Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Having a Ball - A cartoon history of New Zealand rugby - timely publishing

 Having a Ball: A cartoon history of New Zealand rugby came about more by accident than design. The book, now in its second printing after barely a month on bookshop shelves, was not a pre-meditated attempt to cash in on Rugby World Cup fever.
A phone call out of the blue about six months ago interrupted Ian Grant’s research and writing of a history of New Zealand newspapers, a project being supported by the Newspaper Publishers’ Association.
“Nearly a decade ago I was invited to curate a cartoon exhibition at Te Manawa gallery and museum in Palmerston North,” remembers Ian F. Grant, founder of the NZ Cartoon Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library and author of several NZ cartoon histories. The invitation for what became ‘The Famous Five’, an exhibition featuring prominent cartoonists with Manawatu backgrounds – including Tom Scott, Garrick Tremain, Murray Ball and Malcolm Evans – was from Malcolm Hopwood, then the city’s PRO.
Now he was on the phone again with a request, as part of Palmerston North’s Rugby World Cup celebrations and to commemorate the re-opening of the NZ Rugby Museum in its new, spacious Te Manawa space, for an exhibition of rugby cartoons. The resulting ‘Having a Ball’ exhibition, with assistance from the Cartoon Archive and National Library staff, has already been rated a great success.
“It seems a pity when curating an exhibition like this not to produce an accompanying book,” says Ian Grant, who has a 40 plus years publishing career traversing newspapers, magazines and books.
The resulting Having a Ball book contains the exhibition’s 60 cartoons in six sections, all with extended captions, plus additional ones accompanying Grant’s ‘A Very Short History of NZ Rugby’ and the first-ever ‘Key Dates in 140 Years of NZ Rugby’ section  which covers everything from key test series and matches to when various haka were introduced, to All Black coaches, and rule and scoring changes over the decades up to 2011.
The book (and exhibition) have been launched twice at Te Manawa – the ‘curtain raiser’ presided over by Sir Brian Lochore and then, on September 27, by 1987 winning captain David Kirk, who wrote an evocative Foreword to the book.
Having a Ball’s first 3,000 copies quickly sold out and the second printing is now at Whitcoulls, Paper Plus and bookshops around the country for the final RWC fortnight and Christmas market
The Book
For over a century rugby has been New Zealand’s national game, an obsession that has helped define a small country and mould its people – Maori and Pakeha.                                             Having a Ball looks at the triumphs and disasters, the amateur code that morphed into the professional era, the game at the local park and internationals in huge arenas, as well as rugby’s effect on the national psyche and the agendas of politicians. There is a short, snappy Introduction followed, in six sections, by the perceptive, telling and funny insights of New Zealand’s leading cartoonists. From earlier generations, there are cartoons by Trevor Lloyd, Sir Gordon Minhinnick, Sid Scales, Neville Colvin, Eric Heath and Nevile Lodge. Today’s award-winning cartoonists include Peter Bromhead, Bob Brockie, Chris Slane, Murray Ball, Murray Webb, Garrick Tremain and Tom Scott.
Foreword by David Kirk, captain of the All Black team that won the inaugural World Rugby Cup in 1987.
Having a Ball also includes the first-ever ‘Key Dates in 140 Years of NZ Rugby’ section makes fascinating reading – and will be a boon for rugby quizzes!
About the Author
Writer and historian Ian F. Grant has written several cartoon histories including The Unauthorized Version: A Cartoon History of New Zealand and The Other Side of the Ditch: A cartoon century in the New Zealand-Australia relationship. A keen follower of rugby, historically and today, he was founder of the NZ Cartoon Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library.
Email: ifgrant@xtra.co.nz   Tel: 06 3771359

Fraser Books
Paperback - Over 60 cartoons
112 pages - $24.95
Trade Distribution: Nationwide Book Distributors,
351 Kiri Kiri Road, P O Box 65, Oxford, North Canterbury

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