But there was one in particular that stood out to The Courier’s own cartoonist John Ditchburn. 

Ditchburn believes The Canberra Times cartoonist David Pope’s work should be the hot favourite for a Walkley Award. 

“It is fantastic, I saw it at 8.30am this morning,” he said. 

“You know it is a good cartoon when other cartoonists know it’s a good cartoon and think, ‘I should have drawn that’. 

“I think that it was so succinctly put together, I would make a bet that will win a Walkley.”

The cartoon became popular on Twitter and has been viewed around the world. 

However, Ditchburn said it wasn’t easy to draw cartoons about such tragedies, with the event deeply saddening him. 

“It is always very hard with violence involved and the emotion levels are so sky high,” he said. 

While many people have said they believe this tragic event may create a challenge for freedom of speech, Ditchburn didn’t believe this would be the case. 

“In 2014, 61 journalists were killed in the course of their duty – most of them were not killed by jihadist extremists but by dictatorships and corrupt governments. That doesn’t deter journalists,” he said.

“They will always be out there pushing the envelope. What concerns me about something like this event is that there will be yet more calls for more draconian laws, to control, and I think that is the wrong way to go.” 

matthew.dixon@fairfaxmedia.com.au