Leunig was born in East Melbourne in 1945, a slaughterman's son and the second eldest of five children. He was educated at various state schools, kitchen tables, paddocks, rubbish tips, loopholes and abattoirs in Melbourne's industrial Western suburbs. Enid Blyton, Arthur Mee, Salinger, Milligan and The Beatles were early creative influences and his political consciousness intensified radically upon reading his notice of military conscription sent to him from the Australian government in 1965.

He fled from formal education and pursued a successful career as a factory labourer and meatworker where he nurtured his art and philosophy before beginning work as a daily newspaper cartoonist in Melbourne in 1969. The Penguin Leunig, his first book of collected cartoons, was published in 1974 and since then he has produced twenty more collections including books of poetry and prayer.

Leunig lives near Violet Town. How would you like to spend a day with him?