New Zealand cartoonist Murray Ball has died at the age of 78 after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Ball was best known for his long-running strip Footrot Flats, a skewed exploration of farm life seen through the eyes of a sheep dog.

The strip ran in newspapers across the world from 1976 until 1994, and even spawned a musical, an animated film and a theme park.

The cover of Footrot Flats, a book by Murray Ball. ( Supplied )

As the characters developed, Ball's cartoons appeared in over 200 papers in New Zealand and Australia.

Ball's desire was to use his characters to "change the world".

The main character — border collie The Dog — saw himself as intelligent and tough, however, he was often quite soft and cowardly.

Even though he has a real name, he despises it and never allows anyone to reveal it.

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Ball stopped drawing the cartoon in 1995, saying The Dog character would by then be old.

In 1986, his drawing of a NZ fur seal pup was adopted by the United Nations for the International Year of Peace, and in 2002 he received the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to cartooning.

Friend and long-time collaborator Tom Scott told the New Zealand Herald he received a call on Sunday afternoon to say Ball had passed away.

"He was being nursed at home for a terrible illness," he said.

"He was an unbelievably strong, fit, handsome man all his life, with a full head of hair."

New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English said he was "saddened" to hear about the death, and called Ball "a thoughtful" New Zealander.

NZ comedian Cal Wilson also paid tribute to ball on Twitter.

"What a huge part of my childhood," she said.

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