, the house magazine of the British Labour Party. Just like his gag comics for Punch, 'Bruce' was an anachronistic humor comic in an ancient historical setting. Bruce is a Celt who lives in ancient Rome, but has socialist ideas far ahead of his time. His egalitarian ideals are contrasted with Roman society's slave labor, class system and snobby attitude towards anybody not living in Rome. The anachronistic jokes were direct attacks on British Prime Minister Edward Heath, the British Conservatives and Enoch Powell's xenophobic politics. One book compilation was published: 'Migod! It's Bruce the Barbarian' (Quartet Books, 1973).
'Thor Thumb'.
DC Thomson/IPC
In the early 1970s, Ball also became a prolific creator of children's comics. At first, he appeared in the IPC magazine Cor!! with the short-lived feature 'The Chumpions' (1971), about three kids who receive superpowers from a Tibetan Lama. The girl Dot can stretch like a piece of string, the tall lean boy Lofty has magnetic powers, and the fat boy Tubby can turn into a rubber ball. In IPC's Shiver and Shake, he drew the short-lived strip 'Gal Capone' (1973), about a school girl who was part of a weird kind of gangster underworld.
Throughout the decade, Ball however mostly worked for the Scottish publisher DC Thomson. In its magazine The Topper, he drew the tiny superhero 'Thor Thumb' (1971-1973), basically a miniature version of Marvel's 'The Mighty Thor', written by Roger Kettle. His longest-running strip in The Topper was 'Ghastly Manor' (1974-1977), set in a haunted mansion, where all kinds of ghouls and monsters have a lot of fun. The manor's owner, Mr. Fear, tries in vain to sell the place, but any potential buyer is always scared away, no matter what measures he takes to prevent them from seeing the frightening but otherwise friendly inhabitants. Murray Ball's further work for DC Thomson included 'Boss of the Backyards' (1972) in The Dandy and 'Janet the Gannet' (1978), again in The Topper. In the late 1970s, he also appeared in the company's girls' weekly Bunty with 'My Pal Cuddles', about an alien caterpillar, and 'The Cheddar Mob', a new strip starring a a cave family.
Although drawing children's comics didn't offer him any opportunities for political-social commentary, Ball's editors did give him significant and helpful feedback, which helped him improve his artwork.
'Ghastly Manor'.
Return to New Zealand
In November 1974, the Ball family left the United Kingdom again, returning to New Zealand permanently. In the meantime, he bought a 1.6 hectare farm near Gisborne in the North Island. Later, he would buy an additional 202 hectare of hill country, which he named Te Kuri Farm. In the paddocks behind his homestead was originally a slip-prone hill. According to Ball's longtime friend Tom Scott, Ball planted thousands of trees there and went to water them on a daily basis. In 1995, in collaboration with the Department of Conservation, he developed a public walkway through it. According to his son, Ball not only wanted to counter erosion, but also the "travesty" of European agriculture that tried to modify the picturesque Australian landscapes.
Throughout the decade, Ball kept submitting his weekly comics and cartoons to his British clients by mail. But a 1975 postal strike in the United Kingdom delayed everything, leaving him without money for several weeks. It prompted Ball to create new comics for New Zealand magazines as well. 'The Doctor' (1975-1976) ran in Thursday, and 'The Kids' (1976-1979) was serialized in The New Zealand Listener. Another comic he created during this period was 'Nature Calls'. Apart from these straightforward gag comics, Ball also created 'Damn Dog', the embryonic version of what would eventually become his signature series, 'Footrot Flats'.
'Footrot Flats'.
Footrot Flats
In 1976, Murray Ball created a farm-themed gag comic, 'Footrot Flats', starring the farmer Wallace Cadwallader Footrot and his border collie. Footrot's name is often shortened to "Wal", but his naïve dog never received a name beyond the simple "Dog". Originally, newspaper editors didn't see much potential in the feature. Ball's concept was rejected by both The New Zealand Herald and The Auckland Star, until it debuted in The Wellington Evening Post on 16 February 1976. Appearing three times a week, it soon caught on with readers.
Wal and Dog live in the fictional New Zealand town of Raupo. Many gag focus on typical rural activities, like sowing, guarding sheep, milking and feeding animals. Through his detailed graphic style, Ball showed a picturesque, yet realistic view of agrarian life. He didn't shy away from depicting less romantic activities, like wallowing through mud, gathering manure, helping barnyard animals give birth and observing the rotting carcass of a goat. Animals were drawn with realistic anatomy. Cecil the Ram, for instance, was depicted with large, visible testicles. Other gags showed Wal and his friends during leisure time, playing cricket, tennis, golf, rugby, or going out fishing. Wal also trains a school rugby team, with Dog as its mascot. For many readers, especially in the outskirts of New Zealand, 'Footrat Flats' was very relatable.
Despite the comic's title, the comic's true star was not Wal Footrot, but Dog. Dog can be a great help on the farm, guarding sheep and fetching Wal the stuff he needs. But most of the time, the mutt has a will of his own and brings the expression "man's best friend" into serious doubt. Much like Snoopy, Dog can't talk, but readers can read his mind in thought balloons. Another thing he has in common with Charles M. Schulz' famous beagle is that Dog enjoys daydreaming. He fantasizes about being "The Scarlet Manuka", a masked hero who doesn't save damsels in distress, but cricket balls. Dog has also imagined himself to be the heroic "Mitey Iron Paw" and the scary "Grey Ghost of the Forest". Despite inventing fictional names for himself, Dog is always referred to by his species name. As a running gag, readers never find out what his actual name is, though they are told that it is "refined, aristocratic, but so embarrassing" that he doesn't want anybody to find out. Ball once considered revealing it in the very final episode, but wisely decided to leave it a mystery, since it would never match up to people's expectations.
'Footrot Flats'.
Dog isn't smart enough to realize that his well-intended plans often make things worse. Whenever there is trouble, Dog usually dashes away. In 1978, Wal received a love interest, Darlene Hobson. Nicknamed "Cheeky", she works as a hairdresser and Wal tries to win her heart. However, Dog sees her as a rival who could potentially ruin the "great" friendship he has with Wal. Whenever Dal and Cheeky have a passionate moment, the mutt gets in between them. If Dal feels lovesick, Dog usually gives inappropriate advice, like "Relax, she probably wasn't in heat, anyway." In 1983, the strip introduced Wal's attractive cousin, Kathy. However, readers have to take other characters' word for it, because most of the time, her face isn't shown.
Throughout the years, Ball added many other colorful characters, like Wal's Aunt Dolly, whose old-fashionedness and conservative viewpoints are often played for laughs. She has a tendency to refer to people by their full names and thinks Cheeky is not a good match for Wal. Dolly is also a staunch monarchist, believing that New Zealanders ought to be proud to be part of the British Commonwealth. Much like Queen Elizabeth II, Dolly owns a corgi dog, named "Prince Charles" (a nod to the real-life crown prince and later King Charles III). Prince Charles is an overly pampered pet, who fancies himself being of higher class than Dog. Nevertheless, he can't function on the farm, since he has never worked a day in his life. When Walt's niece Janice, nicknamed "Pongo", was introduced in the series in 1980, she was originally a little girl. As the series progressed, she grew into a teenager. Pongo enjoys helping out on the farm and isn't afraid of making her hands dirty. Much like Aunt Dolly, Ball used Pongo as a straw character. As a committed feminist, her opinions often clash with the male cast members. In 1981, Rangi, a boy of Maori descent, was added. Just like Pongo, with whom he is best friends, he originally started out as a child, but grew into a teenager. Rangi is a useful assistant on the farm and also a rugby champion.
'Footrot Flats' (1978).
Wal also hangs out with his hippie neighbor Socrates Windgrass, nicknamed "Cooch" or "Coochie". Cooch helps Wal out on the farm, but is too idealistic and soft-hearted to do things right. Other times, he makes witty remarks whenever Wal fails at something. Cooch's dog Jess is Dog's girlfriend, and the neighbor also has a pet magpie, Pew. Among the other notable barnyard animals are Major the dog, Cecil the Ram and Horse, who despite his confusing name is actually a tomcat. Horse the cat, who debuted in 1979, is a wild, fierce animal who has the courage that Dog lacks. He is a merciless predator, capable of capturing all kinds of vermin and intimidating other animals, including Dog. While all animals in 'Footrot Flats' are anthropomorphic, human characters can't understand them. Starting in 1982, Wal also has an ongoing rivalry with his rough, filthy and defensive neighbor farmer Stewart Murphy, nicknamed "Irish". His sons, Elvis, nicknamed "Spit", and Ronald, nicknamed "Hunk", share their father's anger issues, as do his barnyard animals. His menacing pigs and pig-dogs often threaten Dog.
Many of the events and problems that Ball encountered in his own farm found their way into his comic. The Dog was based on Jumble, a fox terrier he owned as a child, and, in adult life, the border collie Finn, whom he acquired in the early 1980s. Horse the cat was based on a stray cat on his farm. Several other cast members were directly based on friends and relatives. Wal, for instance, was inspired by Ball's cousin Arthur Waugh, who worked as a sheep shearer.
'Footrot Flats' (1982).
Footrot Flats: success
'Footrot Flats' quickly became popular, being picked up by other papers, like The Press (in Christchurch) and The Waikato Times. By February 1977, its schedule changed from three times a week to five, complete with a double-length weekend comic. Every Christmas, compilation annuals were published, which frequently topped the bestsellers' lists. While being distinctively New Zealandian in atmosphere, the series still found tremendous success abroad. It ran in about 120 newspapers, including in Australia and the United Kingdom, and also appeared in Dutch, German (as 'Dog von der Stinkfußfarm'), Norwegian ('Bikkja'), Danish ('Faehunden'), Swedish ('Fähunden'), South African, Chinese and Japanese. The strip's popularity was at its peak in the mid-1980s, with book collections selling six millions copies throughout the country. A 2014 compilation book, 'The Essential Footrot Flats', collected 450 of the best episodes, picked by Ball and his family.
In addition, the 'Footrot Flats' series spawned various merchandising items, including T-shirts, stickers, posters, coloring books, calendars, greeting cards, coffee mugs, stuffed toys, puzzles, bed sheets, hot water bottles and a beer brand. Many were manufactured by the cartoonist's brother, Barry. A musical based on the strip was first performed in late 1983, with lyrics by A.K. Grant and music by Philip Norman. It has continued to be staged in New Zealand in the following decades.
'Footrot Flats'.
The dog from 'Footrot Flats' became the official mascot of the All Blacks rugby team, the very team Ball and his father once played in. However, Ball was strongly and vocally opposed to the All Blacks planned trip to South Africa in 1985, which would ignore the boycott against the country's apartheid regime. Not wanting his character to be associated with apartheid, Ball wrote a letter to The Dominion, pretending to be Dog and resigned from his mascot position: "I just wouldn't feel right sittin' there while we played rugby with the people who have killed more than 300 men, women and children in the last six months because they are not white." The tour was eventually canceled. Ball did greenlight the use of his dog character for fundraising campaigns by Amnesty International, Unicef and the campaign promoting the MMP system in the lead-up to the 1993 electoral referendum.
In November 1986, 'Footrots Flats' had the honor to be the subject of New Zealand's first feature-length animated film, 'Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tale' (1986), even though the picture was entirely animated in Sydney, Australia, with Ball as its director and Tom Scott as the screenplay writer. Comedians John Clarke and Pete Rowley provided voices of the title characters, and pop musician Dave Dobbyn provided the soundtrack. Two songs, 'You Oughta Be In Love' and 'Slice of Heaven' actually became hits in New Zealand that year. The film itself was a box office hit, even becoming the most successful animated feature film in Oceania until Disney's 'The Lion King' broke that record in 1994. Its script won the "Best Script Award" at the New Zealand Guild of Film and Television. In 1986, the film's success also led to the Leisureland theme park on the Te Atatū Peninsula in West Auckland being rebranded as a "Footrot Flats Fun Park" for a few years. There was a life-size recreation of the town from the comic, complete with costumed characters. The park closed down in 1989.
Another testament to Murray Ball's fame was that he once visited Sydney with his family, when his jacket was stolen. He went to a police station, where he was initially told that it wasn't uncommon to be robbed at Kings Cross. But once Ball insisted to file a report and told the policemen his name, they recognized him as "the bloke who does 'Footrot Flats'" and instantly made it an urgent preoccupation. While his jacket was never recovered, Ball cheered up when everybody at the station wanted a personalized drawing.
Still, despite all the wealth, attention and success 'Footrot Flats' brought him, Ball had mixed feelings about his signature comic. He was forced to drop all his other comics to fully concentrate on his hit. But contrary to those, 'Footrot Flats' was a straightforward gag comic with funny animals in a romanticized version of New Zealand farm life. There was no real room for satire, giving him the uncomfortable idea that he had "sold out".
The series ran for 28 years non-stop until April 1994, when Ball felt that his characters "had grown up" and society had evolved to such a degree that the simple agrarian lifestyle promoted by 'Footrot Flats' had now been "swamped by capitalism, corporatism and consumerism." In his eyes, his comic now looked increasingly old-fashioned. Other sources claim that Ball also felt disillusioned after his dog Finn died, but this rumor is unfounded, since Finn only passed away on 5 October 1998, a full four years after the series' conclusion.
'Footrot Flats'.
Quentin Hankey and other books
In 1981, Murray Ball launched another comic, 'World of Quentin Hankey', serialized weekly in The New Zealand Times. The title character is a nationalist who tries to fight for a better world. The series ran for only a few months, but Ball later reused the character for his illustrated novel 'Quentin Hankey: Traitor' (1987). The book portrays New Zealand as an independent republic, run by the Labour government, until the National Party overhrows it, with help from the US Army. Eventually, the Russian navy also gets involved. Hankey returned again in Ball's book 'The Sisterhood' (1993), where the character's "secret thoughts" regarding feminists are explored. While the actual struggles of feminists are acknowledged, the book caused tremendous controversy by portraying feminists as misogynistic, emasculating and opposing women's traditional nurturing roles and desire to look pretty. Ball couldn't even find a publisher and had to distribute it on its own. Ironically, he credited his wife, Pamela Maureen Bennett, with taking care of the business aspects behind 'Footrot Flats'. Interviewed by the New Zealand Herald (7 April 1994), he outright claimed: "I don't know how she managed. Without her, it just would not have happened." From this perspective, 'The Sisterhood' could perhaps be an expression of his frustrations in this field. Ball himself once said, as quoted in his son's biography: “If cartoonists have any distinguishing characteristics, I should imagine chronic insecurity is one and a mild eccentricity running to madness is perhaps another.”
Murray Ball also wrote a erotic coming-of-age story about a young male teenager, 'The Flowering of Adam Budd' (1998) and a children's book, 'Fred the (Quite) Brave Mouse'. Ball also livened up the pages of Barry Crump's children's book 'Mrs. Windyflax and the Punga People' (1995).
Recognition
In 1986, Ball had the honor of designing a fur seal, used by the United Nations as a mascot during its Year of Peace. Between 5 December 1990 and 22 January 1991, his signature comic was the subject of the exhibition 'Footrot Flats in Focus - A 1990 Perspective' at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. In 1991, a newly discovered type of crab was named the Flatsia Walcoochorum, after 'Footrot Flats' characters Wal and Cooch. In 2002, Murray Ball was made an Officer in the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services as a cartoonist. In 2015, signs with the characters were posted on major stage highways to signal Ball's hometown Feilding. On 18 April 2018, a statue of Wal and Dog, sculpted by Jonathan Campbell (Created and Cast Bronze), was inaugurated in Gisborne, at the entrance of the HB Williams Memorial Library.
'Footrot Flats'.
Final years, death and legacy
In 2010, Murray Ball retired from cartooning, as he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In 2017, he died in his home in Gisborne, at the age of 78. In a direct reaction to his death, New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English praised him for taking "our unique sense of humor to the world." Murray Ball left a lasting mark on New-Zealand and Australian cartooning, especially on his longtime collaborator Tom Scott. But he has also received praise outside of his home country. Ball and 'Peanuts' creator Charles M. Schulz had a mutual admiration of each other's work. Schulz even wrote the foreword to the US edition of 'Footrot Flats Volume 1' (Orin Books, 1992), in which he said: "The dog [in 'Footrot Flats'] is definitely one of my favorite cartoon characters of all time (...) I love the way Murray draws these animals. I love the relationship among all of the characters, and am especially fond of the absolutely original approach to the humor." Murray Ball was also a strong influence on Martin Brown, Jim Davis and Dutch comic artist Herman Roozen, whose weekly farm-themed comic 'De Morinel' (1988-1994) was influenced by 'Footrot Flats'.
Reprints of 'Footrot Flats' have continued to appear in The Gisborne Herald, while, since January 2017, Ball's widow and children run the official 'Footrot Flats' website and Facebook page. In 2022, Ball's family deposited the original pages of 'Footrot Flats' to the Alexander Turnbull Library. That same year, on 27 April, they took legal action against a man who made a mural painting in Feilding, using the 'Footrot Flats' characters and claiming he had asked for legal permission. Afterwards, the wall was painted over.
Books about Murray Ball
For those interested in Ball's life and career, the book, 'Murray Ball - What Is It Like To Be A Cartoonist' (Petone, New Zealand, Highgate/Price Milburn, 1988) and his semi-autobiography, 'Tarzan, Gene Kelly and Me' (Diogenes Designs, 2001) are highly recommended. In 2024, the cartoonist's son Mason Ball released a biography about his father, 'Murray Ball: A Cartoonists Life' (Harper Collins, 2024).
