has alter-egos including "The Grey Ghost" and "The Iron Paw". Ball's Footrot Flats has appeared in syndication in international newspapers, and in over 40 published books. Footrot Flats inspired a stage musical, a theme-park and New Zealand's first feature-length animated film, Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale (1986). Footrot Flats characters include Wal, Dog, Cooch, Cheeky Hobson, Aunt Dolly, Horse, Pongo, Rangi, Charlie, Major, Jess and the Murphy family of Irish and Hunk and Spit.Footrot Flats features several remarkable traits: its expansive created-universe, complete with ancillary characters, things and places; the fact that the characters slowly but perceptibly age and mature throughout the twenty-year run of the comic; and the gradual encroachment of political themes over the years (particularly environmentalism and gentle parodies of feminism). Ball said he wanted his cartoons to have an impact. "The heart of a cartoon is the idea, an artist can create a painting, hang it on the wall and be satisfied with what he has achieved even if no-one else sees it. In cartooning, you must get a human reaction to the idea. The task of the cartoonist is to translate his idea into a drawing that will have impact". Death Ball lived with his wife Pam on a rural property in Gisborne, New Zealand. In an interview on Radio New Zealand National on 27 January 2016, Pam said that Murray's health had been poor for the last six years and that he was suffering from dementia. Longtime friend and collaborator Tom Scott said that on Sunday, 12 March 2017, he had been advised that Ball had died. He is survived by his wife and children. Bibliography In addition to his cartoon collections, Ball wrote and illustrated eight books: Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest, a satirical look at New Zealand rugby Migod! It's Bruce the Barbarian The People Makers (1970) The Sisterhood (1993) The Flowering of Adam Budd Quentin Hankey: Traitor Tarzan, Gene Kelly And Me (2001) – approximately, an autobiography. Fred the (Quite) Brave MouseBall also wrote a large-format illustrated novel whose verse parodied the Australian bush-ballad as popularised by Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson. Titled The Ballad of Footrot Flats, it was published in 1996. Originally intended as a second film script, this work was the first new Footrot material which Ball had published since 1994. It was the last of the Footrot series. Interests Murray Ball and Charles M. Schulz