His immensely popular Footrot Flats strip, starring farmer Wal Footrot and his sheepdog Dog, ran in newspapers in New Zealand, Australia, UK and Scandinavia from 1975 to 1994. Photo: Handout
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https://scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/2078182/murray-ball-creator-footrot-flats-cartoon-about-farm-dog Australasia
Murray Ball, creator of Footrot Flats cartoon about a farm dog called ‘Dog’, dies aged 78
Murray Ball and Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz had a mutual admiration of each other’s work
New Zealand cartoonist Murray Ball with his Border collie dog called Finn who became the model for ‘Dog’, the kind-hearted sheep dog of what came to be an internationally syndicated cartoon, Footrot Flats. File photo: AFP
Murray Ball, the creator of the widely read Footrot Flats cartoon that celebrated rural life in New Zealand, has died at the age of 78.
Radio New Zealand reported that he died at the age of 78 at home on Sunday morning, surrounded by family. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for the last eight years.
Ball was survived by his wife of 53 years, Pam, and their three children. The couple had lived in Gisborne, in the Hawke’s Bay region of the North Island, for more than 40 years.
His immensely popular Footrot Flats strip, starring farmer Wal Footrot and his sheepdog Dog, ran in newspapers in New Zealand, Australia, UK and Scandinavia from 1975 to 1994.
The peak of its popularity coincided with the 1986 release of New Zealand’s first feature-length animated film, Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tale, which Ball directed.
It featured music by the New Zealand musician Dave Dobbyn, its soundtrack spawning two hit singles in New Zealand and Australia: You Oughta Be in Love and Slice of Heaven.
A separate Footrot Flats musical was first devised in 1983 and continues to be staged in New Zealand today.
Though Footrot Flats was far and away Ball’s best-known creation, he also had two strips published by Punch in the UK in the 1970s: Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero, the magazine’s longest-running cartoon, and All the King’s Comrades.
His Bruce the Barbarian featured in the English Labour Weekly.
Ball and Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz had a mutual admiration of each other’s work, with one Footrot Flats strip showed Dog laughing at a Snoopy cartoon. Schulz wrote the introduction to the only Footrot Flats volume ever to be published in the United States.
Dog, from Footrot Flats. Photo: Handout
“The dog is definitely one of my favourite cartoon characters of all time,” wrote Schulz of Ball’s “wonderful strip”.
“Being a fanatic about comic strips, I am always either very impressed by good drawing, or saddened by poor drawing. I love the way Murray draws these animals. I love the relationship among all of the characters, and am especially fond of the absolutely original approach to the humour.”
In 2002, Ball was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services as a cartoonist. He retired from cartooning and public life in 2010.
In 2015, signs showing Ball’s characters were posted on the major state highways to signal his hometown of Feilding, where he was born in 1939.