Footrot Flats comic strips to be cared for in perpetuity at the Turnbull

28 May 2022

A little ‘Slice of Heaven’ was donated to the Alexander Turnbull Library this week by the family of the late cartoonist Murray Ball.

Written and published between 1976 and 2000, 4300 comic strips were carefully sorted chronologically and wrapped into bundles.

This week, they were officially handed over to the Cartoon and Comic Archive Assistant Curator, Sam Orchard, at the Alexander Turnbull Library.

“The conversation of where these should be housed began over 16 years ago between the Cartoon Archive and the Ball family. It was the start of many conversations with the family, with all parties excited to find a safe and secure home for the strips,” Orchard writes.

“I am just absolutely thrilled that they are in a safe place,” Pam Ball, Murray’s wife said.

Murray Ball’s Footrot Flats comics have appeared in more than 2000 newspapers, inspired over 40 books, a stage musical, an amusement park, statues, and New Zealand’s first animated film A Dogs Tale Tail.

In her essay on Footrot Flats in Te Kupenga, Indira Neville notes “The romance of rural life is embedded in New Zealand’s culture, a curious form of nostalgia for something most people had little experience of. Even as a child I understood that this strip was ‘New Zealand’ in a way that Peanuts or Garfield were not.”

A household name, Murray Ball died in 2017, but through its digital footprint and originals now held in perpetuity at the Turnbull, Footrot Flats lives on forever.

Photo courtesy of Mark Beatty, Alexander Turnbull Library