MediaOctober 25, 2017

Introducing The Side Eye by Toby Morris

Comic artist

We’re hugely excited to announce that artist and writer Toby Morris is the latest addition to team Spinoff. Below, the Pencilsword creator (and one half of op-ed duo Toby & Toby, along with Spinoff veteran Toby Manhire) introduces his new project. But first, editor Duncan Greive welcomes him aboard.

Ever since The Spinoff started, I’ve had a list in my head of people we’d love to work with. And ever since we started, Toby Morris has been at or near the top. The Pencilsword, his work for The Wireless, was a cannonball ripping through an issue, over and over again. During its three year run he created what felt – to me at least – like a whole new genre unto himself: a fusion of journalism, commentary and visual storytelling which seared itself into your memory and helped clarify previously scattered thoughts. So when we heard he wanted to do a new project, and do it with us, there was never any question that we would grab the chance with both hands. It debuts later this week, and we couldn’t be more excited. Read on for Toby’s explanation about what he’s got planned.

I love it when people think comics are trash. That they’re low-brow, for kids, for illiterate weirdos. They’re on the side eye list.

And they’re missing out: for years I’ve been banging on about the potential of non-fiction comics as a really effective way of talking about serious things. There’s something special about the combination of words and images that lets you explore rational and emotional messages simultaneously and get to the heart of issue in a clear and personal way. In short, you can talk about what something is and why you should care at the exact same time, in a way anyone can understand. Information about ‘serious things’ is often intimidating, cold and never ending. Comics are approachable, human and succinct. Bam.

For the last three years I was lucky to get do that with The Pencilsword. Over 40 comics I covered everything from domestic violence, inequality, anxiety and house prices to filter bubbles, homelessness, renter’s rights and how I just really love swimming.

But after three years I felt like I needed a change, so I’m really excited about joining The Spinoff. It felt like something that’s been a long time coming – the fresh perspective, the quality of the writing and the mix of serious and ridiculous all made the site feel like home as a reader. I’m a fan, basically.

So here’s my contribution. The Side Eye is about casting a sceptical (but hopefully not cynical) eye on the changing world around us. A way of taking all the little things that make us say ‘eh?’ and looking a little closer. And these days there are plenty of things to question: Climate change, inequality, shifting attitudes about sexuality, health, diversity, the workplace. How we use technology. How we process history. In the end I want it to be about how we treat each other. Where we’re going, and why.

I hope The Side Eye can be a little looser too – both in format and in content. I don’t know all the answers. I possibly don’t know any of them. But I want to try things and ask questions and look closer. Laugh when things deserve to be laughed at and point an angry finger from time to time.

Let’s do the side eye at this!

The first episode of The Side Eye is out later this week.

Keep going!

MediaOctober 24, 2017

A brief journey through the bad Australian takes on the NZ election

Toby Manhire

Editor-at-large

Another gold medal for the green-and-gold in the contest for the worst media opinions on New Zealand’s electoral outcome. Toby Manhire reads them so you don’t have to.

The latest addition to the pantheon of Bad Takes In The International Media On The New Zealand Election comes from USA Today. In a post explaining how “Trump-like leaders proliferate” around the world, it tables as evidence one Jacinda Ardern, of New Zealand.

The evidence for Ardern’s Trumpiness amounts to a solitary tweet from the Wall Street Journal that read, “Meet New Zealand’s Justin Trudeau (prime minister of Canada) — except she’s more like Trump on immigration.”

Bad take, USA Today.

For the most part, however, the field has been dominated by Australia.

Rupert Murdoch’s beloved national broadsheet, The Australian, devoted the front page to the New Zealand outcome on Friday. The newspaper put an L-shaped hand to its forehead and gasped, “NZ shock: Losers take power”.

A commentary from Greg Sheridan, headlined “Vanilla election ends with bitter aftertaste”, was equally displeased. The paper’s foreign editor wrote: “The rise of celebrity politicians, the fall of good governments, the terror of the populists – in its mild, vanilla way, this weird New Zealand election outcome has it all.”

Too boring and too dramatic all at the same time. Tough crowd.

The Oz and Sheridan were disappointed in New Zealand, both for a system that elected losers and for throwing away stability.

“Trust the Kiwis. The thought of perhaps 10 years of good government was ultimately unbearable for them,” lamented Sheridan, the blood trickling from his eyes.

The struggle to grasp the design of MMP is understandable – there’s been plenty of that in New Zealand, too. But it seems especially weird coming from a country where the government is literally called “the Coalition”, and the single party with the highest number of seats, Labor, is in opposition. (Don’t @ me on the history of the Lib-Nat alliance.)

And on the stability question? We can live without lectures from a country that changes prime minister faster than Tony Abbott gets into his budgie smugglers.

The Australian Financial Review had a bad take, too, at least in the headline:

After all, if Peters is the Brexit, then we’re exiting Brexitism: NZ First polled almost 20% lower this time than last. It’s like a Brexitexit. (The piece itself was sound.)

Not to be outdone, the preeminent bad take factory, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, chimed in. Columnist Piers Ackerman took a break from bashing gay marriage and immigrants to lampoon the “laughing stock” that New Zealand had become. “Don’t let political correctness stop you from laughing at the latest Kiwi joke — New Zealand’s new Labour government,” he snorted. “And surely it cannot be misogynist to question the skills of the new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the 37-year-old neophyte who now joins the ranks of other weird gen Xers, French President Emanuel Macron, 39, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 45, as a populist novice leader.”

What Piers is trying to say is: “Call me politically correct, call me misogynist, call me anything, just for the love of god someone call me.”

Other choice Ackermanian cuts: “She has reached the heights through the bizarre alchemy of her country’s MMP”; NZ First and the Greens are “two piddling protest parties”; English “was clearly not prepared to compromise the National Party’s record of good stewardship to accommodate the glory-seeking Peters”; Ardern “has happily gone along with the ratbag Left-wing radicals to grab power”; “Australia will gain from an influx of savvy Kiwis who will demonstrate that they are not as flightless as their avian namesakes”; “dole-bludging Kiwis can be expected to leave Australia to take advantage of the Ardern promise to restore a loafers’ paradise”; “NZ’s sheep population and to a lesser extent its cattle will find themselves the uncomfortable butt of even more fart jokes as the NZ power troika move relentlessly toward Labour’s target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050”; random reference to New Zealand “supporting a large population of Pacific Islanders”.

(Although to give him credit Ackerman did successfully dupe me by asserting that New Zealanders call the Tasman Sea the “Dutch”, which I denounced as an idiotic confusion based on Abel Tasman’s nationality until a colleague gently pointed out that it was a dig at the Kiwi accent.)

The Australian wasn’t taking this challenge to its worst-take crown lying down, however, and swiftly responded with this:

And this:

Aaaaand this:

Thank you, Australia! We can delight in your bad-taking, sigh smugly at your antediluvian attitudes, snark at your –

What?

Oh.