Interview: Kevan Hardacre

Comic books, like other popular entertainments, offer readers the promise of escape from their everyday world, a brief chance to experience bold adventures in exotic locales, far removed from their own. But what of the writers and artists who create these stories? Is this ‘just a job’ to them, or do they, too, lose themselves in the fantasies they create for others?

For Kevan Henry Hardacre (left), art was an escape from a bleak working life in northern Australia. Born on 23 October 1927, Hardacre grew up in Rockhampton, the so-called ‘Beef Capital of Australia’, in central Queensland.

“I was the most competent student in Lakes Creek Primary School and I went onto sixth grade before being co-opted into work at age 14,” he recalls.

“This time was the late period of the Great Depression and children were required to work by their parents, so that the families could survive with a modicum of decency,” he explains. “World War II was on the way, anyway, and our educators wanted to unload the poor children into work places, and then, into the armed services.”

Kevan’s father, a former health officer with the Rockhampton City Council, found a job for his son with his new employer. “It was the meat processing works at Lakes Creek, on the big, brown, lazy Fitzroy River,” explains Kevan. “It was an ‘essential industry’.”

“I did three rotating shifts from the start. I still feel a weird sense of wonderment remembering the work at night from 11:00 pm until 7:00 am. A big change for a child,” says Kevan.

“I was fearful of the place and the uncouth culture of the workforce, the overt intimidation and the below the belt pervasiveness of it all until, I got the hang of it and was able to hold my own. I knew I was different.”

Even at that young age, Kevan showed a talent for art well beyond that of his peers.

“I was always encouraged to draw by my father and teachers,” he says. “My father would sit us up at night around the big, old, worn communal table and sketch horses and other bush motifs for us, or tell us yarns about his days in the western Queensland bush, outback west.”

“He would talk about shearing sheds and greasy wool, with larrikins and larks – ghost stories, wild stories, adventure,” recalls Kevan. “Places like Barcaldine and Hughenden, Emerald and Longreach and Cloncurry – they crackled into wide-eyed vision out of the arid, wild, wild west.”

Throughout his adolescence, Kevan continued to develop as a completely self-taught artist, while filling his thirst for knowledge about the wider world through books. He read true-life adventure stories, as well as devouring books on natural history and art. Kevan also loved word derivations and always kept a dictionary handy. But, like many teenaged Australian boys growing up in the 1940s, he was ever mindful of conscription and military service.

“I was scheduled for call up when I turned 18-years-old in October 1945, but two months before that date the Americans dropped their nuclear bombs on [two] Japanese cities and that ground the war machine to a shuddering halt.”

Around this time, Kevan secured a job as a window dresser for an advertising contractor, Ted Leach. “He was a bronzed, strong young man, who had returned from army service in the Middle East and, later, New Guinea,” he recalls.

It may not have been the world of art he was seeking, but it offered a way out from what he called “the slaughterhouse blues.”

“I did display work, mainly window dressing, placing large cut outs of Black & White and De Reske Cigarettes up high on the greasy shelves of fish and chip shops and milk bars. Pharmaceutical and cosmetic advertising material was better when installed in much cleaner pharmacies.”

“I traveled a number of times to Gladstone and Mackay doing this work. The work in the chemist shop windows was still arduous, as these windows were extremely hot in the tropical summers. They were airless with tenacious dust always there. It was extremely difficult trying to avoid dropping a sweat blob onto the newly installed crepe paper decorations. One drop and the stretched paper went ‘bling!’ Start again.”

Hardacre, determined to forge some kind of career for himself in the field of art, made the move to the ‘big smoke’ and left Queensland for Sydney in 1949.

“I was prepared to do anything in the line of ‘art’ – whatever ‘art’ means to anyone,” he says. “I was lucky to get into the inner circle of artists then resident in upper and lower George Street and I was offered an opportunity to secure a studio there, in George Street, if I could find the right amount of ‘key money’.”

“The ‘key money’ was to be passed over to the outgoing artist who had initially paid the same amount to the landlord for the right to pay him rent on a small room,” explains Kevan. “I paid £500, a large amount back then, when wages were about £10 to £20 a week. Installed and bunking there illegally, strip-washing from a bucket after hours, and dining from street stalls in Chinatown nearby, I secured some work from Trevor Morgan, the printer on the next floor down.”

Back then, Kevan aspired to join the ranks of artists like Virgil Reilly and Wynne W. Davies, whose full-colour illustrations graced the covers of the tabloid-sized Australian Women’s Weekly, or those cartoonists who, as he puts it, “fearlessly frolicked through the page of The Bulletin magazine, with its pink-paper covers.”

“But no such Olympian triumphs for me; I found that my then skills would only be taken up by the then – proliferating comic book publishers,” he explains. “In the late 1940s, there was a plethora of publications, such as short story magazines, comic books and papers, put out by men trying to get back into ‘civvy’ life after the war and, no doubt, with some ‘rehabilitation’ cash assistance from the government.”

“Syd Nicholls regularly produced a black & white adventure comic with pirate stories [Middy Malone’s Magazine], all by himself – so well drawn, straight off the brush. And there was an historical series [Captain Justice] by Monty Wedd. Len Lawson created some sort of a masked cowboy [The Lone Avenger], before he got caught by his own misdoings and ended up in the caboose. Read about that one!” [i]

One of Kevan’s first comic book assignments was to illustrate a cowboy comic, ‘Trig’ Matson. The blonde gunslinger, described as a “range ‘tec” (range detective), originally appeared in Kayo Comic during 1946-47. Unusually for comics of this period, each strip in Kayo Comic was prefaced with an illustrated page of text, which introduced the plot, with the remainder of the story conveyed in comic strip format. While competently produced, neither a writer nor an artist is named on the original series of ‘Trig’ Matson, as is the case with the magazine’s other comic strips, Ace Gremlin and Nutkey and Professor Mikro.

Kayo Comic was one of several comic book titles issued by Calvert Publications, a company formed by accountant Denny White, which became a prolific publisher of Australian comics and popular fiction novels throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

‘Trig’ Matson was deemed popular enough to be rewarded with his own, self-titled comic book. Kevan Hardacre took over as illustrator of the lead feature, which was supported by Crimebusters, an eccentric trio of adventurers drawn by Michael Trueman, and a new series of Ace Gremlin, an unsigned science-fiction series, which has since been attributed to the illustrator, T. Brand. The 24-page ‘Trig’ Matson comic also managed to squeeze in short stories written by G.C. Bleeck, a prolific Australian ‘pulp fiction’ author.

Although credited solely as the illustrator on ‘Trig’ Matson, Kevan says “I am sure that I also wrote some scripts when I did not care for the libretto.”

When asked how he got the job, Kevan says that “the commission could have come from Arthur Gorfain[ii] or Royce Bradford[iii] at Press Features Service, which operated out of Castlereagh Street, Sydney. I understood that Mr. Gorfain was the owner of the business and that Royce Bradford was the Senior Artist or Art Production Manager.”

Kevan’s next assignment, and the one he would be best remembered for, came about through a chance referral from a fellow artist.

“Someone, possibly John L. Curtis[iv], told me about Peter Gormley[v] and I contacted him. He seemed to be a man with experience in publishing – an ex-journalist, I presumed, urbane and well-dressed, although often, most reticent,” he recalls.

“He [Gormley] was then running a press service securing material for publishers such as Young’s Merchandising. I believe that he had ‘stable’ of creative artists and got new work ready for a client list of publishers.”

“[My next comic], Char Chapman, was born out of a meeting with Peter Gormley, who suggested that I ‘do something like The Phantom comic’, which he said, to my surprise, was the biggest selling comic then published. He proposed that I create a new character with similar appeal, and to write the scripts and draw the artwork.”

“The war was over and, with all that male testosterone running around unbridled, adventurers were re-invading distant places, seeking ongoing adventures and writing about them. One such book, White Stranger[vi], enthralled me, city-bound in Sydney. It was about the white man's rediscovery of ‘the jungles’ in Sarawak and the Celebes, in what is now called Indonesia, and of the wildlife there, some of it human.”

“The word ‘Char’ meant ‘Tiger’ in Malay, I think, and I let it rip,” says Kevan. “The character just bound into life and I was able to draw jungles and pythons and depict much derring-do.”

Char Chapman was a famed big-game hunter and jungle guide who called the wilderness of Southeast Asia his home. However, he was better known to the myriad hill tribes and jungle clans as The Phantom of the East – “respected by peace-lovers – feared by renegades”, as one cover blurb put it. Sporting a pair of goggles and a blue headband, clad in a skin-tight red top emblazoned with an arcane symbol, and complemented by a pair of breeches and riding boots, Char Chapman, despite his eclectic wardrobe, cut an impressively heroic figure.

One is struck by Hardacre’s rapid evolution as an artist during this phase of his career, especially when comparing his early work on ‘Trig’ Matson with those first episodes of Char Chapman. His draftsmanship is much more assured, while his human figures exude energy and movement. And, once he gains an entire comic book to himself, Hardacre becomes more adventurous in his storytelling technique, experimenting with panel compositions and page layouts that better convey his stories’ frenetic action.

Char Chapman – The Phantom of the East[vii] made its debut as a supporting strip in Steel Barr and The Phantom Man Comic, published by Young’s Merchandising Company in 1950[viii]. Steel Barr was a granite-jawed District Commissioner who patrolled the African jungles, battling myriad threats while searching for his elusive opponent, The Phantom Man. Originally created for OPC’s Hurricane Comics series in 1946, writer and illustrator Lloyd Piper[ix] successfully brought his muscular hero to publisher Charles Young’s growing range of comic book titles.

Char Chapman’s adventures frequently took place against the backdrop of the ‘Malayan Emergency’, wherein British and Commonwealth military forces (including elements of Australia’s army and air force) fought against ‘Communist insurgents’ during 1948-1960.

“The Malay people were then trying to stop the British from regaining control of Malaya and Singapore after World War II,” recalls Kevan. “We re-invaded them and frustrated their drive for an independence that they wanted, but which we disallowed. This was done in the name of what we now call ‘security’, which allegedly keeps us safe from other peoples’ striving for independence and human rights.”

“The press was, of course, demonising them and, back then, I naively believed in the media services – and so Chapman was forever defeating the independence fighters. They were then called ‘terrorists’. Sounds familiar? You bet. Today, I would portray Char Chapman on the other side of the fence, as a champion of the people – a freedom fighter, certainly not an agent for neo-imperialism.”

Char Chapman was sufficiently popular for Young’s Merchandising Company to commission a spin-off comic magazine starring Kevan’s hero, which debuted in 1951. The character gained popularity and, as a result, sales increased.

“As I had found that one could not illustrate the fast-moving adventure strip stories where the action is described by script writers, I asked that I be given a free hand – and I got it. I was – and still am – a good visualiser. I roughly pencilled out the panels after jotting down a bare-as-bones scenario and I ad-libbed the dialogue and captions as I went,” he explains. “I could manage a page a day – but John L. Curtis frenetically knocked off three pages each day!”

Sadly, Kevan’s involvement with the Australian comic book industry was all too brief, culminating with Char Chapman – Phantom of the East, which concluded sometime in 1952[x]. But his reasons for leaving the industry were partly economic: “I felt that the publishers paid too little for so much work. But it taught me how to draw and how to work hard at art.”

“I was offered a job at Hudson Publications as a magazine artist, sometime around 1951, I think,” explains Kevan. “Norman O. Hudson then published Outdoors and Fishing and Seacraft magazines. As they prospered, we went on to launch Wheels, Two Wheels, Science To-day and Bride, along with other publications.”

“Initially, I painted covers, retouched photos and did some illustrations, but with the increased number of monthly magazines, we increased the number of in-studio artists – and I was eventually made art director,” he says.

“My job was to study the line-up as presented by the editors and assign the layouts to my artists, as well as commission illustrations with dinki[xi] and typography for headings,” explains Kevan. “Retouching of photographs was a big part of the work, as we printed by letterpress from acid-etched engravings on rough paper, the best then available in those days of short supply. The sizes of photographs and illustrations were strictly controlled, as the engravings were charged by the square inch and the budgets were tight. No big double-page spreads, then.”

Hudson Publications was later bought out by the K.G. Murray Publishing Company, which added Hudson’s titles to its already popular range of consumer and entertainment magazines. After working at Hudson Publications for close to two-and-a-half years, Hardacre re-established himself as a freelance artist, concentrating on the advertising and marketing fields.

He eventually started his own art and design consultancy business, which grew to employ six staff artists over the following two decades.

“We did advertising layouts and brochure designs for some advertising agencies, but I found that it suited my studio best to work directly with the marketing directors of large companies.”

“We designed logos and point-of-sale display units which we fabricated in various materials, from card stock to plastics and wood, brass and steel. I had a client list that embraced the then-largest companies operating in Australia, such as Unilever, Phillips Industries, Nikon and Canon through their agencies, as well as Peter Stuyvesant and Rothmans Cigarettes and Pan American Airways.”

After gradually retiring from the commercial design and production field during the 1970s, Kevan established his own, less commercial art practice, Hardacre Art & Design. He still finds time to select art assignments that reflect his longstanding interest in natural history and conservation. For instance, in April 2004, Kevan worked for the Australian Museum, producing bas-relief, plaque replicas of endangered fish species.

“I still do design work, but now I devote my skills to environmental - care practices,” says Kevan. “I design and fabricate SafetyNests, a range of nest boxes (pictured left) which effectively help to re-establish the habitats that are being lost through so-called ‘development’ and they will save the wildlife for our children’s’ future. I envisage a ‘green chain’ of SafetyNests across the globe.”

Hardacre’s love of the natural world shines through in his paintings of bird life, landscapes and maritime studies. This is perfectly in keeping with Kevan’s own personal philosophies, shaped by his interest in Buddhism, which, he says, embraces “everything that’s natural and nothing that’s for money only. Caring and sharing – and staying critical of humbuggery.”

The author would like to thank Kevan and Mark Hardacre for making this interview possible, as well as Graeme Cliffe, for his invaluable advice on Char Chapman’s publishing history. However, any errors and omissions are the author’s own.

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[i] Leonard Keith Lawson (b. 16 August 1927), creator of The Lone Avenger and The Hooded Rider comic books, drove five female models on a photo shoot to bushland in the Terrey Hills area on 7 May 1954. After binding and gagging them at gunpoint, he raped three of them, and indecently assaulted the other two women. He was apprehended by police and was initially sentenced to death on 25 June 1954, but this was later commuted to 14 years imprisonment. A model prisoner, Lawson was paroled in May 1961 after just serving seven years. On 6 November 1961, he raped and murdered a teenage girl, Jane Bower, and was apprehended by police the following day during a siege at a private girls’ school where, while struggling with a teacher, Lawson’s gun went off, killing a student, Wendy Luscombe. Lawson was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1962 and died at the Grafton Correctional Centre on 29 November 2003.

[ii] Arthur Gorfain (b. 18 April 1912) established Press Feature Service after serving with the RAAF during World War II. His company employed 12 staff and supplied Australian newspapers and magazines with a variety of editorial content, such as puzzles, crosswords, short stories and cartoons. Gorfain is best remembered as the editor and publisher of The Silver Jacket, a popular Australian boys’ magazine published during 1953-56. He syndicated such Australian comic strips as Frontiers of Science to domestic and international newspaper markets, before selling his company to Alan Foley Pty Ltd in 1963. He subsequently established the Sunset Motel chain throughout eastern Australia.

[iii] Royce Bradford was a prolific magazine illustrator and comic book artist whose career spanned several decades. His comic book credits include The Bronze Cat (NSW Bookstall, circa 1943), Cole Steele (Wollumbin Press, circa 1950) and The Cloak tells Tales of Mystery (Horwitz Publications, circa 1959).

[iv] John Leslie Curtis (1917 – 2000) was originally a theatrical poster artist, before entering the Australian comic book field in the 1940s. He illustrated the comic book version of the popular Australian radio serial, Larry Kent (‘I Hate Crime’), and adapted several crime novels by British author Edgar Wallace, such as When the Gangs Came to London, for Australian comics. Some of his best work, including full-colour cover paintings and meticulous, black & white historical comic strips, appeared in The Silver Jacket magazine.

[v] Peter Gormley (circa 1920 – 1999) would later achieve international recognition as the manager of several high-profile musical performers, including the Australian singer Frank Ifield, British pop star Cliff Richard and the Australian-born singer/actor, Olivia Newton-John.

[vi] Wilcox, Harry, White Stranger: Six Moons in Celebes (London, Collins, 1949)

[vii] Early episodes of the strip appearing in Steel Barr and the Phantom Man Comic are titled ‘Cha Chapman – The Phantom of the East’, but the character’s name was altered to ‘Char Chapman’ for its self-titled comic.

[viii] An episode of Char Chapman – Phantom of the East appeared in the back pages of Spike’s Comic No.1, which starred a cheeky, larrikin kid, which was published by Young’s Merchandising Company, circa 1953. This story may have been a previously unpublished installment, left over after the original Char Chapman magazine was cancelled around 1952.

[ix] Lloyd Piper (1922-1984) produced comic books for several Australian publishers during the immediate postwar era, including Frew Publications, for whom he drew the Australian version of the American superhero, Catman, in Super Yank Comics. Piper later became an advertising layout artist, but returned to comics in 1972, creating the adventure strip Wolfe for Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, before taking over as artist on the long-running Ginger Meggs comic strip in 1974, which he drew until his death.

[x] The original series of Char Chapman – The Phantom of East ran for just nine issues, released during 1951-52. Although later editions, bearing issue numbers 17-19, were published, these were reprints from the earlier series, and were actually published circa 1959. The gap in the numbering sequence has led to the misconception that issue nos.10 -16 of Char Chapman were incredibly scarce when, in fact, they were never published at all.

[xi] ‘Dinki’ is the plural form of ‘dinkus’, a printing term that refers to a graphic symbol or motif, which identifies a recurring editorial feature, such as a letters page or review column, appearing on a magazine page layout.

Interview: James Kemsley

Adelaide's own Aussie comics doyen, Daniel Best, has recently published an extensive interview he conducted with the late James Kemsley, writer and illustrator of the Ginger Meggs comic strip, who died on 3 December 2007.

The interview was originally conducted in February 2004, but remained in Danny's archives for various reasons until now. Even though Danny admits in his introduction that the interview only focuses on Kemsley's comic strip work, a planned follow-up interview covering his film and television career never eventuated.

Nonetheless, the interview will be of immense interest to fans of Ginger Meggs, and to anyone with more than a passing interest in the history of Australia's newspaper comic strip heritage. James Kemsley breathed new life into a once iconic character that was threatening to slip into irrelevancy and, for that alone, his life and work should be remembered fondly. And Danny's interview with Kemsley is as good a place as any to meet the man behind 'Meggsy'.

Abstractions - Reg Pitt catalogue

I recently had the good fortune to visit Sydney and attend the opening of Abstractions, an exhibition of abstract paintings and collages by Reg Pitt, which is currently on display at the St. George Regional Museum in Hurstville, New South Wales.

Reg is best known to Australian comic collectors as the frequent collaborator with his brother, Stan Pitt, on various comic book projects from the 1940s-1960s period, including Silver Starr, Yarmak - Jungle King and their glorious, but ill-fated, science-fiction newspaper strip, Gully Foyle.

But as visitors to this exhibition will discover, Reg has had a lifelong fascination with abstract painting and design, which he continued to explore alongside his career as a commercial artist. Some of the earliest works featured in the show, including pastel and acrylic works, date back to the early 1970s. However, the majority of pieces in the show, comprising vibrant paper collages, span the years 1998 - 2008, testimony to Reg's lifelong, restless urge to create.

If, however, you can't visit the Abstractions exhibition personally, you'll be pleased to know that copies of the exhibition catalogue, Abstractions: The Art of Reg Pitt, are available from Reg's son-in-law, Beric Henderson, an artist in his own right. This signed and numbered catalogue features a brief biographical portrait of Reg, and many vivid, full-colour reproductions of his work.

Copies of this limited edition catalogue are available for AUD$15.00 per copy, plus AUD$2.00 for postage and handling within Australia. (Customers outside Australia should contact Beric directly for international payment & postage details.) You can email Beric for further details, or write to him at: 13 Russell Street, Riverwood, New South Wales, 2210, Australia.

Review: The Sacrifice

Compared with the political opportunism, questionable legality and moral ambiguities that underscore the present-day ‘war on terror’, it is tempting to look back, almost nostalgically, at the Second World War as ‘the good war’. With the Allied Powers rallied against the fascist ideology of Nazi Germany, the war of 1939-45 can be looked upon as a clearly delineated moral struggle, with the free world’s ‘coalition of the willing; standing united against a true ‘axis of evil’.

Yet to say that the war did not ignite heated debates, both private and public, over such issues as political conviction, national duty and personal morality, is not only a gross simplification of a complex, sprawling conflict, but also diminishes the impact it had on untold millions of lives.

These same contentious issues lay at the heart of The Sacrifice, a new graphic novel by Melbourne author and illustrator, Bruce Mutard.

The first volume in a planned trilogy, The Sacrifice follows the difficult moral journey taken by its central character, Robert Wells, an emblematic member of Melbourne’s middle class, whose espousal of socialist ideology and pacifist beliefs, is gradually eroded by the worsening war in Europe and Asia.

The city of Melbourne itself is as much a part of the story as the characters which populate it streets. The Sacrifice is a compelling visual record of a town, then regarded as the puritanical, ‘wowser’ capital of Australia, as it’s transformed from a sleepy, complacent metropolis, to a vital epicentre of wartime administration, munitions’ production and military training. This transformation was partly attributable to the influx of thousands of American service personnel, whose comparative affluence, mannerisms and attitudes had a galvanising effect on the daily life of the city and its inhabitants.

Despite being miles away from the fighting, the war does not leave Robert and his circle of friends untouched. His fiancée, Elsa, a shopkeeper’s daughter and Communist Party member experiences true solidarity with “the working classes” on the factory floor; his friend, John, a doctor, takes to drink, overwhelmed by the battlefield casualties he treats daily; and his journalist mate, David, sick of reporting censored stories and regurgitating government propaganda, eventually chooses to join the army to fight a real war, rather than report a ‘phoney’ one.

Robert’s mother, like many women of her generation, bears the true, unspoken cost of war. Left widowed after her husband was killed in the last ‘war to end all wars’, her worst fears are realised when her eldest son, Artie, is killed in action during the Crete campaign. The ‘black dog’ of depression takes hold, leaving her a bed-ridden recluse, close to death herself.

In his own way, Robert is forced to follow in his brother’s footsteps, firstly by following the path laid out for Artie by their father and, ultimately, the destiny that Artie eventually chose for himself. When the rebellious Artie turned his back on a career with the family’s engineering business, Robert became his domineering uncle’s protégé, gaining a university degree and eventually making his way up the corporate ladder to become a junior executive in the firm. But Artie’s death forces Robert to question his pacifist beliefs, and reevaluate his own contribution to the war effort. In the end, Robert emulates his brother’s decision to enlist in the army where, to his surprise, he becomes an effective soldier with leadership potential, admired by his superior officer and comrades alike.

Even a cursory glance through its pages shows The Sacrifice to be a meticulously researched work. Yet, unlike so many ‘period dramas’ seen on film and television, the story does not creak beneath the weight of its historical trappings. The architectural character of wartime Melbourne is not laid out like a map, but glimpsed in passing from a bus window, beneath a shop awning, or its skyline seen from a distance. This is the Melbourne of my own parents’ childhood, growing up in the daily shadow of war; a Melbourne which, in some places, can still be glimpsed today.

Mutard’s story touches on some of the iconic literary and artistic works that were a product of this troubling, turbulent time in Australian history. Robert’s early hours’ stroll through the blacked-out streets of St. Kilda, as he threads his way between brawling soldiers, urinating drunks and blowsy prostitutes, recalls the disdain felt by the expressionist Australian painter, Albert Tucker, whose encounters with the thrill-seeking, raucous ‘victory girls’ of wartime Melbourne, inspired his disturbing Images of Modern Evil paintings. There is even a sly visual reference to John Brack’s iconic 1955 painting, Collins Street, 5p.m.

Robert’s sometimes fraught, argumentative relationship with his older brother, Artie, evokes the similarly complex bond between the bookish, intellectual David Meredith and his coarse, womanizing brother Jack, which formed the centrepiece of George Johnston’s semi-autobiographical novel, My Brother Jack.

Mutard’s graphic novel also gives lie to the modern-day misconception that pre-war Australia was an Anglo-Celtic monoculture. The relocation of refugees from war-torn Europe to far-flung Australia not only changed the ethnic composition of the nation, but also challenged the popular prejudices held towards migrants – both then and now.

These issues are seen through the plight of the Krautshammer family, displaced Austrian Catholics who play a significant part in Robert’s own life. Otto, the father, is an insufferably proud former finance minister who fought for Germany in the Great War, but his gruff, imperious manner and unapologetic anti-Semitism rankles with those who want to help him readjust to his new life in Australia. His bitterness is shared by his wife and daughter, Mata, who resent having to seek refugee status as Jews (despite their Jewish ancestry, the Krautshammers are baptised Catholics) and haughtily dismiss the other occupants of their refugee hostel as ‘Juden’.

But it is Robert’s awkward infatuation with their young daughter, Mata, which generates an unspoken sexual undercurrent throughout the book. When we first meet Mata, we see her as Robert does – a disarmingly pretty, wide-eyed innocent, who looks for all the world like Alice in Wonderland, in her smock dress and headband.

As the war takes hold of the city, Mata grows up all too quickly. She becomes an impressionable, reckless adolescent, intoxicated by the permissive air of wartime Melbourne. She spurns her mother’s strict rules and rejects her parents’ dreams of a classical singing career for their daughter, preferring instead the cheap glamour of show tunes and the extravagant promises of the American servicemen whose company she increasingly seeks.

Despite his love for Elsa, and plans for marrying her, Robert cannot shake the hold that Mata still exerts over him, even though she rejects him for siding with her mother. It is an obsession that almost proves fatal for Robert, when he attempts to stop an American sailor from raping her.

The Sacrifice had its beginnings as a short, self-contained comic strip, ‘Death and the Maiden’, about a soldier’s last night on leave before being shipped off to New Guinea, which Mutard created for Tango, the eclectic romance comic anthology edited by Bernard Caleo. Mutard initially decided to expand this comic strip vignette into a full-length prose novel, and these literary roots are clearly evident throughout The Sacrifice, especially in the numerous sequences where the story’s central characters are engaged in earnest political debate, gathered around a café table, or in each other’s living rooms. It is only in these passages where the story’s visual flow is occasionally slowed down by the characters’ verbose arguments.

But this is a minor cavil, especially when one considers how rarely such debates occur within the pages of most contemporary Australian comics. Mutard, to his credit, punctuates these wordy sequences with telling moments of complete stillness, forcing the reader to pull away from the characters, by placing them in isolation against their deceptively peaceful suburban environment.

Tempting as it might be for some critics to review this work in the same manner as a literary novel, the visual grammar of the ‘graphic’ novel requires us to look at The Sacrifice in slightly different ways, to apply (perhaps, more helpfully) the terminology used in film criticism to evaluate what is, overwhelmingly, a visual medium. For instance, where ‘traditional’ literary criticism might analyse an author’s use of language to depict their characters or convey their themes and ideas, any critique of a graphic novel must look at, not just written story (as set down by the author in captions and dialogue ‘balloons’), but also the storytelling technique – the integration (or juxtaposition) of words and images, the visual ‘pacing’ of the story and illustrative style of the artwork itself.

It is in this context that Mutard’s accomplishment as a graphic storyteller is evident on nearly every page of The Sacrifice. The drama of this tale is told quietly, through the physical expressiveness of its characters. Whether they’re gathered together in a room or simply walking through a park, Mutard’s characters are animated through their subtle gestures, awkward expressions or slack postures. Their faces are pinched or anxious; their clothes are shapeless and ill-fitting; their physical actions are graceless and untidy. They are, in short, all too real.

Some critics have mistakenly compared Mutard’s clean, uncluttered illustrations to the work of Herge, the Belgian creator of Tintin whose ‘clear line’ technique has had a profound influence on European comic art for decades. But whereas Herge’s work was characterised by a richly coloured and expressively ‘cartoony’ style, Mutard’s artwork is starkly naturalistic, awash with gray tones that perfectly complement the story’s sombre atmosphere.

The Sacrifice is by no means the first ‘graphic novel’ (itself a contentious term amongst some comics’ practitioners) to be published in Australia, but it is arguably the first one of recent vintage that is unafraid to tackle the complex political and social themes that have been the traditional preserve of mainstream novelists. One can only hope that, just as Art Spiegelman’s prize-winning graphic novel Maus forced readers and critics alike to reevaluate comics as a legitimate art form, Bruce Mutard’s The Sacrifice will have a similarly galvanising effect on Australian audiences as well.

The Sacrifice, by Bruce Mutard, is published by Allen & Unwin (ISBN: 9781741751178/$35.00rrp).

Not all ducks are created equal

Walt Disney comic books were immensely popular with Australian readers for several decades, dating back to the first titles issued by John Sands Ltd. (Sydney), such as the Mickey Mouse Book, during the mid-1930s. However, most Australians grew up reading the Walt Disney comics published by W.G. Publications Pty Ltd during 1946-1978. While some of the early issues were printed in black & white, later Australian editions were printed (offshore) in full-colour, and were distributed throughout Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

Of particular interest to Australian comic collectors are those issues featuring reprints of Donald Duck stories written and drawn by the late Carl Barks (1901 – 2000), who, in the eyes of many fans and critics, kept the Disney comics franchise alive for years, due to his adventurous storylines, dynamic yet graceful artwork, and inventive characterisations. Barks also added new members of the ‘Duck’ family, including his uncle, Scrooge McDuck, Gyro Gearloose and the Beagle Boys, to name but a few.

However, a recent discussion amongst some fellow comics’ aficionados revealed that, in at least one instance, Australian readers were not enjoying original Carl Barks artwork – but a poorly redrawn local version!

The Carl Barks story, ‘Adventure Down Under’, shows Donald Duck being hypnotised into believing he’s a kangaroo, and mistakenly boarding an aeroplane bound for his ‘home’ in Australia, only to be eventually rescued by his intrepid nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie.

‘Adventure Down Under’ was originally published in Dell’s Four Color No.159, dated August 1947. The cover of this issue is ‘Walt Disney’s Donald Duck in Ghost of the Grotto’. The story was first published in Australia by W.G. Publications Pty Ltd as Walt Disney’s Donald Duck in Adventure Down Under (Issue number ‘OS7’) [see image above], sometime in late 1948 – early 1949.

However, not only were two pages from the original Barks story cut from the Australian reprint, but it appears that the story itself was redrawn by an unidentified Australian artist [see panel at left].

Australian comic artist, and self-confessed Carl Barks devotee, Dillon Naylor, compared his copy of the 1940s Australian reprint, with a later, full-colour American reprint of ‘original’ American version [see panel below], and found some telling differences.

“I've fished out my [American reprint] copy and included an enlargement of two panels which show the differences - but you really need to see the originals up close to see it all properly. It's been light-boxed exactly, but Bark's line work is very precise and has a beautiful thick and thin quality to it. Check the shading on the kangaroo's tail where the lines all bleed together. The sloppiness is especially noticeable with the faces.”

“The lettering has all been redone as well. My theory is that they couldn't get hold of black & white film for this particular issue. Back then it was nearly impossible to make a clear, black & white film from a printed colour comic, so an answer might have been to hire some ‘stand-in’ to light-box [trace] it off the printed pages.”

While such practices weren’t uncommon amongst Australian comics publishers during the 1940s and 50s, most ‘retouching’ was restricted to partially redrawing covers, expanding panel sizes to accommodate the larger Australian printed format, or to excise references to American slang, and replace them with Australian expressions.

But this example raises the question about whether any further Carl Barks stories were comprehensively redrawn for the Australian editions – and, perhaps, throws into question some of the prices paid by Australian collectors who (quite rightly) thought they were purchasing unaltered, Australian reprints of Carl Barks-drawn Donald Duck stories. (However, some enterprising comic dealers might be tempted to promote these as ‘unique Australian variant issues’ to Carl Barks enthusiasts!)

The other intriguing aspect about this Australian reprint is the cover. The cover to Four Color No.159 depicts the lead story, ‘Ghost in the Grotto’. Decades later, the Gladstone edition of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Adventures (No.11, February 1989) makes ‘Adventure Down Under’ the cover story [see image at left] – but the illustration is a modern-day version by Daan Jippes, and not Carl Barks.

To my knowledge (and I make no claim to being a Disney Comics expert!), the cover for the 1948-49 Australian reprint of 'Adventure Down Under' had not previously appeared in any American edition of the same story. So, was this an original Australian cover illustration?

Again, Dillon Naylor seems to think so: “The cover to the [Australian edition] was drawn by the interior artist, but not based on any inside panel I can see. I did also notice that the kangaroo is drawn more realistically, as though the artist had used a photo for reference. The Barks’ kangaroos [in the comic strip] are drawn with a round, black, Mickey Mouse-styled nose, while the kangaroo on the cover has more realistically drawn nose. So, I’m pretty certain this is a unique creation for this Australian edition.”

“I know of one other Carl Barks ‘Duck’ story that is redrawn in the same fashion, by what appears to be the same artist,” he adds. “Christmas Parade 6, published locally in 1958, features the Barks story, 'The Golden Christmas Tree', – so there may have been more of these ‘forged’ stories, but these are the only ones have in my collection.”

Perhaps more knowledgeable Disney Comics' collectors out there might care to enlighten us?

(Thanks to Dillon Naylor and David Studham for sharing their insights and information on this topic. )

Word Balloons - In print and online, finally!

In case you haven't already heard, the seventh issue of Philip Bentley's excellent little comics fanzine, Word Balloons, has just been published. This latest issue features an interview with Nicki Greenberg (discussing her graphic novel adaptation of The Great Gatsby, amongst other things), the latest installment of 'My Life in Comics' (devoted to Phil's own recollections of his involvement with Australian comics during the 1980s), a selection of recent Australian comics' reviews and a local comic fandom directory.

A measly five bucks for this crisply produced black & white zine will tell you all you need to know about the current 'state of play' for Australian comics and graphic novels. Better comic shops should no doubt stock copies, but if you can't find it at a store nearest you, then email Philip Bentley for details on buying your copy, or write to him at: Second Shore, PO Box 286, Sandringham, Victoria 3191, Australia.

And, despite constant protestations that he would never do so, Philip has now launched his own blog, Fragments from a Second Shore, which will feature excerpts from previous issues of Word Balloons.

(Note: The image seen above is for the cover of Word Balloons #6 - I couldn't find a scan of the latest issue anywhere on the internet, wouldja' believe? And I had to pinch this one of Spiros Xenos' blog, Notes from the Junkyard!)

Review: The Crumpleton Experiments

Note: The following review was originally published in the December 2005 edition of Collectormania magazine. I've reprinted it here, in a slightly amended and expanded form, to introduce readers to The Crumpleton Experiments, an Australian comic book published by Daniel Reed, and to coincide with the recent release of the series' eighth issue. My comments concerning this title, written at the time of its debut, hold true today as they did then, and equally apply to the latest installment of this charming series. If your local comic shop doesn't stock The Crumpleton Experiments, then you can email Daniel Reed to purchase your copy, or write to him at: 5 Dorrington Avenue, Reservoir, Victoria 3073 Australia.

The world of Victorian-era Britain, characterised by its technological advancement, radical politics and scientific discovery, continues to exert its hold over our popular imagination even now, at the dawn of the 21st century.

This is particularly evident in science-fiction literature, which has seen the birth of the so-called 'steampunk' genre, with such diverse authors as K.W. Jeter, Steven Baxter and Bruce Sterling reinterpreting the technological dimension of the Victorian age through contemporary eyes.

Comic books and graphic novels, for their part, have also revisited this historic period, as writers and artists look back to the past, recasting the heroic archetypes of imperial England with a distinctly modern twist. Two of the most notable examples have been created by the English writer, Alan Moore – The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (illustrated by Kevin O’Neill) and From Hell, an epic graphic novel about Jack the Ripper (illustrated by Eddie Campbell), both of which have been adapted into films.

While you may never see its name splashed across the marquee of your local cinema, a new Australian comic explores similar historical terrain and does so in a thoroughly entertaining manner.

Written and illustrated by Melbourne cartoonist Daniel Reed, The Crumpleton Experiments is set in Victorian England and focuses on the sinister-sounding Psychological Institute of Research.

Timid and prim Gwendolyne (Wendy) Elizabeth Brown applies for a job as a maid at the Institute, which is run by the eccentric and enigmatic Professor Crumpleton.

It’s bad enough she has to work alongside the Professor’s violent and foul-tempered assistant, Mangus. But when she stumbles into the Professor’s secret basement workshop, Wendy’s life is changed irrevocably.

When professor Crumpleton finds his new employee lying unconscious on his laboratory floor, he discards any last remnants of medical ethics and decides to test-drive his Dream-O-Matic device on the unsuspecting Wendy.

This curiously-named device allows one or more people to enter a subject’s dreaming mind, in order to identify and treat any psychological disorders they may be suffering from.

Professor Crumpleton’s Dream-O-Matic works better than even he anticipated. It isn’t long before the Professor identifies a horrible, slug-like creature in Wendy’s mind as the physical manifestation of the low self-esteem that has seen her endure life as a downtrodden wallflower.

With the aid of a cricket bat-wielding Mangus, Professor Crumpleton attempts to beat Wendy’s low self-esteem into submission. However, the wretched creature escapes the laboratory, only to be run over by an omnibus.

Liberated from her oppressive sense of self-doubt, Wendy Brown indulges in an ‘extreme makeover’ of her own, discarding her frumpy maid’s clothes in favour of a revealing costume that turns her into a 19^th century Lara Croft!

After leading Crumpleton and Mangus on a merry chase through London, Wendy decides to accept the professor’s suggestion that she retains some self-doubt (by eating a portion of the creature not crushed by the omnibus!), as well as joining the Institute as Crumpleton’s assistant.

So began The Crumpleton Experiments! Issues 2-3 of the series saw this band of misfit adventurers try to help Father O’Reilly save a parishioner from himself in ‘Fiddling Around with Evil’. Issue 4-5 mark the beginning of a new storyline, ‘Sapienta Flos’, which entails a dangerous journey into the seemingly placid mind of Bradley Brinkman, filing clerk for the Office of Statistics.

In the space of just five issues, The Crumpleton Experiments has proven itself to be one of the most consistently intriguing and entertaining Australian comics being published today.

Daniel Reed’s crowded and inventive plots are perfectly complemented by his scratchy, intricate artwork. The recurring dream sequences, bizarre monsters and oddball eccentrics are rendered in a suitably grotesque style.

This comic cannot be neatly slotted into any mainstream genre. Combining elements of satire, science fiction and horror, The Crumpleton Experiments is one of the best titles appearing in the otherwise currently moribund Australian comics’ scene[*]. For these reasons alone, The Crumpleton Experiment was a worthy recipient of the Ledger Award for Best Independent Press Title for 2004.

[*] That's certainly how I felt about the frequency and quality of a good many Australian comics being released at the time this review was originally published, but anyone with more than a passing interest in Australian comics realises that this situation has changed dramatically, and for the better, during the last 18 months or so.

Comics of the Airwaves: The Twilight Ranger

Amidst the constant noise of talkback chatter, opinionated ‘shock jocks’ and endlessly regurgitated music play lists, it must be difficult for anyone listening to commercial radio in Australia today to imagine a time when radio was a dramatic medium. Yet dramatic serials and plays were once broadcast around the clock on Australia’s commercial radio stations, as well as on the government-controlled Australian Broadcasting Commission. Reaching the broadest possible audiences, from the big cities to outback towns, Australian radio drama was the true ‘mass medium’ of its day, before gradually losing its army of listeners to television by the early 1960s.

Both Australia’s radio drama and comic book industries were similarly, and adversely, affected by the advent of television. Yet at their peak of popularity during the late 1940s and early 1950s, these two popular art forms sometimes enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, with the ‘stars’ of one medium occasionally finding new life in the other.

The Twilight Ranger was one such radio star who made his way to the pages of an Australian comic book. Michael Noonan (1921 – 2000) was already a well-regarded and popular radio dramatist when he was invited by Artransa Productions[i] to create a new dramatic serial to be broadcast through their parent company, the Macquarie Network. What they wanted, in particular, was a western.

Noonan, who had already worked with his uncle, William (Bill) Moloney, on the radio serial Justice Rides the Range (broadcast on 2UE in 1946), wasn’t too keen to write another ‘horse opera’. Perhaps somewhat impishly, Noonan suggested he could write a western with a hero who doesn’t use a gun. The Artransa executives initially rejected the concept out of hand, but eventually called Noonan back, asking him to write two sample quarter-hour episodes – to be paid for only if they accepted the finished scripts.

Given the apparent dramatic limitations of having a cowboy forsake the use of guns, no doubt Atransa Productions and, quite possibly, Noonan himself, were surprised to see The Twilight Ranger become a popular success. Starring Leonard Teale (1922 – 1994), who often wore high-heeled boots during recording sessions to “get into the part”,[ii] The Twilight Ranger debuted in 1948 and ran for 208 episodes.

Noonan’s decision to have his hero eschew firearms wasn’t just a dramatic contrivance, but was borne out of the author’s experiences as an army bomb disposal officer, serving in New Guinea during World War II.

Broadcast four times per week, The Twilight Ranger managed, as Noonan hoped he would, to air “his belief (and mine) that whenever guns are available, there is always the danger they will be used.”[iii]

Noonan was paid the then-top rate of £4.00 per episode, managing to negotiate a modest increase to £5.00 per episode, when he was commissioned to write the second lot of 108 episodes.

As was no doubt the custom back then, Noonan signed away all world broadcasting rights to The Twilight Ranger, and therefore never received any royalties from overseas sales. The sole exception to this rule was when Noonan received a “modest fee” for each episode that was translated into Afrikaans for the South African market, where The Twilight Ranger proved equally popular. (The serial was also apparently one of the most popular programmes aired on national radio in Canada at the time.)

“What I did not sign away,” Noonan later recalled, “were the publication rights, and some years later I wrote the scripts for a series of comic books, describing each frame and setting out any narrative or dialogue. I’d had some experience in this medium, thanks to cartoonist Dan Russell (1906 – 1999)… [who] paid me to do scripts for comic books about the outback cowboy with a travelling rodeo show, Tex Morton.”[iv]

Jack Atkins, the founder and publisher of Cleveland Press, acquired the comic book rights to The Twilight Ranger, keen to add comic books to his already successful line of crime, war and western ‘pulp fiction’ novelettes. Atkins commissioned Noonan to write the scripts, while hiring Keith Chatto (1924 – 1992) to illustrate the series. Chatto was no stranger to cowboy yarns, having created a popular western title, The Lone Wolf, for Atlas Publications in Melbourne during 1949-50. By 1955, however, he had already branched out into other areas of commercial art, including magazine illustration and record cover designs.

“In that same year,” Chatto later wrote, “I began working exclusively for Cleveland Publishing Company, at first illustrating and designing pocket book covers. At one period about this time, I was producing an average of six full colour covers each and every week for various publishers.”

“[Jack Atkins] commissioned me to illustrate a radio serial written by…Michael Noonan, called The Twilight Ranger. I had to adapt for the comic book Michael’s scripts and illustrate them.”

“I had become somewhat disillusioned about illustrating comics, particularly as the pocket books had become popular and my services as an illustrator were in demand at a lucrative fee. But the fee offered to illustrate [The Twilight Ranger] was too good to let pass.”

“I kept producing the covers whilst I worked on the comic. I must admit I was not altogether happy working on another man’s story, but the money was good and the publisher was prepared to put money into the publication to help make it a success.”[v]

The first issue of The Twilight Avenger appeared in October 1955 (The first two issues were unnumbered). In the comic book version, Jess Palmer was a seemingly timid milksop, forever getting under the feet of his uncle, Pa Palmer, owner of the Square Diamond Ranch, which borders the Carakaway Indian Reservation in southwestern Texas.

Unknown to his cantankerous uncle, Jess was made a blood brother of the Carakaway tribe, before he was sent away to England for ‘proper’ schooling. During a stormy midnight ceremony, the tribal chieftain, Long Twilight, gave Jess a thunder-hoof charm that would protect its wearer from harm. Accepting this token of brotherhood, Jess renounced the use of weapons, believing they only led to violence and bloodshed.

Jess Palmer disguised himself as The Twilight Ranger who, together with his young Indian companion, Red Moccasin, rode the Texan plains in defence of justice. Palmer’s double identity even extended to that of his horse; whenever he rode out of his cabin hideaway in the Carakaway forests as The Twilight Avenger, he did so astride his magnificent horse, Mahogany. When he returned from his mission, he would discard his black costume, and swap Mahogany for an old mare named Bluebell – a steed more befitting the frail bookworm he wants everyone to believe him to be.

Jess had to contend not only with the sneering contempt of Judy Keel, the fiery and voluptuous daughter of the ranch foreman, but also with the hostility of Sheriff Mullins, the sole lawman of the nearby township of Rawhide, who believes that The Twilight Ranger is an outlaw.

Despite Noonan’s occasionally redundant and wordy scripts, his stories lent themselves to Chatto’s delicate artwork. As he did on The Lone Wolf, Chatto dispensed with word balloons, preferring instead to relay all the dialogue and narrative text in caption boxes, which gave Chatto ample space to display his fine penmanship. Much of the action in The Twilight Avenger took place at night, creating an unusually dark, moody atmosphere, not often seen in most ‘cowboy’ comic books of the time.

The Twilight Ranger, however, was not the financial success that publisher Jack Atkins had hoped for. Despite boasting numerous reader competitions (with prizes including interstate flights on a T.A.A. Viscount airliner), and even being printed in full colour for its final issue, The Twilight Ranger ceased publication with its seventh issue. An eighth Twilight Ranger story was, apparently, later printed in Cleveland Press’ King Size Comic, which was published during 1956-59.

---

[i] Artransa (American Radio Transcription Service of Australia) Productions was established in 1938 by A.E. Bennett, Managing Director of Sydney radio station 2GB, to adapt American radio shows and scripts for the Australian market. Bennett hired Texan-born Grace Gibson (1905 -1988), of the Radio Transcription Company of America, to help establish Atransa Productions. Initially ‘on loan’ to 2GB for six months, she relocated permanently to Australia and eventually formed her own radio production & syndication company, Grace Gibson Productions, which still operates today.

[ii] Lane, Richard, The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama 1923-1960 (Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1994); pg338

[iii] Noonan, Michael, In with the Tide: Memoirs of a Storyteller (St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1995); pg.107

[iv] Ibid, pg.107

[v] Chatto, Keith, ‘Keith Chatto: The Creator of Flame and Ash Tells His Story’, Flame Magazine, Vol.2 No.5 (1972) pg.20

Classic Aussie Heroes on CD-ROM

Note: The following review was originally published in Collectormania magazine in January 2006. I'm reprinting it here, as the CD-ROM discussed is still available, and would be of interest to anyone keen to read original Australian comics from the 1950s. Furthermore, the CD-ROM's producer, Roger Stitson, is still working on launching an illustrated short story magazine, and is still seeking contributions from interested writers and artists. Read this earlier blog entry for further details.

As many collectors know, the increasing scarcity of vintage Australian comics from the postwar era has seen prices for popular titles climb dramatically in the last few years – often putting them beyond the financial reach of many readers.

Now, thanks to the tireless efforts of Melbourne writer and comic collector, Roger Stitson, fans can relive the adventures of three classic Aussie comic book heroes on CD-ROM.

“I’ve had the feeling for years that eventually most pre-decimal Australian comics are going to disappear forever, except for those held by dedicated collectors, or by large public libraries,” says Roger.

“Digitising these comics ensures that at least the images can’t deteriorate any further,” he explains, “ and putting them on CD-ROM is the next best thing [to reading the originals] for a mass audience. The discs can be bought for a fraction of the price of the original comics.”

Vintage Australian Comic Books on CD-ROM features complete reprints of four issues apiece from three classic titles – The Shadow (1st series/Nos. 1 & 20; 2nd series/Nos.5 & 17 - pictured at bottom); Sir Falcon (Nos. 2, 20, 44 & 53 - pictured at top) and The Phantom Ranger (Nos. 10, 36, 47 & 68 - pictured at left).

“I decided on featuring these three titles, because I have pretty good collections of these series, and the original publisher, Frew Publications [publisher of The Phantom], is still going strong in Sydney, and was therefore easy to locate,” says Roger. “Other Australian publishers have long since been defunct, so finding out where the copyright was held was something I didn’t feel like wasting time on.”

“I contacted Frew’s publisher, Jim Shepherd, via Bryan Shedden’s Phantom website, The Deep Woods , outlined what I was doing and got a message back from Bryan saying that Jim was very happy for me to go ahead.”

Scanning and restoring these old comic books for digital presentation required a lot of time, effort and patience, according to Roger. “The original comics had turned yellow-brown with age, so I used a scanner and a graphics software program called Micrografx Picture Publisher to fade, or remove, the discolouring.”

Each comic book contains 24 pages and it took Roger approximately 7-8 hours to scan and retouch a single page – which is why it took him nearly four years (working part-time) to complete the project!

The results, however, have been worth the wait. The internal pages images, along with the front and back covers, are clean and crisp and can be viewed in three different size formats (S,M,L).

The CD-ROM also features background material, explaining how the comics were digitally restored, as well as a brief history of Australia’s postwar era comic book industry.

Users will need a computer with a Windows 95 (and upwards) operating system, along with sufficient RAM (memory) and a CD/DVD drive to install and open the CD-ROM’s contents.

Once installed, the CD-ROM takes just seconds to open up in a Web browser window. However, you don’t need to be connected to the Internet in order to view the CD-ROM’s contents. The navigation menu is clearly laid out and easy to use. (Note: I've since used this CD-ROM after switching to the Mozilla Firefox browser and it opens up just as easily.)

Apart from comic collectors and popular culture enthusiasts, Roger believes the CD-ROM will be of interest to schools as well.

“As a former English teacher myself, the CD-ROM will appeal to teachers, especially those who teach ‘reluctant readers’, or who are interested in visual literacy,” he says. “I’ve written a study guide with suggestions for classroom activities, plus a set of simple crosswords and colouring-in activities for juniors, which can downloaded for free from my website.”

Vintage Australian Comic Books on CD-ROM is available for A$35.00 (incl. postage) to individual customers, and for A$50.00 (incl. postage) for unlimited, multi-user customers (such as schools, libraries, etc.) For further information, visit the