Life and Work
Ball grew up in New Zealand before spending some years in Australia and South Africa, where he attended Parktown Boys' High School and finished his education. As a young man he worked for the Dominion newspaper in Wellington and the Manawatu Times before becoming a freelance cartoonist and moving to England, where he found work with publishers DC Thomson, of Dundee.
He developed his character Stanley and had it published in the influential English humour-magazine Punch. Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero featured a caveman who wore glasses and struggled with the Neolithic environment. It became the longest-running strip in Punch's history, and other English and non-English speaking countries syndicated it. Ball continued to contribute to Punch after returning with his family to New Zealand.
Ball's early cartoons often had political overtones (his mid-70s UK strips included All the King's Comrades, and he described himself in the introduction to The Sisterhood (1993) as a socialist. Stanley often expresses left-wing attitudes).
Ball lives with his wife Pam on a rural property in Gisborne, New Zealand.
His father was All Black Nelson Ball.
Read more about this topic: Murray Ball
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