An engaging and witty speaker right from the beginning to the end of his talk peppered with various digressions. Rod began his work in the world of satire as a cartoonist in 1987 to “keep the bastards honest”. Rod is also a talented editorial cartoonist, caricaturist and gifted painter. He knew that he could draw but he also had a notorious streak in telling jokes. He’s done a lot in his time such as has being the editorial cartoonist for the New Zealand Herald since 2003. Previously, he was editorial cartoonist for APN News & Media (Australia), based in Queensland. His cartoons were syndicated to newspapers in three states.One could say Rod has ruffled many a feather in his lively career.
He's satirised politicians, the powerful and recently the coach Michael Cheika of the Australian rugby side, who took exception to being drawn as a clown and he wasn’t laughing when Rod dressed him up as a clown before the Bledisloe Test. Rod’s brief was to needle him just a little bit.
Rod explained his work isn’t just about humour - it's a social commentary that pulls no punches, even when people threaten to punch him. Rod was delighted when Donald Trump entered the race to become US President because only he said only the cartoonist will benefit from him being President.
Rod is a man of many talents and one of them is painting with his first art exhibition in 17 years. His background was in fine arts, but his punishing daily deadlines didn’t left him much time or energy to paint for pleasure.
After 30 years in the game, Rod says the aim remains the same - capturing the nuance of social debate in a simple image. As a journalist takes a sentence and spreads it out to 1000 words, Rod takes those 1000 words and brings it down to a sentence and deliver the whole story in three to five seconds and they’ve 'Got it!
In closing Rod said the thing with satire is that “it's always at someone else's expense, so not everyone laughs." This Rod of satire is going nowhere!!