Jeff Wilkinson: Phantoms and Shadows

To outlaws everywhere, he was known as The Phantom Ranger. Yet even though his countless fans knew that he was, according to Navajo legend, 'Kina the Deathless One', few of them ever knew of the man behind The Phantom Ranger - Jeff Wilkinson.

Until now, little was known, or has been written, about the life and work of Jeff Wilkinson. While he never received the accolades later bestowed by critics on his peers, Wilkinson created two of Australia's most enduring comic book characters and made a significant contribution to Australia's postwar comics' industry.

No doubt the Wild West exploits of The Phantom Ranger, and that of postwar Sydney, seemed a world away from Pontefract, Yorkshire, where Wilkinson was born on 9 October 1924.

"There were very few comics around in England when I was young," says Jeff, "but I was always interested in drawing."

"When I was 11 years-old, the head teacher of my primary school, Mr. Luke, assigned me the task of drawing onto paper a wall frieze, which would be placed around the top of the art classroom's wall."

"After I'd started drawing, Mr. Luke removed the paper, put up some scaffolding - and then asked me to draw straight on to the wall!"

Wilkinson's artistic talent was further recognised when he was awarded a bursary (scholarship) to Wakefields College, Leeds, to study art.

"I had to wear a new blazer, tie and cap, but I hated the colours," recalls Jeff. "My old friends decided I was too 'posh' now to be friends with and would no longer talk to me."

Adjusting to a new school wasn't the only problem he had to contend with. While he was still a youngster, Jeff's mother uprooted the entire family while her husband was visiting his parents one weekend and moved them out of their home.

Their father eventually found them, but Jeff's parents were never reconciled. "My father would send gifts for our birthdays and Christmas, which my mother would open and say 'You don't want these' and send them back."

Confronted with an increasingly difficult home life, Jeff left school early when he turned 17 years-old and joined the Royal Navy in 1941.

"I never smoked in my life," says Jeff, "until I joined the services - where everyone smoked!"

Jeffrey initially served with the Royal Navy in the North Atlantic. He was posted to the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, where he was a Leading Airman in the Air Gunnery Division (Torpedo Bomber Squadron).

After seeing action in the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, HMS Illustrious was assigned to the British Pacific Fleet, On 9 April 1945, the carrier was damaged during a Japanese 'kamikaze' aircraft attack, which saw HMS Illustrious head for Australia, where she underwent repairs at the Captain Cook Dry Dock on Garden Island, Sydney.

It was while on shore leave in Sydney that Jeff decided to settle permanently in Australia. He was to be discharged from the Royal Navy and transferred to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), in order to stay in his newly adopted country.

Soon after the war ended in August 1945, Jeff was posted to HMAS Albatross, an RAN naval air station at Nowra, New South Wales. It was here that Jeff met his future wife, Marjorie Booth, who was serving in the Royal Australian Air Force as a telegraphist. They were both 21 years-old when they were wed on 16 February 1946 and went on to have three children.

"I was still in the navy when I applied to live in Australia," he recalls. "And it was during a nine-month leave period, while my application to stay was being processed, that I visited H.J. Edwards in Sydney."

Soon after the war ended, Henry John Edwards has quickly established himself in the local comics market. He struck unexpected success with The Lone Avenger, a Western cowboy character created by Leonard Keith Lawson, which debuted in the second issue of Edwards' flagship title, Action Comic, in 1946.

The popularity of The Lone Avenger allowed Edwards to expand his comic book line, which included new Australian-drawn titles such as Tim Valour and The Crimson Comet (both drawn by John Dixon), as well as reprints of American comics, which included titles from such publishers as Fiction House (Wings Comics, Fight Comics) and MLJ Magazines (Pep Comics, Archie Comics).

"When I visited Edwards, he told me to write up any ideas I had and, if he thought they were any good, then he'd buy them."

"I can still picture him," says Jeff. "He was 'the boss' and drove a large Mercedes car. I always said that, one day, I'd drive a car just like it - but that never happened!"

Jeff eventually received his discharge from the Royal Navy and, as he puts it, "my new career was started."

Wilkinson's first published work for HJ Edwards was 'Dusty Malone', about a government agent thwarting gunrunners in Hong Kong, which appeared as a back-up strip in Tim Valour Comic No.7, circa 1948.

He also did humour strips for Meteor Publications' Radio Comics, which appeared under his pen name 'Wilkie' in 1948 ("That was my nickname in the Navy," according to Jeff.)

Jeff drew similar one-page gag strips, drawn under his 'Wilkie' and 'Wilko' pen names, for KG Murray's line of American reprint comics in the kate 1940s, including 'Harry Screwball' (published in Superman) and 'Hector', 'Looie' and 'Barny' (appearing in Adventure Comics and Superboy).

It was while he was doing freelance figure illustration work for local advertising agencies that Jeff took the idea for a new comic to Frew Publications in Sydney. Frew was formed by four men - Ron Forsyth, Jim Richardson, Jack Eisen and Peter Watson - who each invested £500 to form the company which took its name from the first letter of their surnames.

Frew's first comic book was The Phantom, which featured reprints of the popular American comic strip, which also appeared in The Australian Woman's Mirrror magazine. The premiere editon, simply titled Enter The Phantom, appeared in September 1948 and, after a handful of issues, became one of Australia's bestselling comic books - and still continues to be published, every fortnight, to this day.

"I came up with the idea for this character, The Phantom Ranger," he explains. "It wasn't meant to be a Western 'cowboy' comic, but set in the modern day. Essentially, The Phantom Ranger would appear when any skullduggery occurred."

"Frew liked it and they went into production," he adds. The Phantom Ranger became Frew Publications' first Australian-drawn comic book, making its debut in October 1949 and quickly became a popular title.

"I had to produce an entire issue every two weeks," says Jeff. "I had a formula where a 'baddie' came along and The Phantom Ranger would try and sort him out and get into trouble, instead - but he would triumph in the end."

Jeff would meet with Frew publisher Ron Forsyth nearly every week ("There was nothing like email or software packages back then!"), delivering him the completed artwork for one issue, before sitting down to discuss the next edition.

"Ron was an okay bloke, with a down-to-earth attitude," recalls Jim. "He used to carry his money around in a 'french letter' [condom] - this went back to his days in the war, so that, if he landed in the water, his money would be safe and dry!"

The character quickly spawned its own line of merchandise, which included Phantom Ranger costumes and a Phantom Ranger Junior Deputy's badge.

"The Phantom Ranger was a success. At one pont, the Sydney department store David Jones had a Phantom Ranger display on the top floor."

By the time The Phantom Ranger radio serial began broadcasting in Sydney and Melbourne during 1952 (played on-air by veteran Australian actor, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell), Jeff had already left the series after producing the first 19 issues.

While Peter Chapman, who was then editing The Phantom comic book, took over as the writer-artist on The Phantom Ranger, Jeff was busy creating his next comic book series for Frew Publications.

To the outside world, Jimmy Grey was a wealthy, layabout playboy. The son of the millionaire safe manufacturer, Silver Grey, Jimmy led a double-life as The Shadow - masked nemesis of crime!

Sometimes The Shadow would discard his rubber face mask and don the disguise of 'Limpy', a petty thief, which allowed him to move freely through the criminal underworld, gathering information on crooks and their schemes.

"I always worked completely on my own and The Shadow was no exception," says Jeff. "I would start with the script and dialogue, then create a rough draft [of the artwork] to determine the number of pages that a given story sequence would take, before drawing in the figures, backgrounds, etc."

"My son and his friends would often visit me while working, and say 'Mr. Wilkie, what happens next?', and I'd always say. 'Wait and see and buy the comic!' "

The first series of The Shadow debuted in May 1950, and ran for 23 issues, with Jeff responsible for the first 12 issues in the series. The comic was handed over to Peter Chapman, who wrote and drew the remainder of the initial series, and stayed with the comic when it was relaunched in 1952.

That didn't mark the end of Wilkinson's involvement with Frew Publications, for whom he also produced a boxing-themed comic, Kid Champion, which appeared around 1954.

Like many freelance artists of the time, Wilkinson produced work for a variety of local comics publishers. Beginning around 1950, Jeff illustrated several titles for Pyramid Publications. He drew at least one episode of the 'Michael Chance' crime series for the company's ongoing anthology title, Pyramid Comics (No.28).

Wilkinson went on to draw the character's lead stories in the spin-off title, Michael Chance Comics. However, the titular character would give way to Yaroslav Horak's masked aviator hero, 'Jet Fury', a back-up strip which eventually took over the title with issue No.17.

During the early 1950s, Pyramid Publications produced an Australian reprint edition of Black X. Orignally known as 'Espionage, starring Black X', the strip was created by Will Eisner and debuted in Feature Comics No.13 (October 1938), before settling in as a regular feature in Smash Comics, where it was largely drawn by Clark Williams during the 1940s.

Wilkinson drew several installments of the Black X strip for Pyramid Publications, which occasionally alternated with reprints of the American series. (This was not an uncommon practice for Pyramid Publications, which occasionally used Australian artists to provde 'fill-in' episodes of other American reprint titles, such as Manhunter Comics.)

Wilkinson returned to H.J. Edwards in the early 1950s, where his first major assignment was Gimlet. This was a comic book adaptation of the children's adventure book series written by Captain W.E. Johns, who was better known as the creator of Biggles.

'Gimlet' was, in fact, Captain Lorrington 'Gimlet' King, a British commando who starred in a series of 10 books published between 1943-54.

While Gimlet never attained the same worldwide popularity of Biggles, H.J. Edwards clearly felt that any comic with W.E. Johns' name attached to it would be a strong seller. This was borne out by the popularity of Edwards' title, The Adventures of Biggles, which was illustrated by Albert De Vine and John Dixon, and was reprinted under licence in Britain during the 1950s as well.

Action Comics, as Edwards' publishing company was now known, launched the Gimlet comic book in 1953. The series was originally drawn by Royce Bradford, before Jeff Wilkinson took over as writer and illustrator.

Despite the fact that Gimlet was based on a licenced character, Jeff says "there were no guidelines to follow" when it came to producing the comic book version.

Wilkinson's next assignment would also mark the end of his career in Australian comics, contributing stories to the Silhouette Library series of digest-sized war, cowboy and romance comics.

Published by Reigate (an imprint of the Cleveland Publishing Company) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Silhouette Library series anticipated the local popularity of pocket-sized British comics, such as War Picture Library (1958) and Commando (1961).

As the Australian comic book industry fell into decline during the early 1960s, Wilkinson turned his hand to new business ventures, including work as a tiling contractor and as a designer of cameo-styled jewellery.

It would be another 20 years before Jeff returned to the drawing board - but this time in a different country.

"In the early 1980s, Marjorie and I decided to move to the UK for a two-year period - but we wound up staying for good."

Jeff found work as an illustraor for British comics publishers, such as IPC and DC Thomson.

"I left IPC shortly after Robert Maxwell took over [the company] in 1987," says Jeff. "Payment became too slow - sometimes it took longer than two months to get paid."

Sadly, Jeff's wife, Marjorie, died in 1996, after a short illness. Nonetheless, he still continued to teach art for local adult education classes, and only retired when he turned 80 years of age in 2004, due to poor hearing.

Jeff still remains an active artist and is presently working with one of his former pupils, Mila Dunajova (now a resident of the Czech Republic), on two illustrated children's books, which are awaiting publication. He currently lives in West Sussex, England.

Kevin Patrick would like to thank Jeff Wilkinson and Ruby de Claire for organising this long-distance interview, as well as Graeme Cliffe, Neville Bain and Roger Stitson for their research assistance. Any errors and omissions, however, are the author's own.

Images courtesy of Vintage Australian Comic Books on CD-ROM.

Kevin Patrick can be contacted at PO Box 1055, Camberwell, Victoria, 3124, or via email at: buzzproductions2001@yahoo.com.au

Antonio Lemos - Man from the Islands

I recently had the great pleasure of interviewing Antonio Lemos, the Uruguay-born artist who succeeded the late Keith Chatto as one of the new generation of cover artists on The Phantom comic book, published by Frew Publications (Sydney, Australia).

There's much more to Antonio's professional career than just The Phantom, as you'll discover - he's led a fascinating life away from the printed page and his experiences provide a unique insight into the vibrant, but often overlooked, world of South American comics.

This beautifully illustrated interview, featuring rarely seen samples of Antonio's comic artwork, is now published online at The ChronicleChamber.com.

Anthony Fury & Me

As part of the State Library of Victoria's publicity campaign for the Heroes and Villains exhibition, I was invited to be an inaugural 'video guest' for the State Library's new public access initiative, Your Treasures.

This new online programme invites members of the public to share their own 'personal treasures' with the State Library's website audience, by providing a digital image of their chosen item, along with a brief description about it, and why they regard it as a 'personal treasure'.

Where possible, these items are linked to corresponding items already held in the State Library of Victoria's inventory.

These fascinating personal accounts are then published online at the Your Treasures website. Users can search the site by keyword or subject category, to look up items which might match their own collecting passions.

As Guest Curator of the Heroes and Villains exhibition, I was asked to present a short video clip discussing one of the 'personal treasures' from my own collection of Australian comics. It was a hard choice to make, but eventually I settled on Anthony Fury, a mid-1940s sci-fi/adventure comic illustrated by Stanley Pitt.

You can view my vdeo presentation about Anthony Fury here and if you have your own 'personal treasure' you'd like to share with State Library of Victoria patrons, you can register to contribute to Your Treasures here.

Virgil Reilly: From Pin-Ups to 'Punch' Perkins

If, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death, Virgil Gavan Reilly (1892-1974) is remembered at all, it would most likely be as the creator of 'The Virgil Girl.'

The Virgil Girl paraded through the pages of Australia's most outspoken newspaper, Smith's Weekly, during the 1920s and 1930s. Reed-thin and elegant, The Virgil Girl excited young men with her (then) scandalously flimsy clothing and saucy jokes about men, dating and divorce.

At the peak of Smith's Weekly's popularity during the interwar years, 'Virgil' (as Reilly signed his work) was one of the paper's premier cartoonists and The Virgil Girl became an institution.

While Reilly is best known as a newspaper cartoonist, many may not realise that he also had a brief, yet prolific 'second career' as a popular comic book artist.

His original background was in commercial art, where he worked as a motion picture advertising artist, as well as drawing propaganda and recruitment posters during the First World War.

Reilly was also an accomplished book illustrator, providing artwork for two collections of poetry by Kenneth Slessor: Darlinghurst Nights (Frank Johnson Publications, 1933/Reprinted in 1974) and Backless Betty from Bondi (Angus & Robertson, 1983).

He also illustrated Martin Cash (1955) and Captain Melville (1956), two bushranger biographies written by the popular travelogue author, Frank Clune, and published by Angus & Robertson.

Reilly's first published comic books appear to have been two one-shot titles, Texas Cody and the Treasure Hunters and Texas Cody and the Phantom of the Sand Dunes, published in 1947 by the little-known publisher, Joseph Swanson Wilkinson.

It wasn't until 1950, with the closure of Smith's Weekly, that Reilly began his short yet intense involvement with Australian comic books.

Invincible Press was a magazine and book publishing company established by Ezra Norton, proprietor of the Truth and Sportsman newspaper stable, which included the Sydney Daily Mirror.

Invincible Press began publishing Australian comic books in the 1940s, including Blake of the Northern Mounted and The Legion of Space, as well as reprints of Bob Clark's popular Boofhead comic strip, which first appeared in the Daily Mirror in 1941.

It was for Invincible Press that Reilly created what was arguably his best-known comic book, Silver Flash and his Frogmen (54 issues/1950-1955). Reilly's fluid art style was well suited to this underwater adventure series, as Captain Flash and his crew patrolled the high seas in their submarine, fighting strange marine creatures and world-conquering villains in the ocean depths.

Reilly was clearly one of the most 'in-demand' comic artists of the early 1950s. In the same year he created Silver Flash, he produced not one, but two new monthly comics for rival publisher Ayers & James.

Reilly wrote and drew the first six issues of The Invisible Avenger (26 issues/c.1950-1952), about a mad Chinese scientist, who used his power of invisibility to carry out his genocidal mission of exterminating the "white races" of the world (He even managed to invade Australia and briefly became the self-proclaimed 'Emperor of Australia'!) The comic was passed over to Peter Chapman, who drew the title character, as well as the back-up strips 'The Blue Ghost', 'Cometman' and 'Secret Service Agent K-7' until issue #26, after which the comic featured US reprint material.

The next major series Reilly did for Ayers & James, who published their comics under the 'Red Circle Press' imprint, was Fighting Fleet Comics (22 issues/c.1950-1952). The title featured two major characters, 'Punch' Perkins, a two-fisted Aussie Naval officer (appearing in issues 1-15) and a top-secret RAF unit called Rocket Squadron (appearing in issues 16-22). Their common enemies were an endless parade of Chinese Communist overlords, who dismissed their opponents as "Englander pigs!"

It is worth mentioning that Reilly did not illustrate many of the covers that graced his Ayers & James comic titles. Occasionally credited to 'Jayar', these primitive and crude covers are poor reflections on Reilly's interior artwork, typified by his graceful brushwork and minimal, yet suggestive backgrounds. Reilly's own covers for Silver Flash, by contrast, look almost painterly and boast unusual, eye-catching colours.

Beginning in 1952, Ayers & James launched a new series called Comics Library, which, oddly enough, only featured all-Australian material in every third issue!

The third issue of Comics Library featured a Rocket Squadron story (#3, December 1952), but the remainder of the issues drawn by Reilly focussed on dramatisations of real-life naval battles.

Published under the confusing sub-heading Navy Combat, these included Destroy the Bismarck! (#6, March 1953), Sinking of the Tirpitz (#9, June 1953), The Navy Says: 'Hit 'Em Hard' (#15, December 1953), The Battle of the Plate (#18, March 1954), The Story of the 3 'Sydneys' (#21, June 1954) and The Battle of the Coral Sea (#24, September 1954).

Naval themes continued to dominate Reilly's comic book work during the 1950s. Aside from a short-lived series featuring his best-known character, Captain Silver Flash (3 issues/c.1955), the remainder of Reilly's work for the Sydney firm Calvert Publishing included Combat (9 issues/c.1956) and Naval Attack (7 issues/c.mid-1950s). (It is unknown whether all issues of Naval Attack featured new stories by Reilly, or reprints of his earlier work.)

He also produced four issues of another war series, Navy Combat, for Consolidated Press in 1955.

Reilly's last known comic book was Refreshment Through the Years, a full-colour promotional comic produced for Coca-Cola in 1956.

Sea Battles (5 issues/c.1961-1962) was published by Jubilee Publications, featuring navy warfare comics by Reilly. However, all of Reilly's stories appearing in these double-sized, 2/- shilling cover price comics are reprints of his strips for Ayers & James' Comic Library series, dating from 1953-1954.

Comic books, however, were just one aspect of Virgil Reilly's diverse and prolific artistic career.

Just as he made his debut as a comic book artist in 1950, Reilly also briefly illustrated the popular Chesty Bond newspaper strip, created by Syd Miller and Ted Maloney in 1938.

Reilly was a prominent cover artist for The Australian Women's Weekly during the Second World War. One of his cover paintings was used as the basis for a wartime stamp issued in July 1940 - and was the third official 'First Day Cover' stamp issued by Australia's postal service.

He remained involved in newspaper cartooning throughout the 1950s and won the Walkley Award for Best Piece of Creative Artwork or Cartoon in 1958, for an illustration he did for Sydney's Daily Mirror newspaper.

This article originally appeared in the March 2004 edition of Collectormania magazine. Silver Flash comic book image courtesy of BSP Gallery Bookshop

Transworld Features & Australian Comics: Part Two

A fascinating nugget of information about Transworld Features came my way, courtesy of fellow Aussie comics enthusiast & historian, Daniel Best, who dug up the following exchange between Roy Thomas and Stan Lee, both of whom were driving forces behind Marvel Comics' ascendancy during the 1960s and early 1970s:

Roy: That's when Al Landau, not one of my favorite people, succeeded you as president of Marvel. His company, Trans World, had been selling Marvel's work in other countries.

Stan: He came in because Martin knew him and dealt with him for years; they had been friendly. But then Martin and he had a falling out-I don't know. I always got along fine with Al. He leaned on me a lot, so I helped him when he was President-he came to me for everything. I know that he wasn't all that popular. He died a few years ago.


Roy: Al Landau was President a couple of years; then Jim Galton took over. The only time Al and I were on the same side (and it took me a minute to realize why) was when both of us wanted to get back one of the pages of story we had lost in our books. I wanted the page back just because I wanted it back, for better stories-and he wanted it because then his company Trans World could sell another page abroad. We had a community of interest only that once during the year or so he was there and I was Editor-in-Chief.

If Thomas and Lee are discussing Marvel Comics' overseas syndication during the early-to-mid 1970s, then that would certainly confirm Transworld Feature's involvement with Newton Comics during the 1975-76 period.

It will be interesting to learn if Transworld's involvement with the Australian comics market dates back to the late 1950s/early 1960s (when Horwitz Publications was reprinting Timely/Atlas comics locally), and whether they had any connection with KG Murray's reprint line during the 1970s, with such titles as Super Giant.

The Roy Thomas/Stan Lee interview was originally published in Comic Book Artist Vol.1 No. 2, Summer 1998, and can be read in its entirety online. (Super Giant cover image courtesy of AusReprints )

Transworld Features & Australian Comics

In a previous installment of Comics Down Under, we looked at the possible myriad sources for the translated Spanish comic strips which appeared in Australian comic books during the 1970s.

You could be forgiven for thinking that identifying the 'supply chain' for American comic strips appearing in Australian reprint titles during this same period would be comparatively easy.

After all, it would be fair to assume that DC Comics was the sole supplier of all the DC material appearing throughout Sydney publisher KG Murray's line of reprint comics, which were published under Murray's 'Color Comics' and 'Planet Comics' imprints during the 1960s and 70s.

By the same token, you would think that Marvel Comics were also responsible for supplying their editorial content which was reprinted in Australia, firstly by Newton Comics, then followed by Page Publications, during the 1970s and early 1980s.

But there is some anecdotal, and, admittedly, inconclusive evidence which suggests that another company may have 'on-sold' comic features, originally published by DC Comics and Marvel Comics, to Australian publishers, not just during the 1970s, but as far back as the 1950s.

Transworld Feature Syndicate may an unfamiliar name to most Australian comic collectors, but this company may have been responsible for providing Australian publishers with access to wide range of American comic book inventory.

For instance, a quick glance at my copy of The Amazing Spider-Man No.12, published by Melbourne firm Newton Comics in November 1975, contains the following information on the title page: "Published by Newton Comics of 1 Newton Street, Richmond VIC by authority of Transworld Feature Syndicate Inc."

While Marvel Comics is listed in this same passage as the copyright and trademark owner of all the characters and content appearing in this issue, that single sentence implies that Transworld Feature Syndicate, and not Marvel Comics, supplied Newton Comics with their editorial content.

This isn't the first time I've seen the name Transworld mentioned in connection with Australian comic books.

Back in 2004, I interviewed Jim Shepherd, Managing Director of Frew Publications, about how Frew secured the rights to produce a locally-drawn version of the American superhero character Catman, back in the early 1950s - and here's what he had to say:

"I can only imagine that [Frew co-founder] Ron Forsyth, who was a fairly regular visitor to the United States, saw the title and liked it. I have no idea whether he negotiated directly with [American publisher] Continental Magazines, or whether he worked through a now-defunct, New York-based organisation known as Transworld Features, with whom he worked closely for many years."

Transworld appears to have been acting as an agent for American comics material being printed outside the United States.

An article discussing the British comics publisher Alan Class, appearing in From The Tomb No. 18 (Christmas 2005), states that Class obtained photostats of original American comic artwork from "Trans World Features and other outlets."

These British titles, such as Sinister Tales, Astounding Stories and Creepy Worlds, were almost exclusively comprised of black & white reprints of Timely/Atlas Comics' horror and suspense stories from the mid-to-late 1950s and were published in Britain throughout the 1960s and 70s.

Nor did Transworld appear to restrict themselves to English-language markets like Australia and the United Kingdom.

The cover of X-Men No.1 reproduced here (courtesy of Mile High Comics) is for a Spanish-language edition published in 1966, possibly for the Mexican market.

Interestingly, Mile High Comics lists Transworld Features Syndicate as the publisher - and not Marvel Comics, who originally launched this title in America in 1963.

Which brings us to another interesting question: Was Transworld Features Syndicate the sole supplier for both DC Comics and Marvel Comics content being reprinted in Australia, from the late 1950s onwards?

For instance, Sydney publisher Horwitz Publications launched its own line of US reprint comics in the mid-to-late 1950s, with much of the content drawn from 1950s era Timely/Atlas Comics titles.

If local publishers such as Frew Publications had already been dealing with Transworld Features as far back as the early 1950s, could it be that Transworld also supplied companies like Horwitz Publications?

That's entirely possible, given that Horwitz continued to issue American reprint titles through to the mid-1960s, which included the 'new look' Marvel Comics superhero characters, such as Daredevil, Iron Man and The Fantastic Four.

And it sounds even more plausible when we remember that Transworld Features were also listed as the primary supplier of Marvel Comics material to Newton Comics during the mid-1970s.

But what about KG Murray, which largely concentrated on Australian reprints of DC Comics material, from the 1940s to the 1980s? What connection, if any, did they have with Transworld Features Syndicate?

It's worth noting that, between Horwitz's cancellation of its Marvel reprint line in 1965-66, and the launch of Newton Comics in 1975, KG Murray did reprint several Marvel Comics characters, on an ad hoc basis, in some of their anthology titles.

A good example is Super Giant, which appeared between 1972-76, which reprinted episodes from then-current Marvel Comics' superhero and horror titles, such as Iron Man, Werewolf By Night and The Mighty Thor.

Another example from this period was Savage Tales , which included reprints from Marvel's then-burgeoning line of 'adult' black & white horror/fantasy magazines, including the original version of Savage Tales, as well as 'regular' colour comics like Conan the Barbarian.

While there is no documentary evidence to suggest otherwise, it's worth speculating whether Transworld Features were also responsible for supplying KG Murray with the DC Comics material featured in their Australian line of reprint titles.

Admittedly, there was (at least to my knowledge) no printed reference to Transworld Features Syndicate in the publication information listed in any KG Murray reprint comic title.

And, as we've seen here, Transworld Features appears to have largely dealt with syndicating material from the Timely/Atlas/Marvel Comics imprints, both in Australia and overseas.

Yet, if as Jim Shepherd of Frew Publications suggests, Transworld also syndicated material from other American comic publishers, even as far back as the early 1950s - is there a chance they were the exclusive agents for DC Comics content being reprinted in Australia as well?

The answer to this question, like so many others concerning the origins and publishing histories of Australian comics, is probably lost to us forever.

But if anyone out there has some further information regarding Transworld Features Syndicate, then they are welcome to share it with an appreciative audience at this online forum.