Judy Horacek

She has been a regular cartoonist for newspapers including The Age newspaper, The Canberra Times, The Australian and The Australia Institute Newsletter. Horacek's latest book is Now or Never (2020), her tenth cartoon collection. She received the 2024 Stanley Award for Single Gag Cartoonist. In 2005, a selection of her work was acquired by the National Library of Australia for its collection. She said at the time that "I really like being recognised for having done work that is part of the social discourse.

• Name — Judy Horacek • Born — 1961 • Birthplace — Melbourne, Australia • Occupation — Comic book/strip artist, illustrator • Website — https: horacek.com.au/

Horacek graduated with a BA from the University of Melbourne in 1991, majoring in Fine Arts and English. She then studied for a Diploma in Museum Studies at Victoria University. In 2007, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) in Printmedia and Drawing from Australian National University. She lives in Melbourne.

Horacek started her career as a writer, and was a member of a community writing group in North Melbourne. Words are an important part of her cartoons, and sometimes dominate the pictures. Her stories have appeared in a number of anthologies. After collaborating on a children's picture book with Mem Fox, she began to write and illustrate her own children's books, something she had always wanted to do, in addition to continuing to work with Mem Fox.

"My life has been a quest to find new and better place to stick cartoons", Horacek has said. Accordingly, her cartoons can be found in newspapers and magazines, online, on various merchandise items and as limited edition prints. Her cartoons have been described as whimsical and quirky. As she says, "I take every day situations and make them strange" It was her interest in feminism which "drove Horacek's early work and established her reputation as a cartoonist". Since then, in addition to an ongoing interest in women's issues, her cartoons have covered a wide range of social and political issues such as the environment, climate change, the Australian Republican Movement, immigration, indigenous issues and FlyBuys. Cartoonist Peter Nicholson describes her work as follows: For most of her professional life her cartoons have been more on the theme of people's everyday lives and worries. When this is your subject matter you start in more of a vacuum. You need a powerful imagination, a great sense of humour, a real understanding of the human condition and you must have something to say... there is an advantage to this type of cartoon. It has lasting value. Horacek's first commissioned work for The Age newspaper was published on International Women's Day 1995, next to the obituary of Senator Olive Zakharov. This was her cartoon, Woman with Altitude, a work which has since appeared on fridge magnets greeting cards, tea-towels and T-shirts. In 2007, she said that "The woman with altitude... represents who we could be". At various times she has had regular spots in such newspapers and magazines as The Age, The Weekend Australian Magazine, The Canberra Times, the Australian Book Review, the Australia Institute newsletter and currently The Monthly.

Horacek has regularly shown her prints and watercolour painting in commercial galleries in solo and group exhibitions. She has had retrospectives at the National Gallery of Victoria, Laughter, the Universe and Everything, which toured regional Victoria, and at the National Museum of Australia, the exhibition I am woman hear me draw in 2002. This exhibition toured throughout Australia.

• Mary Jane: living through anorexia and bulimia nervosa / Sancia Robinson with Foong Ling Kong and cartoons by Judy Horacek (1996) • The women's power pocket book / Joan Kirner and Moira Rayner with illustrations by Judy Horacek (2000) • Reading Magic: how your child can learn to read before school and other important things / Mem Fox with illustrations by Judy Horacek (2001; 2004, and 2005) • The Night Before Mother's Day, Doug MacLeod, Illustrated by Judy Horacek (2012) • Worked with Flying Fruit Flies circus to produce Girls with Altitude circus show using her cartoons. • Horacek worked as Visual Art Director on Monkey Baa Theatre Company's theatre production of ‘‘Where is the Green Sheep?’’ which premiered in Brisbane in 2025, and is currently touring Australia with locations including the Sydney Opera House. • Horacek created and performed her cartoon slide show, Everyone on the Bus Fell Down (Not Just Me) at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2026.