Jim Lynch - the man behind the James cartoons

UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE: Cartoonist Jim Lynch with a copy of his book Drawing The Days Of Blunder & Lightning.

One day, urged on by a workmate, Jim Lynch took a bunch of his cartoons into the office of the Taranaki Daily News in New Plymouth and asked the editor, Rash Avery, if he could create some cartoons for the newspaper. The editor agreed. The cartoons were a hit.

His main work at the Social Welfare Department took Jim to Wellington where he saw an ad in the metropolitan New Zealand Times seeking a cartoonist. Editor Bob Fox took him aboard.

Between 1980 and 1986 Jim, who now lives in Waikanae, was a practising political cartoonist with almost 500 items published in the New Zealand Times as well as provincial newspapers Taranaki Daily News and Manawatu Evening Standard.

His cartoons simply had the byline James because "I didn't want to go to my boss and ask if I could have secondary employment as a political cartoonist".

Jim, who took the runner up prize in the cartooning section of the prestigious Qantas Press Awards in 1982, was invited in 2012 to lodge his body of work with the Cartoon Archive in the Alexander Turnbull Library.

"That's a reasonably select group actually -- I think there's only about 60 cartoonists ever involved in it."

While compiling the archive material, which took quite a while, he was struck by the commentary it made on what was unquestionably a dramatic period of New Zealand's history with things like the decline of the Muldoon government, the rise of the Lange government, Think Big, Springbok tour, ANZUS, union troubles, Rainbow Warrior bombing , GST, nuclear free debate, Rogernomics, and more.

"The whole period was exciting," says Jim, who liked to inject humour or irony into his cartoons.

"Stuff was going on all over the place."

So he approached publishing company Steele Roberts Wellington with the book idea, they agreed, and now Drawing the Days of Blunder & Lightning has just been published.

The book is a unique mix of semi autobiography, cartooning art practice, historical commentary and cartoon compendium.

Included in the book is one of his favourite cartoons, an edgy one, that Bob Fox wouldn't publish in the New Zealand Times -- it features John Kirk, the son of former Prime Minister Norman Kirk, who got into a bit of strife.

"I've always regarded that as a bit of a beauty."

Jim loved his time as a political cartoonist before other interests took over which consumed his time -- his main employment had become more interesting, he had a strong passion for music, and he proposed the idea for a sanctuary in Wellington which would become the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary now known as Zealandia.

"Cartooning was really just an interest.

"You never made any money out of it.

"You only did it because it was an interesting thing to do."

Drawing the Days of Blunder & Lightning is available from PaperPlus Coastlands or by emailing jimeve@xtra.co.nz or phoning 04 293 5587.