| Summary |
Spooner talks about his middle-class family background growing up in Melbourne, encouraged to draw from an early age as there were a number of artists in the family, how he gradually moved from the science stream to an a humanities stream in his education, the effect of the Depression on family members, enrolled at Monash University Law School but his views were politicised by the anti-Vietnam War moratoriums, how learnt to paint from books, the cartooning influences on him included Steadman, Scarfe, Trog, Levine, Oliphant, and Petty, how he developed a libertarian, anti-authoritarian, leftist vision common among middle-class youth of the 1970s, did political drawings for the student newspaper, after graduating in law he taught physical education in technical schools, while travelling in Britain he submitted drawing to London publications, on his return to Melbourne he took articles and was admitted to the Bar, his drawing were published in the Melbourne Sunday Press, was encouraged by by Graham Perkin, Ranald Macdonald and Phillip Adams at the Age and Max Suich at the National Times to enter into serious full-time editorial cartooning, working from 1997 as a caricaturist for "The Age" and working experiences in England and America. Spooner discusses taking up printmaking in 1979 and the development of his technique as well as the factors involved in his choice of topic.
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