The Australian Cartooning School

All the concepts contained in the tuition packages described here are developed by Ian Dalkin, a senior professional cartoonist with a long history of publication in Australian newspapers and magazines. Ian currently operates a studio in Blackheath, NSW specializing in cartooning, cross-platform software development and anything else that's clever.

In 1990, Ian produced a video on cartooning techniques that was later to form the foundation of the National Cartooning Competition (NCC) and two consecutive Olympic Arts Festival events. In the NCC, it was negotiated that Australian Real Estate identity L. J. Hooker conduct the NCC through its franchisees who donated a copy of Ian's video to participating schools.

The resulting gag cartoons were judged by the Australian Cartoonists' Association and the winners in each division were awarded a Junior Stanley Award, the 'senior' version of which was awarded to the cream of the professional cartooning industry in Australia. Although the NCC ran its course and was wound up in 2003, it enjoyed a run of 10 years, making it the largest structured entry by cartooning into education anywhere in the world. The benefits in education extended far beyond a simple 'drawing' exercise.

The video, and a later version on CD Rom (also distributed through the NCC) were very successful at helping kids as young as 9 produce single panel gag cartoons. It succeeded because it did not concentrate on developing drawing skills in students but instead concentrated on the development of ideas for gag cartoons. This simple combination of a single drawing containing a single gag idea allowed students to participate in cartooning without any advanced drawing skills - the ideas were considered most important.

Ian Dalkin remains the longest-serving tutor in Charles Sturt University's Youth Enrichment Program for Gifted and Talented Children. The entire Gifted & Talented program was dissolved in 2008. A case of CSU knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing if you ask me. Destroying things is easy - building things is hard.