Cartooning the inverse zoo: The forgotten comic art of Kurt Wiese

Abstract

Kurt Wiese, one of the most celebrated children’s book illustrators in America during the interwar period, began his artistic career in an unlikely way: as a cartoonist in a dusty World War I internment camp in rural Australia. Wiese was a German citizen who had been working as a merchant in China before being turned over to the British at the start of the war. He became one of more than 5,000 civilian ‘enemy aliens’ who were interned in Australia between 1914 and 1919, and he used this time to become an artist (Monteath 2018). His first published work in what would be a half-century career were for the Kamp Spiegel, a weekly newspaper published by the internees. In one cartoon from 30 July 1916, a German prisoner’s eyes stare past strands of barbed wire to meet the gaze of a kangaroo who gazes back like a reflection. Their eyes mirror each other: beady pinprick dots under the eaves of arched eyebrows. This cartoon brings Wiese’s career-spanning fascination with the relationship between humanity and animals into sharp focus alongside the experience of living in an internment camp.