Born in Australia in 1935, Patrick "Pat" Oliphant is renown in the United States for his biting editorial cartoons and skilled drafting style. Oliphant began his cartoonist career in Australia, but came to the United States in 1964 to take a position with the Denver Post. He moved to the Washington Star in 1975. This cartoon is one he drew for the paper in 1979. After the newspaper closed in 1981, Oliphant became the first editorial cartoonist to work independently from a newspaper and by 1983 his work appeared in more than 500 newspapers. His unique style influenced the field of editorial cartooning, moving toward a freer and more artistic style with very limited use of labels. He retired from drawing syndicated cartoons in 2015.
The cartoon includes "Punk," a little penguin who often offers additional commentary. Oliphant first created Punk while working as an editorial cartoonist in Australia and the tiny penguin appears in almost all of Oliphant's political cartoons. Punk was so popular that he briefly had his own Sunday color comic strip.
Oliphant has also worked as an illustrator and in a variety of artistic media. He began sculpting in the 1980s. In fact, one of his bronzes is prominently displayed on downtown Congress Avenue. The statue commemorates Angelina Eberly, a hero of what is known as the Texas Archive War. In 1842, Republic of Texas President Sam Houston secretly ordered the removal of the Republic archives from Austin. On December 30, 1842, Eberly, who operated a nearby inn, saw men loading up the precious documents into wagons. She ran to a small cannon located on Congress Avenue and fired it toward the General Land Office, arousing the city to the theft. The ultimate result of the Archive War was to validate Austin as the Texas capital. The statue dramatically portrays Eberly as she prepares to fire the cannon and stands near the spot of her heroic act.
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Terrific story!
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