The media and cartooning world shifted mightily between Jon Kudelka’s earliest contributions to The Mercury in Hobart in the early 1990s and to his last regular gig at The Saturday Paper, before the diagnosis and treatment of his glioblastoma sparked retirement in April 2025.
In contributions to these publications, and The Australian and The Age, Kudelka’s cartoons have been published for readers across the political spectrum, resisting the polarisation of the contemporary Australian media.
The award-winning cartoonist died in Hobart on Sunday, aged 53. Alongside the cartoons, he had a flourishing creative career evident to anyone who wandered into the Kudelka Gallery in Salamanca Place that was envisioned as a “retirement policy”.
