Will the real 'Sudden' please stand up?

Back in October 2006, I wrote an entry about the comic artist, Maurice Bramley, and his work on a little-known Australian comic titled The Fast Gun.

It was in this comic that Bramley produced a recurring series about a Western gunfighter, Jim Sedden, whose lightning-fast draw earned him the nickname 'Sudden'. His deadly skill frequently saw him work as undercover marshall for Governor Phil Harrison, of Houston, Texas.

In my previous blog posting, I speculated as to whether these editions of The Fast Gun comic, which were published by Page Publications during the early 1970s, were reprints of stories originally released by Horwitz Publications during the early 1960s (when Bramley was Horwitz's principal comic book cover artist), or if they were first printings of unused material, purchased from Horwitz after that company ceased publishing Australian comics during 1965-66.

Whatever their origins, I had never seen these 'Sudden' comic strips elsewhere, and had assumed that this was a new, original series from the pen of Maurice Bramley.

So, imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this paperback (see above) in my local secondhand bookstore!

For a split-second, I wondered if Maurice Bramley's 'Sudden' comic strip was, in fact, an adaptation of this fictional hero?

If so, that would make it a rare example of a literary character appearing in an Australian comic book - and even more unusual to see it published at a time when the domestic comics industry had largely expired.

(Actually, Australian comic book publishers in the 1940s and 50s were fairly quick to exploit the popularity of well-known authors with comic book tie-ins. The British crime writer Edgar Wallace had several of his stories adapted into comic book format, as did Capt. W.E. Johns, whose famous adventurers Biggles and Gimlet became stars of their own authorised Australian comic book series.)

However, a quick comparison between the Sudden novel and The Fast Gun reveals that, while it's not an adaptation of the novel, the comic book appears to 'borrow' a few elements from its literary predecessor.

'The Western' is arguably the one unique American literary genre which adapted well to foreign climes, where tales of cowboys and Indians (disparagingly referred to as 'horse operas' by some critics) have been taken up by writers, cartoonists and filmmakers across the globe for much of the 20th century.

During the 1930s and 40s, England, like Australia, played host to a thriving 'popular fiction' publishing industry, which churned out cheap hardbacks (for the private lending library market) and novellette magazines for sale through newsagencies and bookstalls.

'The Western' quickly established itself as one of the most popular genres in the British market, with countless English authors cranking out Western yarns to an audience hungry for escpaist adventures on the wide open plains of the American frontier.

Oliver Strange was one of the early 'stars' of the British Western scene, whose series of novels starring James Green, a lethal gunfighter known as 'Sudden', became bestsellers when they first appeared (as far as I can ascertain) during the early 1930s.

Strange wrote 10 'Sudden' novels during his lifetime. The book shown here, The Law o' The Lariat, was originally published by George Newnes in 1931, but this Corgi Books edition was first published in 1962 - and was reprinted a further five times throughout the 1960s (This copy is a 1967 reprint, which attests to the character's enduring popularity.)

The Law o' the Lariat sees 'Sudden' (so named because of his lightning-fast gun draw) receive a message from Judge Embley, who presides over the town of Desert Edge, asking him to work undercover as the new foreman at the Lazy M ranch.

Introducing himself as Jim Severn, 'Sudden' helps the ranch's owner, Philip Masters, thwart the schemes of a nefarious rival rancher, Black Bart, who wants to take over the Lazy M 'spread', while doing battle with a group of bandits known as 'The White Masks'.

The Sudden books were not only sufficiently popular to remain in print for decades, but new adventures featuring the character were written by Frederick Nolan (who was a manuscript reader & editor with Corgi Books), who produced a further five Sudden novels under the pen name 'Frederick H. Christian' during the 1960s.

And it's this belated 1960s 'revival' of the Sudden novels which invites comparisons with Maurice Bramley's comic strip, 'Sudden', as it appears in the Australian comic book, The Fast Gun.

Nowhere in the comic strip is there any reference to Oliver Strange's 'Sudden' character, nor any acknowledgement that the strip is an adaptation of the original book series. Yet there are more than a few similarities between these two versions of 'Sudden'.

Bramley's character's real name is Jim Sedden, which sounds a lot like the alias 'Jim Severn' used by Sudden in The Law o' the Lariat. And, like Oliver Strange's hero, Bramley's gunfighter earned the nickname 'Sudden' because he's unbelievably fast on the gun-draw.

And, like his paperback namesake, Bramley's cowboy also works as an undercover agent - but in the employ of Governor Phil Harrison, of Houston, Texas.

So, what are we to make of these similarities, decades later? Are they a string of extraordinary coincidences, or a case of 'imitation being the greatest form of flattery'?

It's not unreasonable to suggest that Maurice Bramley could have been aware of Oliver Strange's 'Sudden' paperback novels, as these were readily available in Australia during the 1960s. (My copy of The Law o' the Lariat bears an Australian retail price of 60 cents)

Admittedly, the editions of The Fast Gun that I'm referring to here were actually published by Page Publications and date from the early 1970s - but it's quite posible that these editions were, in fact, reprints of a Horwitz Publciations title dating from the 1960s, when the Corgi Books editions of the Sudden novels would have been sold locally.

(For further details on the links Horwitz Publications/Page Publications comics' line, read my article on Daniel Best's blog about The Phantom Commando, along with my earlier entry about the convolouted transition between the Horwitz Publications & Page Publications' series of The Fast Gun comic.)

Aside from doing one-off, self-contained comic strips for Horwitz's war and Western comics during the early 1960s, Bramley (to my knowledge, anyway) has never instigated an original comic book series of his own.

His first major, ongoing comic title, The Phantom Commando, was originally created by John Dixon, and 'inherited' by Bramley after Dixon left comic books to focus on his syndicated newspaper strip, Air Hawk and the Flying Doctor.

It's quite possible that, if he were asked to come up with a new Western strip for Horwitz Publications, Bramley liberally 'borrowed' aspects of the 'Sudden' book series and used them to come up with the 'Sudden' comic strip which appeared in The Fast Gun magazine.

If that was the case, then this would by no means be the first time that Bramley made use of others' material.

Sometime back in 2000-2001, Australian comics enthusiast and historian Daniel McKeown wrote a fascinating, insightful study on the work of Maurice Bramley for the (sadly) now defunct Comicsaustralia.com website. This extensively illustrated essay showed numerous examples of how Bramley 'swiped' storylines, dialogue and panel sequences from other comics for use in his own work.

Amazingly, many of the stories that Bramley 'swiped' from were reprints of American comics featured in other comic book titles released by Horwitz Publications - who was Bramley's own publisher!

We can only speculate whether the plagirism of their own product went unnoticed at the time by Horwitz's editors - or, if they did notice it, chose to ignore it. Perhaps Bramely was even "encouraged" to freely "borrow" material from other sources for use in his own comic strip?

Again, the answers to these questions will most likely go unanswered.

In Bramley's defence, however, it must be said that he never deliberately copied another artist's style. Although he may have appropriated other cartoonists' work as the source for his own material, Bramley always drew comics in his unmistakably gritty style.

Insofar as the controversial subject of 'swiping' goes, I daresay that Bramley was in good company. Over the years I've read numerous anecdotes of how even the biggest name American newspaper cartoonists always kept a 'swipe file', featuring examples of well-drawn figures, heads or objects, which they would use as reference material for their own work.

Despite the overwhelming evidence which suggests that Bramley was a prolific 'swiper', such allegations in no way diminish my appreciation and enjoyment of Bramley's comic book work.

While his style clearly marks him as belonging to the earlier school of pre-war commercial artists (as opposed to being a comic book artist, per se), by bringing this 'outsider's perspective' to comic book illustration, Bramley's work stands out from other Australian comic books of the postwar period.

Nor should these comments lessen anyone's enjoyment of Bramley's efforts on 'Sudden' in The Fast Gun, which remains amongst his best work.