Petty's Parallel Worlds

The Age

Saturday September 13, 2008

Fiona Capp

Petty's Parallel Worlds

Ed., Russ Radcliffe

High Horse, $39.95

BRUCE PETTY'S cartoon's are unmistakable - the hectic scrawl, the head-spinning activity, the sense of barely contained anarchy. This collection provides a sampling of Petty's work from his early wry and whimsical cartoons for Punch and The New Yorker in the 1960s and '70s, to his later, much more idiosyncratic work for The Age. While his street sketches can be so frenetic with line and detail as to be overwhelming, his political satire focuses this energy into a powerfully made point. For instance, a Roman leader declaring, "It's those Anglo-Saxon terrorists - they hate our Democratic global dominance". No one better summed up the public mood before the last election than Petty's cartoon of a man on the beach asking of Rudd, "But is he capable of turning the country around without changing direction?" There's a cathartic quality to the brutal truths Petty tells and the way his mature style captures the postmodern world in hyperdrive.

© 2008 The Age

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