John Spooner
John Spooner (born 1946 in Melbourne) is an Australian journalist and illustrator known for his cartoons in The Age. He studied law at Monash University (B.Juris, LLB) and practised for three years before starting to draw for The Age in 1974. He left the law in 1977 to work as a full-time cartoonist.
Spooner's drawings are in major collections across Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, and the State Library of Victoria, among others. His books include A Spooner in the Works (1999) and Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies about Climate Change (2013), co-authored.
He has won many awards: five Stanley Awards (including Black and White Artist of the Year), two Walkley Awards in 1994 for Best Illustration and Best Cartoon, the Fremantle Print Award (joint winner) in 1986, and the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award in 2002. Spooner left The Age in May 2016 after redundancies at Fairfax Media. In 2018 he published What the Hell Was He Thinking? John Spooner's Guide to the 21st Century. He joined The Australian as an editorial cartoonist in 2019.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:12 (CET).