When George and Dragon quarrel over a pile of treasure

Andy Fanton's medieval comic strips have always thrived on the awkward gap between what a knight thinks is his and what a fire-breathing neighbour reckons belongs to them. In George vs Dragon, the squire is forever poking holes in the dragon's title deeds, and the dragon is forever pointing out that squires don't exactly come with deeds at all.

Most episodes of the strip end with a tantrum, a singed shield, or both. Yet few have sparked quite the same row as the one in which the pair argue over treasure ownership, because the pile in question looks suspiciously like it came from a dragon's hoard, but also suspiciously like it could have been dropped by a passing pilgrim.

The discovery that started it all

The argument kicks off in a cave on the edge of the kingdom, the kind of damp, echoey cavern that most squires would simply walk past. George is hunting mushrooms for the castle pot, Dragon is snoozing on a cushion of old gold, and both of them notice the same glint at the same moment.

The squire picks up a single coin and declares the whole mound royal property, on the grounds that anything within shouting distance of a castle is technically castle territory. The dragon rolls one lazy eyelid open and reminds him that the castle itself was built from stones the dragon had been using as a pillow. The argument, like most of Fanton's medieval comedy, is off to the races.

A squire's case for squire's rights

George spends the next panel laying out his claim with the sort of bureaucratic enthusiasm that would make a conveyancer blush. He produces a hand-drawn map, an unsigned lease, and a story about how his great-grandmother once buried a thimble somewhere nearby, which he reckons gives him ancestral claim to everything within a day's ride.

It is pure cartooned logic, the kind of stretch that Fanton uses to skewer the pomposity of property law. The squire insists the dragon has no documentation, no receipts, and no business being on this side of the mountain without a permit, even though the mountain is, historically, the dragon's mountain.

The dragon's defence of ancient ownership

Dragon, who has been collecting things for several centuries, takes a much more relaxed view. He points out, with admirable calm, that the gold has been there since long before the castle existed, that the cave was his bachelor pad before George was a twinkle in his father's squirehood, and that ownership is mostly a matter of who was there first and who can nap through a thunderstorm without flinching.

He also notes, somewhat cuttingly, that the squire's map appears to be drawn on the back of a menu from a medieval tavern. The strip thrives on this sort of deadpan put-down, the dragon delivering his lines with the weary patience of a landlord dealing with yet another rent complaint.

Medieval customs in the Australian bush

Fanton has often said his best gags arrive while he is somewhere far from the medieval setting he draws, and many of his Australian readers will recognise the rhythm of the argument from disputes that flare up over opal claims in Coober Pedy, where miners argue for decades over who sank which shaft first. The town itself sits on a stretch of South Australian desert that produces most of the world's precious opal, and the rules of who owns what down a mine shaft are not so different from who owns what down a dragon's cave.

There is also a faintly Australian flavour to the way the characters carry on. George whinges the way a battler might whinge at a regional footy match, and Dragon answers with the laconic shrug of someone who has already lost three wives and a decent ute to circumstances beyond his control. The combination of medieval costume and antipodean temperament is what gives the strip its charm.

When the magic number reads like an Aussie lotto draw

The argument takes a turn when the treasure is counted and the total comes to a number that looks suspiciously like a Powerball entry. George gets dreamy-eyed at the possibilities, while Dragon calculates how many more centuries of napping the hoard would fund if invested wisely, perhaps even applying some of the thinking that goes into bank craps best bets when sizing up a long shot. The medieval setting dissolves for a panel, and the joke lands harder for it.

It is the kind of gag that Fanton slips into his strips when he wants the reader to pause and picture the characters living in 2026, paying off a mortgage in Wollongong, or queueing for a flat white in Fitzroy while a dragon's gold sits in a high-interest account earning next to nothing in real terms.

Voice acting and the verbose villain

A small but loyal fanbase follows the audio versions of the strip, where the dragon's voice has settled into something between a weary Centrelink hold announcement and a tired old bush barrister. The squire, meanwhile, sounds like every freshly minted real estate agent in Sydney's eastern suburbs, full of jargon and absolutely no experience. Fans on slow Sunday arvos can be found debating who should voice the next animated short.

Fanton has hinted that a longer animated sketch could be in the works, and the treasure row would translate beautifully to audio. The pacing is already there, with the dragon's long pauses making room for the squire's increasingly shrill interruptions. Anyone interested in how performers reinvent themselves across mediums might also enjoy reading how Khanyi Mbau's music debut took shape, since the same willingness to try something new runs through Fanton's own body of work.

Why fans cannot get enough of the argument

The reason the treasure dispute keeps getting revisited is simple: everyone has had a row about who owns what. Whether it is a beach towel at Bondi, a parking bay in Brunswick, or the last snag at a community barbie, Australians understand the deep silliness of staking a claim and defending it with great seriousness. George and Dragon simply do it in chainmail and with bigger piles of gold.

Fanton knows exactly how to keep the argument fresh. Each retelling shifts the evidence, swaps the documentation, and lets the dragon find new ways to look unbothered while the squire loses another layer of composure. It is a formula that has worked across Boo!, Carrotty Kid, and Bad Grandad, and it sits at the heart of why George vs Dragon remains a quiet favourite in The Dandy's back catalogue.

Catch every new strip on Andy Fanton's site, where the medieval mud-slinging continues weekly. Subscribe for drawings, written bits, and the occasional television project, and keep an eye out for the next instalment of the treasure dispute, which is rumoured to involve a very small lawyer and a slightly larger gemstone.