Stuart McMillen

About a month ago I was approached by the folks at Joesphmark to do some commissioned cartoon art for a campaign they were working on. The work was for Queensland Police‘s One Punch Can Kill campaign, which aims to persuade young men to think twice about getting into fights and using senseless violence.

As it turned out, the cartoon work wasn’t directly connected with the One Punch Can Kill message, but was relating to a competition that the police are running to help disperse their message. The police are inviting young people to create videos, songs, graphics and short stories about the One Punch Can Kill message. The role of our cartoon animations was to get the ball rolling by giving entrants ideas about the power of film, music, pictures and words.

Eddie Munch’s The Scream, Stuie style

You can check out the four ~30 second videos here. Note that I just provided the cartoons – the script, animation and narration were done by the other guys at Josephmark. It was a good experience working with JM – I was impressed by their individual talents as well as the overall vibe of their office. I look set to continue my relationship with them, as we are currently working on an animation collaboration. I don’t want to reveal too much about it right now, but the project will be social/environmental commentary in the vein of Part of Nature from last year. Hopefully a interesting side-project for us both to work on between our other jobs.

Below are stills of The Bride from Kill Bill that didn’t make the final cut of One Punch Can Kill due to the sword imagery.

Late last year I got involved with the Brisbane-based sustainability consultancy FWR Group after their Managing-Director Mike Duggan liked the look of my early sustainability-related cartoons. He wondered if I’d be interested creating a cartoon specifically for FWR group – a sort of ‘unique marketing strategy’ to better position the FWR brand with their target audience. Music to my ears – I agreed to the offer!

Mike offered some few suggestions as to the themes of the cartoon, but mainly left me to my own devices. My Recombinant Records cartoons from the second-half of 2009 had moved away from the original idea of having a ‘cartoon Stuart’ narrating readers through the topic of interest. However, I was keen to return to the idea of a central character for the FWR strips. After some discussion, we settled on an anthropomorphic koala.

Our first FWR ‘Green Maze’ cartoon was finished in early March, and was uploaded to the FWR webpage yesterday. My inspiration for the script can from a fairly unlikely source: former Talking Heads singer David Byrne. Turns out that David is a keen cyclist, and has a few thoughts on the topic of sustainability, and urban design. From page 275 of David’s 2009 book ‘Bicycle Diaries‘:

It’s unsustainable. Unsustainable means that eventually the behavior will inevitably be changed or modified, either thoughtfully and voluntarily, or as a result of tragic consequences. Either way it will not go on as it is for very much longer.

That quote really struck me as being at the heart of the struggles of the environmental sustainability movement. It really is the reason why I do what I do and also, I believe, the reason why the FWR Group guys are in their line of business. Here’s a link to the finished cartoon:

(mirror on my server)

Today I posted my latest cartoon ‘Part of Nature‘. It is the product of 5-6 weeks of drawing (after work and on weekends), and I feel it it my best strip to date. Graphically and, I hope, thematically it is miles ahead of the work I was doing at the start of the year.

I’m trying harder to set a sustained tone with my strips. ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death‘ gave me a peek at what can be achieved, but I can envision something far greater than that cartoon. Barely four months after that cartoon was completed (and spread virally across the internet to a wide audience), I am looking forward to a rich future perfecting my craft and improving strip by strip.

I am getting better at editing myself. I have already shared one panel that was cut from the latest cartoon. Here is an example of another segment that was not included in the final version:

When I went to bed last night the panels were still in the cartoon, and the entire piece was entitled ‘Take Only Photographs, Leave Only Footprints’. After sleeping on it, I awoke to delete the panels and rename the piece ‘Part of Nature’. I’m really glad I cut them, as I was probably only hanging onto them for so long because of the Mon Repos reference of my childhood.

The panels were to be a bridge between the ‘depressing’ first-half (about environmental destruction) and the ‘positive’ panels of the second half. Good in theory, but the panels really killed the tone established by the stark graphics of the first seven panels. I’m really glad I cut them.

I think the cartoon ‘me’ that I have included in past strips may not have much future with the new direction that I am planning on taking my drawings. In August I spent 2-3 weeks drawing a strip that will never see the light of day. The cartoon ‘me’ was featured heavily, and after the artistic style of ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ and ‘I Like Music‘, it seemed like a step towards the past, not the future.

I am slightly embarrassed by the primitive artistic style of my early cartoons, but am happy to keep them on the internet to document my progress. I look forward to the day when I can look back on my current drawings and fret at their crudeness!

Don’t believe the crocodile tears of the coal industry, nor anyone else with a vested interest in status quo. These dinosaurs have had a cruisy, subsidised ride for far too long and are responsible for many toxic and deleterious side-effects. They should be forced to compete on fair terms with the cleaner alternatives that are comparatively starved of government assistance. As Dr Karl says, “When was the last time you saw a coal plant having a lamington drive?”.

Our economy is flexible, and society will benefit as we transition away from coal, and towards renewables.

The above image was drawn for, but cast-aside from my newest cartoon ‘Part of Nature‘.