Mark Knight

Mark Knight (born c. 1960s) is the editorial cartoonist for the Herald Sun, a daily tabloid in Melbourne, Australia. Knight was also the last editorial cartoonist for one of the Herald Sun's joint predecessor newspapers, the afternoon broadsheet The Herald

Knight created Leuk the Duck, short for Leukemia, a children's mascot for the Challenge cancer foundation which has subsequently been used in the organization's educational material.

Knight was born and raised in Sydney. He grew up in Lakemba, attended Wiley Park Primary School, then Narwee Boys' High School. He showed an early interest in drawing which was encouraged by his artistic father. Knight's first cartoons were of his family and their idiosyncrasies, drawn at family gatherings. When he was six years old, Knight's father bought him Paul Rigby's cartoon annual of 1967; Rigby's work influence his artwork for many years. He created scrapbooks of Rigby's cartoons cut from The Daily Telegraph, and studied and imitated them while developing his cartooning style.

Knight started a cadetship in 1980 in the Fairfax art department, filling in the black squares in the crossword grids. He went to East Sydney Technical College and studied life drawing, painting, drawing and etching.

Knight worked as an editorial cartoonist for The Herald, and later for the Herald Sun after The Herald and The Sun were united in 1990.

In 1999 Knight, alongside Bill Leak and other male political cartoonists were criticised by the Labor Party's deputy leader, Jenny Macklin, who argued that cartoons such as those by Knight and Leak showing Meg Lees in sexual relations with John Howard were demeaning to women politicians.

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