A Great Cartoon

Maoriland Worker, Volume 13, Issue 31, 1 August 1923, Page 6

A Great Cartoon

That supreme Australian cartoonist, Norman Lindsay, preached a great sermon m a "Bulletin" cartoon a little -white* ago. The War God, satisfied, bloated, -surfeited with his banquet of human flesh; lies prone on tha ground.

Hjs helmet and sword lie beside him. Around and on top of him are midge_—ugly, ghoulish looking things': armed with tiny toy swords. One tickles his huge neck, another his chest, another pricks at his -leg, while yet another holds -a. lighted torch to the fingers of his outstretched hand. The teeth "of the monster are bared in a hideous grm, and" his Peering eyes appefctr half open; One senses tbtat he is ready -to spring—to clap on his helmet and sword—when the ,; Mpin-pricking—* shall have become'just a little more .unbearable! • Arid at one side, looking on, stands Civilisation, typified by 'a ' woman. Sfca clutches at' her throat, her eyes Btarmg out of her head with* horror as she Says, "MY GOD, THEY'RE TRYING TO WAK_ HIM UP!" The titl a of the cartoon te "Prodding the God of War,'' and' it grips and impresses by iltiason of its sense ;ot proportion. The Midgets who will most surely j awaken the loathsome brute are but puny pigmies by comparison with a united Civilisation —but—when the Midgets have tlhoroughly done their Uefvil's work, and Mars springs up, fully armed, claws and fangs bared — ALL CIVILISATION WILL BE BUT AS A TINY KITTEN THE GRIP 'OF A LION! i; -; -■- ; ' :; '- ; In a few broad lines,' worth reams of print, Norman Lindsay puts .the situation of the,;world to-day in front of our eyes, . 9 „...„..,.,..■.-.',..,.- .->.,. - There is th e drunken War God, already half-awakened from his- sleep of debauchery—the- Imps of Satan with their pin-pricking policy (Lindsay has given the "Prodders" faces of /different' national tvnesV and : Civilisation looking on aghast; helpless, hypnotised with the horror of it all. Will Lindsay some day have to make a companion cartoon, "The War God Awakens?"—VAlLLMA*