Cripes! Cartoons can provide a pictorial history in a series of time capsules, and they often hold a mirror up to Australian society.

Join National Library Director of Exhibitions, Guy Hansen, in our Special Collections Reading Room for this new series, where he shares some of his favourite images from the Library’s cartoon collection.

Two works by legendary Australian cartoonist Stan Cross, the namesake of the current ‘Stanley’ cartoon prizes, are examined in this video including one of the most famous cartoons in Australian history, ‘For gorsake stop laughing – this is serious!’.

If you love cartoons as much as Guy, you can learn more about the cartoons in the Library’s collection in& ‘Inked: Australian Cartoons’, available through the National Library Bookshop.

Like this video? Watch the second video in the series, Uprising! One of the oldest cartoons in the National Library.