
About the Artist, Harry Bruce

For thirty years Harry has worked as a professional cartoonist. While studying to be a teacher at James Cook University he drew cartoons for his home town newspaper, the Ayr Advocate. After graduation he abandoned the drawing board to concentrate on the blackboard. That didn’t last.
Following a mercifully brief career as a high school English andHumanities teacher the lure of a return to newspaper cartooning became irresistible. In 1990 he began freelancing for the Mackay Daily Mercury. Over the next three decades many other papers followed, almost all in North Queensland. These included larger daily papers in Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Rockhampton as well as quite a few smaller weekly publications. At his busiest Harry was producing up to eight cartoons a day.
Those were the glory days however. In recent years the newspaper industry has shrunk and many of the papers Harry supplied have disappeared including sadly the Ayr Advocate. Nowdays Harry does daily cartoons for the Townsville Bulletin and Cairns Post along with a couple of weekly toons for other papers.
Over the years Harry has also done a variety of other illustration work which he finds both enjoyable and challenging. He has drawn countless caricatures, illustrations for advertising and even the occassional children’s book. He’s won a couple of Rotary Cartoon Awards, been included in national exhibitions and his work has appeared from time to time in the Talking Pictures segment of the Insiders television programme.
And he still loves drawing funny pictures.
Harry Bruce Cartoonist & Caricaturist Artist
Australian freelance cartoonist and caricaturist based in Mackay, Queensland. Contact Harry for new commissions or prints of his current work.