Sean Leahy

Sean Leahy

Queensland

Speaker type

  • Cartoonist
  • Illustrator / Designer

Sean Leahy is the political cartoonist for "The Courier Mail" in Brisbane.

He began his cartooning career while still at high school on the suburban weekly "The Darling Advertiser". The following year, his cartoons also became a regular feature of "The West Australian" making him, at seventeen, the youngest metropolitan daily political cartoonist in Australia.

Awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Trust Award to study animation in the US in 1982, he spent some time at Mike Jones Film Corporation in Minneapolis before returning to Perth. In 1983, after seven years on "The West Australian", he joined "The Daily Sun" and then "The Courier Mail" in Brisbane.

From 1993 to 1994 he was a regular cartoonist for the Australian edition of TIME magazine. Nationally his work has featured in 'The Australian' and 'The Bulletin' magazine.

His cartoons continue to appear in over 150 publications internationally through the Cartoonist's and Writer's Syndicate in New York, in such papers as 'The Times' of London and 'The International Herald-Tribune'

In addition to his political cartoons, Sean also writes and draws the nationally syndicated comic strip 'Beyond the Black Stump'.

First published in 1988, the comic strip recently won the Stanley Award for Australia's 'Comic Strip Cartoonist of the Year' (2003) and the Gold Medal for Australia's 'Comic Strip of the Year' at the National Cartoon Awards, Rotary Club, Coffs Harbour.

In 2004 he travelled to the US and UK for further study in animation as a recipient of a Churchill Fellowship.

Originals of his cartoons are included in private collections ranging from Steven Spielberg to the Vatican.

Testimonials

  • I just wanted to thank you on behalf of Ormiston College. Our guest visitors certainly enjoyed your presentation and as one person said on leaving “From now on I will be looking for his cartoon before I even read the front page.”
    Thank you again for being a part of our 25th Anniversary Literary Lunch.


    Sean Leahy - Ormiston College, October, 2013.

    Sean Leahy - Ormiston College, October, 2013.
    Sean Leahy
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Sean Leahy