Bill Leak is gone. What a huge, shocking loss

Logged in to Twitter earlier today. Saw that "Bill Leak" was trending and thought nothing of it. Assumed that he'd offended the #Auspol trollective yet again with another hilarious, incisive and beautifully rendered cartoon. Finally got around to clicking on his name and saw that he had died.

Almost couldn't believe it. He'd only just launched his new book, with none other than Sir Les Patterson in attendance! And he didn't look like a candidate for a heart attack, being so thin and all ... But tragically he's really gone.

It's with a heavy heart that we report our editorial cartoonist Bill Leak has died, aged 61. https://t.co/nTStencyKw pic.twitter.com/JwqARQaJkk

— The Australian (@australian) March 10, 2017

Some of his supporters are already blaming his death on the stress of the appalling witch hunt waged against him by the AHRC using Section 18c of the RDA. While I can understand why they take this view, frankly I think that's way too early and simplistic.

Needless to say, purportedly compassionate lefties on Twitter and elsewhere are revealing their mean-spiritedness by gleefully tweeting about his unexpected demise.

Bill Leak dead? Great! Good riddance to the misogynist, homophobic, racist trash. Plenty people ready to line up to piss on his grave.🖕🏻

— AngryGranny (@AngryGranny1) March 10, 2017

There are countless hate tweets like this. They are depressing, and sinister. Hell, he was a bloody cartoonist!

You can understand people being happy at the demise of a child killer, mass murderer or tyrannical politician. But some guy who drew funny pictures? FFS ...

This vile reaction from the Left says a lot about where they're heading. Boy have they gone off course! Back in the day, it was lefties who were the rebellious ratbags. They were the ones who incisively mocked powerful, po-faced, censorious institutions. Now they blindly support them, doing their utmost to bully dissenting voices into silence

As an example of the extent to which political correctness has corroded and dumbed down our culture, check out this tweet from an SBS employee. In it she implicitly accuses the late artist of a kind of "murder by cartoon". Fact that she's a purported comedian herself proves that in Australia's MSM at least, satire really is dead.

If only the deaths of the victims of Bill Leak's racism got as much news and attention as his has.

— Nakkiah Lui (@nakkiahlui) March 10, 2017

And even though many of these sad trolls are calling Leak right-wing and conservative, he never struck me as being strongly ideological in that way -- or any other for that matter. He was just a brilliant artist with a finely honed bullshit detector. He could cut right through to the heart of a complex political issue and rip his target's hypocrisy to ribbons with his elegant brushstrokes. His verbal skill was just as awesome, too. And he managed to do all of that consistently and make you laugh out loud as well! 

The bloke had an awesome, unique talent and his death has left one helluva big hole in our culture. What a massive, tragic loss.