ABSTRACT

In “The awful party,” cartoonist Michael Leunig shows a person looking glumly out the window of a bleak room, nursing a drink. On the bare floorboards behind him sit several large baskets, each containing a few people of distinctly off-putting appearance. Attached to each basket is a sign: “Too hard,” “Too pathetic,” “Too boring,” “Too strange,” and so on. Through the window, the night sky looks sullen and starless.