Russ Radcliffe, longstanding editor of the annual Best Australian Political Cartoon series, takes cartooning very seriously indeed. In his role as non-fiction commissioning editor at Scribe Publications, Radcliffe commissioned a stunning collection of Bill Leak’s finest work, Moments of Truth. To my mind, this impressive compilation of Bruce Petty’s anarchic (mostly cartoon) art – the first book from Radcliffe’s new publishing venture High Horse Books – reads like the second in a series. It’s certainly just as lovingly packaged, with beautiful production values and informative artist’s commentary interspersed throughout. In the introduction, Petty describes his current creative inspiration thus: ‘Now the future is rather a blur, the present is about barricading what we have accumulated, and cartoonists, like everyone else, search for who is responsible.’

This book showcases the range of Petty’s artistic styles as well as his intellectual and moral concerns, incorporating editorial cartoons, street sketches, film images and printmaking. Connoisseurs of cartooning or social and political commentary will relish this book.