I want you to imagine trying to break into an
intensely male -dominated industry. Which is
tough enough on its own. Right, but imagine doing
it in the 1920s. And you don't just break in,
you actually succeed. Only to face, well, just
a string of... personal tragedies. Exactly. And
then having to literally relearn your entire
craft from scratch. It sounds like fiction, honestly.
It really does. But welcome to another deep dive.
Today, we are looking at the extraordinary, really
just remarkably resilient life of Australian
comic book artist, illustrator, and fashion artist,
Marie Horstman. Though her readers knew her as
Molly. Right, Molly Horseman. And we're basing
today's discussion on a biographical Wikipedia
article about her life and her work. It is a
fantastic source for this. It is. Because our
mission today is to uncover exactly how she navigated
global travels, family breakups, single motherhood,
and eventually physical paralysis to become one
of Australia's most legendary female cartoonists.
And you really have to view this entire deep
dive as a masterclass in adaptability. Oh, 100%.
Because by the end of this, I guarantee you we'll
view your own setbacks in a completely different
light. Okay, let's unpack this. Because her childhood
really sets the stage for that exact adaptability
you're talking about. It really does. She was
born Marie Compton Horseman on December 9th,
1911. This is in Rochester, Victoria, to a farmer
named Frederick and his wife Catherine, who had
migrated from Yorkshire. So a rural, fairly traditional
setup at first. Yeah, but then in 1924, everything
shifts. Her parents separate. Which in the 1920s
was a massive deal. The social safety nets for
separated families just, well, they didn't really
exist. Right. So Marie ends up traveling with
her mother to England and then eventually to
Germany. That is quite the pivot. Seriously.
And I'm just picturing the juxtaposition here.
Her mother manages a canteen for the British
Army. Following the First World War. Yeah. And
meanwhile, Marie is attending a German finishing
school. The contrast there is just wild. It's
like two different universes. But that is exactly
what makes it so important for her future career.
If you think about what makes a great cartoonist,
it's observational skills. Just people watching.
Exactly. Reading the room, going from a rural
Australian farm to a rough -and -tumble British
military canteen, and then straight into a highly
formalized German finishing school. You'd have
to learn the unspoken social rules of each place
really fast. You'd be an outsider everywhere
you went. which is the absolute best training
ground for a future satirist. So she's absorbing
all of this. And eventually, they return to Australia
in the late 1920s. Oh, and fun fact, her parents
didn't officially divorce until 1933. Just goes
to show how painfully slow and complex those
legal proceedings were back then. Definitely.
But back in Australia, Marie gets a job as a
governess. Right. And she's working for the daughters
of the famous Australian artist Norman Lindsay.
Talk about being in the right place at the right
time. Exactly. Because Lindsay actually notices
her drawing talent. And he doesn't just say,
oh, nice sketch. He actively recommends she attend
the National Art School. Which is huge validation
from a major figure. So she goes. She attends
East Sydney Technical College. She gets heavily
influenced by the sculptor Reinerhoff. But then
she has to drop out. Which is just so common,
unfortunately. Yeah, it was purely for financial
reasons. The cost of just living while trying
to study art can be a total wall for creatives.
But the hustle here is real. Dropping out didn't
stop her at all. Because by 1929, Marie and another
artist, Joan Morrison, make history. They do.
They become the first female cartoonist to be
permanently employed at Smith Weekly. Now, if
we connect this to the bigger picture, you have
to look at the date. 1929. Right when the Great
Depression is hitting. Exactly. Jobs are vanishing.
Newspapers are slashing budgets. And the industry
is entirely an old boys club. So the door wasn't
just open for women. Not at all. A young woman
who just had to drop out of school because she
couldn't afford it, securing a salaried cartoonist
role in 1929. She and John didn't walk through
an open door. They kicked it down. It's just
undeniable talent. It had to be. And her personal
life is moving just as fast. In 1931, she marries
William Longford Power. He was an articled clerk,
so like an apprentice lawyer. They have a son,
Roderick. But by 1938, they are divorced. Which
leaves her as a single mother working in the
1930s. Yeah. We really shouldn't gloss over that.
The societal stigma against divorced women then
was heavy. And there's no institutional support.
None. Her art wasn't just a passion project anymore.
It was literal survival for her and her son.
Well, here's where it gets really interesting.
Because you'd think she might slow down. But
she doesn't. Not even close. Just a month after
her divorce in 1938, she remarries. This time
to Nelson Illingworth. The grandson of the sculptor.
Yep. And they go on to have four more children.
One son and three daughters. But eventually this
marriage ends in divorce, too. So now the stakes
are even higher. Much higher. By the 1940s, she's
moved to Brisbane. And she's a single mother,
raising five children, completely reliant on
freelance illustration to pay the bills. It's
staggering to think about. She is just relentlessly
freelancing. She's drawing for Man Magazine.
Then she's doing stuff for the Australian Woman's
Mirror. She's even in Ridge's Business Journal
doing a strip called The Tipple Twins. It is...
Brilliant portfolio diversification. Spreading
her bets. Exactly. She's in men's entertainment,
women's domestic magazines, and corporate journals.
If one market crashes, she still has income.
But just imagine the physical toll of that output.
Right, because there's no email. There are no
digital tablets. She is physically sketching,
inking, and mailing massive illustration boards
across the country. While managing a house with
five kids, you don't have time for a writer's
block in that scenario. You produce on command.
And all that relentless production really set
her up for her biggest break. Though it happened
under really tragic circumstances. It did. In
1946, she joins the Courier Mail. And around
this time, a cartoonist named Gene Cullen tragically
dies by suicide. Just devastating for the community.
Absolutely. Cullen had been drawing a comic strip
called Pam. And after she passes, Marie is asked
to take it over in the Sunday Mail. Plus, another
strip called The Clothes Horse in the Sydney
Morning Herald. The emotional weight of that
is just immense. I can't even imagine. Taking
over a syndicated strip is already high pressure.
But taking it over because your colleague took
their own life. Yeah, you have to honor their
legacy while trying to make it your own. And
comfort a grieving readership. It's an incredibly
delicate balance. But she managed it. She made
Pam her defining work. That strip ran for over
11 years. 11 years of syndication is no joke.
Let's talk about that. Syndication is just a
weekly content mill, right? How do you not burn
out? You treat it like a highly disciplined trade.
Syndication is a furnace that always needs coal.
You finish one week, you immediately owe the
next. So you need a really efficient visual shorthand.
And a bottomless well of ideas. To keep a strip
popular for over a decade proves she was an absolute
master of the medium. And she's doing this while
moving her five kids to Avalon in 1957. Up in
the northern beaches of Sydney. Yeah. So maybe
a bit quieter. But into the 1960s, she doesn't
just rest on her laurels. She starts shaking
things up. She gets playful. Very. She starts
contributing to everybody's magazine. sometimes
anonymously, sometimes using the pen named Vanessa.
And the Vanessa stuff is very different from
Pam. Completely different. She's drawing these
weekly, full -page, sexy man cartoons. And in
1964, she does a serial called Girl Crusoe. Which
is such a brilliant move. It's a direct parody
of the Good Girl Cheesecake comic trope. What's
fascinating here is how she actively flipped
the script on the whole industry. Because the
cheesecake genre was huge then. Huge. And mostly
drawn by men. For men. It was always conventionally
attractive women in these absurd, perilous situations.
Running from aliens. Clothes mysteriously tearing.
Exactly. It was the visual standard of male -dominated
comic culture. So by drawing these sexy man cartoons,
she's turning that whole concept upside down.
She's using the industry's visual language against
itself. Was it just for laughs or was she making
a real critique? Oh, it was definitely a critique.
She was subverting the male gaze in media by
reversing the genders. It let her show off her
technical skills while basically winking at the
audience about how ridiculous the standard tropes
were. And the industry honestly didn't know what
to do with her. In 1963... Everybody's magazine
published an article calling her Australia's
only woman cartoonist. Which we know from the
sources is factually wrong. Right. There were
other women. But it shows you so much about media
perception. When someone from an underrepresented
group reaches that level of undeniable success,
the media often frames them as a total anomaly.
Like she's the only one who could possibly do
it. Right. Culturally, she was viewed as a singular,
unrivaled phenomenon, the absolute benchmark.
So she rides this wave through the 60s in Avalon.
Then she makes another shift. Late 60s, she moves
back to Brisbane and pivots to book illustration.
Working for Jacaranda Press. Yeah. And she illustrates
Cath Walker's My People. Now better known as
Ujuru Nunukul. Exactly. A profoundly important
Aboriginal Australian poet and activist. This
just highlights another layer of her adaptability.
She can do witty newspaper strips, subversive
magazine parodies, and then seamlessly transition
into serious illustration for deeply significant
cultural works. It requires a totally different
visual register. A different emotional register
entirely. It really just shows the sheer breadth
of her talent. After this, she finally decides
to step back from the commercial grind. She earned
it. She retires to the Blue Mountains to paint
landscapes. It sounds like the perfect, peaceful
culmination of a crazy career. But life rarely
gives you a perfectly smooth ending. No, it doesn't.
In 1973, she gets hit by a car. Just awful. The
physical trauma causes a stroke. and the stroke
paralyzes her right hand. Her drawing hand. Her
dominant hand. The tools she used to survive
for over 40 years, gone. I'd just try to put
myself in her shoes in that hospital. It's a
profound psychological blow. For most people,
that would be the end of the story. You'd just
rest. You'd say, I've done enough, I'll put the
pens down. But not Marie. At over 60 years old,
having survived a major accident and a stroke,
she sits down and teaches herself how to draw
all over again. With her left hand. With her
left hand, it's unreal. It is the ultimate display
of resilience. We always say that knowledge and
passion are only valuable when applied. Her drive
to create wasn't just muscle memory in her right
hand. It's part of who she was. A deeply ingrained
need. To rewire your brain to do fine motor skills
on your non -dominant side, especially after
a stroke, takes a level of willpower that is
just astonishing. It's an awe -inspiring final
chapter. She eventually passed away on May 7th,
1974 at the age of 62 in the Blue Mountains,
leaving behind this massive legacy. Thousands
of illustrations. And a trail blazed for women
in the arts. So what does this all mean for you
listening to this deep dive today? It's about
how you handle roadblocks. Exactly. Her life
proves that a nonlinear path is still a path
forward. Financial issues forcing you to drop
out. Shifting family dynamics leaving you on
your own. Massive physical setbacks. None of
it has to be the end of your story. When you
face something insurmountable, think of Molly.
Ask yourself, how can I learn to draw with my
left hand? How can I pivot and adapt? It does
raise one really tragic question, though. Oh.
The idea of ephemeral art. Look at the medium
she dominated. Newspapers, weekly magazines.
Things meant to be thrown away. Exactly. Yeah.
Right over coffee, then used to wrap fish or
light a fire. Trailblazers like her did their
most culture -shifting work on cheap, disposable
paper. Not painted on a canvas for a museum.
Right. So we have to wonder how much brilliant,
groundbreaking daily art from artists like Molly
has just crumbled. That is a haunting perspective.
To think her sharpest observations might be gone
just because nobody saved a Tuesday paper from
the 1940s. It really forces you to look at media
differently. It really does. Which leaves you
with something to ponder on your own. Take a
look at the content you consume daily, the quick
videos, newsletters, digital art on your feed.
What everyday disposable media are we consuming
today that will one day be viewed as a lost cultural
treasure? What are we scrolling past and throwing
away right now that future historians will be
desperate to find? It's worth thinking about.
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep
adapting, keep observing, and we will catch you
next time.