Cartoonist's talent put to the test

Visitors to the University’s Rugby World Cup webpages will be treated to a weekly comic strip entitled Blackbird thanks to cartooning talents of accountant Steve Scott.

Mr Scott is passionate about cartooning and has been honing his style and skills for more than 20 years. The first of his weekly instalments of Rugby World Cup strips for the University’s world cup website was uploaded last week and will continue for the duration of the tournament.

Mr Scott graduated from Massey in 1988 and has worked for the University ever since, based in Manawatu and, since 2001, Wellington. A Beatle’s fanatic Mr Scott’s cartoonist nom de plume is C-Moon, the name of a song Paul McCartney wrote for Wings.

“In the 60s people were called square or L7," Mr Scott says. "The song is about the opposite of that – a circle made up of a "C"’ and [crescent] moon shape moon. The song is about how we all have potential.”

Mr Scott took an interest in comic strips at an early age. “My mother kept my first cartoon, I did it when I was six.” It wasn’t until the mid 1980s during his university years that he became a serious exponent, creating hand drawn black and white strips with a student life focus. In the 1990s he had a long-running strip published in the Manawatu Standard from the perspective of someone who observed life and commented on it, with the same name as another Paul McCartney composition, the Beatles' The fool on the hill.

In the early 2000s his comic focus moved to romance including florist cards. For the past six years sport has been his main focus. “My style has developed over the years with technology. Now I use computer colouring and digital photography.”

Since May he has had a weekly Rugby World Cup-focussed strip published in Hawke's Bay Today newspaper.

He is passionate about cartooning and believes that to become successful you have to persevere and keep focussed. “The great thing about cartooning is that you can create your own world and have total control over it. Ideally I’d like to be a cartoonist full-time. I always refer to a quote from Winston Churchill – 'never give up, never, never, never, never'.”

View Mr Scott’s Rugby World Cup cartoon strip for Massey here: http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/rugby-world-cup-2011/en/rugby-world-cup-2011_home.cfm

Visit Mr Scott’s website here: http://www.cmoon.co.nz/

Listen to C-Moon here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x--x_5hu7Q

Listen to the fool on the hill here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkGVccgJrA