David Ingram profiles the life and times of cartoonist Bob Browne, the "social conscience" of Papua New Guinea.
PORT MORESBY: An era of sorts came to an end this week with the death of cartoonist Bob Browne in Port Moresby General Hospital.
He was the creator of Mista Grasruts (Grass Roots), perhaps Papua New Guinea’s most loved comic character, which the magazine Islands Business once called “the social conscience of PNG”.
Browne’s life and work could almost be read as an allegory of change in the Pacific Islands’ largest nation. Browne arrived in PNG as a British volunteer in 1971 when the country was preparing excitedly for independence and he stayed with his adopted homeland through thick and thin until his death.
It is tempting to write that he saw the country change beyond recognition in the intervening 40 years but he also witnessed its failure to advance in some important ways, especially in areas of social justice and the fight against corruption, both issues which he and his sidekick Grass Roots cared deeply about in their own ways.
Roots became the Papua New Guinean Everyman, the knock-about character with a heart of gold, a belly full of beer and a thick skull where his long-suffering wife, Agnes, berated his foolishness with her famous “sospen” - a heavy saucepan. - Pacific Media Centre/DogBitesMan/Pacific Media Watch
* The funeral took place at Port Moresby"s Waigani Bethel Church today. Read David Ingram's full tribute on Pacific Media Centre Online:
http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/articles/tribute-creator-pngs-much-loved-mista-grasruts
Pacific Media Watch
