Australian Comics – A 1960 Snapshot

The following article was originally published in the Observer on 10 December 1960 (Vol.3/No.25), a fortnightly current affairs magazine published by Australian Consolidated Press. Launched in February 1958, the Observer was edited by Donald Horne (1921-2005), who promoted an editorial policy of ‘radical conservatism’, before the magazine was merged with The Bulletin in March 1961.

Although it was published without a byline, the article was almost certainly written by Peter Coleman (b.1928), associate editor of the Observer, who used much of the material seen here in his book, Obscenity Blasphemy Sedition[i], which dealt at length with Australian censorship of popular literature, such as pulp magazines and comic books.

The article not only provides a fascinating insight into the commercial workings of Australia’s once-thriving comic book industry, but also offers a contemporary account of the impact that the removal of import restrictions on American comics had on local comics’ publishers.

I have prepared the accompanying footnotes for this article in order to provide readers with the broader historical/cultural context of Australia’s postwar comics publishing industry, with references to suggested further reading.

The Comics Business

There are scores of publishers in the Pink Pages – publishers of everything from Christmas cards to text books and bottle-labels. But a large number of them no longer answer their ‘phones: their offices are empty, their staffs sacked, and they themselves are working elsewhere. These are the small comic-book publishers, put out of business by the abolishing of import restrictions and the flooding in of printed-in America comics for the first time since before the war.[ii] Having learnt how to survive against all sorts of Government regulations from paper rationing to exchange controls, prohibition on imported manuscripts and censorship laws, the small publishers did not expect and could not survive the sudden abandoning of regulations.

The big firms have been hit as severely as the small ones: Horwitz Inc. which a year ago was publishing 35 comic book titles a month (including four completely Australian ones) is now down to four a month (with only one Australian). Magazine Management[iii] was printing 150 a month and is now down to 40. Even Walt Disney comics[iv], which do not have to meet competition from imported Disney books, have suffered a fall in sales of between 10 and 15 per cent. But whereas most of the big publishers have been able to move into other fields, either giving up the comics business altogether or taking up importing in a big way, the little publisher, the speculator, the amateur has gone to the wall. His brief day in the sun is over. As far as Australian publishing is concerned we are really back to where we were before the war.

All publishing is a gamble, but there have been more gamblers in the comics’ branch of Australian publishing than in any other branch. When paper restrictions after the war were lifted conditions were easy and comic speculators began publishing comic books in what time they had left after merchandising toys or shirts; others went into it full time. All you really needed too set up as a comic books publisher was some flair for the market, a little credit and a suit case in which to carry the manuscript from the syndication office to the printers. You did not need an office and many did not have one. The worst problem was getting the originals from America, since at the beginning of the war the Commonwealth Government had prohibited the importing of syndicated comics – not as protection for Australian authors and artists but as a dollar-saving measure. You could buy an American character and pay royalties for the use of him into a blocked account, but you were supposed to draw the comic all over again in Australia.

This was pretty hard to police, since the bigger publishers always altered the strips in some way to make them more attractive to the Australian market and if Customs inspectors came around they would see a room full of artists working on them. It looked as if they were redrawing the whole strip, and the inspectors were not too niggling.[v]

Most publishers took what they could from the syndication houses and did not worry too much how they got here. But some publishers used all sorts of dodges to get the forbidden originals into the country. Some had them posted here on micro-film in private mail; some had them sent from America to England, then to South Africa and then to Australia, where, coming from South Africa, Customs were less likely to inspect the; one even had a few pages posted in private mail to about 50 people in Australia who then passed them on to him. If caught once Customs were on him forever; all he could then do was change his name or the name of his firm.

Some of the bigger firms tried to establish completely Australian strips, and a few succeeded. But it is not easy to establish a character. It may take up to 1000 hours of skilled labour to produce one good book – preparing the script, drawing the rough sketches, editing the characters into definite types with standard reactions. In any case the advertising agencies and newspapers usually snapped up the best artists, and many publishers found many of the remaining artists to be mediocre or unreliable. If a book is black and white it has to sell 20,000 or the whole enterprise fails[vi]; if coloured (and therefore costs much more to print) it has to sell at least 50,000 to be worth publishing.[vii] Despite these disadvantages a few publishers succeeded in establishing Australian comic book characters – Horwitz’s Navy Action, drawn and scripted on Maurice Bramley and K.G. Murray’s Devil Doone written by Carson Gold and drawn by Hart Amos, for example.

But despite all these problems, publishers still had a fairly easy time in these early years. By 1954 there were about 72 million comic books being sold a year.[viii] The first blow came when so many had gone into the business that the market was oversupplied and distributors had to penalize publishers who had too many returns. The amateurs were pushed out of the business; the specialists got a stronger grip on the market.

The next serious problem was the wave of propaganda and censorship legislation against comic books in the middle ‘fifties. For a while “comic publisher” almost became dirty words. In some pulpits they were denounced as pornographers; in some magazines as pedlars of escapist, dehumanising mass culture; in others as betrayers of the Australian folk-ways; in others as promoters of sadism, violence or militarism.

By these high standards few publishers could escape censure, but even by more relaxed, less hysterical conventional standards some publishers played the game a bit rough, and no doubt it was these who gave the anti-comics movement some justification. To meet the attacks most publishers set up internal censorship committees. K.G. Murray adopted a modification of the U.S. Comics Code Authority; Magazine Management established a Committee of Parents; Gordon and Gotch, the biggest distributor, set up its own censorship panel to further censor what the publishers’ censors had passed. (The only big publishing house which was unaffected was Walt Disney, which supplied one-third of the market and which critics took as a model for the comics business as a whole.)

One of the most comprehensive Australian codes was the Code of Ethics worked out by Horwitz Inc. Their authors, artists and editors were informed that in all juvenile comics the characters’ motives “must emphasise high social, civic and national ideals; physical fitness, learning and moral integrity must be exemplified: respect for proper authority must be instilled at every opportunity”. (The private-eye, for example, must not run mental rings round the local constable.) The heroes must never break any law, “even though a temporary infringement may be the means of bringing villains to ultimate justice (e.g. when crooks are escaping, the hero must not jump into an unoccupied car which does not belong to him and give chase – he must ask the passing driver to ‘follow that car’).”

The hero’s speech must be “free from slang, ungrammatical idiom and dialect.” Some licence is allowed to a Western hero: he may not say, “Shucks! I ain’t goin’ no place!” but he may say, “Giddup, Silver!”)[ix] No “reference to the Deity” is allowed (e.g. “Holy Cow!”). No disrespect for any religion, creed, nation or colour is allowed.

As for sex: “No reference may be made to sex. Characters must conduct themselves as though sex does not exist – females should appear only when necessary to the plot and must at all times properly and decently clothed.”

The same general rules apply to teenage comic except that “social relations” between the sexes is “accorded to a broader scope.” “No intimacy other than wholesome embrace may be exchanged by any characters. Even husband and wife should not normally be shown together in the bedroom. Plots involving divorce should be avoided, as they point towards lack of family stability and are complicated and unsettling to the teenage mind.”

But despite these various codes the governments of most States went ahead with their censorship legislation. The Victorian and N.S.W. Governments passed Acts requiring publishers to take out licences to publish which they may lose (and therefore be put out of business) if they publish objectionable literature. These provisions, however, have not amounted to much, since it would be easy for a de-licenced publisher to get a new licence, or to ignore the whole business by dividing his company into half a dozen companies so that if one is de-licenced he can transfer its work to one of the others.[x] In any case, these provisions have never been used. The only new act which had some teeth in it is the Queensland “Objectionable Literature Act”, which set up a Board of six to examine comics and if necessary to prohibit their distribution in Queensland. In its first year of operation it prohibited about 40 publications, and altogether it has prohibited about 80. A stream of publishers filed up to Brisbane to ask the Board what on earth were its standards. The Board refused to give any: it was a matter of its “taste” or intuition – in other words, it would be as arbitrary and capricious as it chose.

Some publishers who lost the Queensland market were put out of business, and the rest could only wait until the Board went too far and banned (as it seemed bound to) some perfectly innocuous comic. This it did in December, 1954, when it banned a set of teenage romance comics, including some Horwitz comics which had already been ruthlessly vetted according to the Horwitz Code of Ethics.[xi] In what proved to be the Magna Carta of comic books the three publishers involved and the distributors took the Board to the High Court, where the Board was almost literally laughed out of court. The comics may be, the Court said, an affront to readers’ intelligence or even eyesight, but certainly not a threat to their morals.

Those who survived the censorship hysteria were then this year faced with the biggest threat of all – American imports. The lifting of restrictions was unexpected: up to the day before it came publishers were more or less used to appearing on bended knees before the exchange control authorities[xii] to get dollars to pay royalties. When the announcement came publishers knew that their Australian 24-page black and white comics could not compete with the American 32-page coloured ones. Some publishers wrote the Department of Trade pointing out the seriousness of the threat to Australian publishers, printers, authors and artists, but the reply was that the restrictions had not been meant as a tariff but only to save dollars and that the Government is now committed to freedom of trade. The appropriate action would be to apply to the Tariff Board for protection. However, the Tariff Board has traditionally opposed the idea of a “tax on books” and is unlikely to reverse this policy now.[xiii]

Some big firms almost gave up publishing comics, some changed over to massive importing. In any case, it was the final blow to the small publisher and to the hopes of Australian comics. The business is now in the hands of big firms nearly all dealing in American imports. The only firms continuing to publish on a big scale are Walt Disney (which do not have competition from American Disneys), K.G. Murray, whose 100-page Supa-comics (five comics in one), selling at 2s. on a value-for-money policy, have resisted the imports, Frew, whose “Phantom” still has a phenomenal grip on the juvenile market (despite its drab cover) and Magazine Management.

The question is how the American comics will sell in Australia after the market has grown used to adapted comics. Returns from distributors so far have been heavy, but the imports began pouring in over the winter months, which is the bad season for comics. The coming summer will be the testing time.

Meanwhile Magazine Management are continuing to publish 40 titles a month in order to keep the artists, block-makers and printers working for it: having had years of experience of Government chopping and changing, it wants to be ready to step up publishing again if import restrictions are re-imposed…

Kevin Patrick would like to thank John Clements, who brought this article to his attention. However, any errors or omissions in the accompanying notes and commentary are the author’s own. Text © copyright Australian Consolidated Press 1960-2007 and reproduced here under the ‘fair dealing for purpose of criticism or review’ provision of the Copyright Act 1968. Cover image of 1960 edition of Five-Score Plus Monthly Comic (published by KG Murray) courtesy of AusReprints.com.

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[i] Coleman, Peter (circa 1963), Obscenity Blasphemy Sedition: Censorship in Australia; Brisbane, The Jacaranda Press (see pages 143-184)

[ii] The introduction and enforcement of ‘import restriction’ legislation against imported printed matter by Australian governments is examined at length in Johnson-Woods, Toni (2006), ‘Pulp Friction: Governmental Control of Cheap Fiction 1939-1959’, Script & Print, Vol.30, No.2

[iii] Magazine Management was the “successor” to Ayers & James, a Sydney-based publisher which began publishing locally-drawn comics in the early 1950s. See Ryan, John (1979), Panel By Panel: A History of Australian Comics, Cassell Australia Ltd. (pg.208)

[iv] Prior to World War II, Walt Disney-based books and comics were published under licence in Australia by John Sands Ltd. However, in 1946, the Sydney publisher Walter A. Grainger became the licenced Australian representative for Walt Disney Productions (Character Merchandising Division). Grainger published the first Australian issue of Walt Disney Comics in October 1946 and continued to publish a diverse range of full-colour Disney comics for the Australian/South-East Asian market until 1974.

[v] The extent of Australian artists’ work in ‘adapting’ imported comic strips for the local market was apparently limited to painting out the copyright date and the name of the American newspaper syndicate appearing on the artwork! See Australian Journalists Association (circa 1950), Sin in Syndication: A Cultural Crime Wave that Threatens Australia (p.12).

[vi]Popular black & white edition Australian comic books frequently exceeded that figure. Frew Publications’ local edition of The Phantom comic book had apparently achieved a circulation of 89,820 copies when issue #19 went on sale in March 1950 – an increase of over 8,600 copies on the previous issue! See Snowden, John (1974), ‘Frew Publications Checklist Part One’, Cooee No.7 (pg.6)

[vii] According to Stanley Pitt (1925 – 2002), Cleveland Publishing printed 125,000 copies of a full-colour edition of Pitt’s science-fiction comic, Silver Starr, in the late 1950s, “expecting to sell the lot, but they only released 50,000 and lost money on it – a couple of thousand pounds…They sold ninety per cent of the returns to Woolworth’s or Coles for the Christmas-stocking trade and got their money back.” See Snowden, John (1983), ‘Stan Pitt: An Interview’, Science Fiction, No.14 (Vol.5/No.2); pg.51

[viii] According to one survey, the annual sales of comic books in Australian had reached 60 million copies by 1954, with bestselling titles averaging sales of 70,000 copies per month, down to 6,000 copies per issue for poorer-selling titles. See Connell, W.F. (1957), Growing up in an Australian City: A Study of Adolescents in Sydney; Melbourne, Australian Council for Educational Research (pg.155)

[ix] Horwitz published numerous Australian reprints of American western comics during the 1950s and 60s, principally from the Atlas Comics stable of publications, including Kid Colt – Outlaw and The Two-Gun Kid. The Horwitz editions often featured crudely re-lettered speech balloons, where the original ‘cowboy vernacular’ was substituted for grammatically correct English.

[x] This practice might go some way towards explaining why postwar-era Australian comics frequently listed different companies as their publisher for the duration of their existence, although they remained unchanged in nearly every other aspect of their appearance.

[xi] The bans imposed by the Literature Board of Review on such comics in 1954 were apparently still in force over twenty years later. A report in Sydney’s Sunday Sun (6 June 1976), titled ‘Lone Avenger Leers at Dirty Debbie – in Limbo’, stated that bans imposed on such comics as War Battles, Zowie and Tender Romances during 1954-1956 had not been lifted – decades after the offending publications had long since disappeared.

[xii] Exchange controls are traditionally imposed by governments to help protect a nation’s currency and preserve its foreign exchange reserves. In Australia, the Banking (Foreign Exchange) Regulations 1959 stipulated that “a person shall not, except with the authority of the Bank, take or send out of Australia any Australian currency or foreign currency, other than foreign currency obtained under the last preceding regulation. For decades after World War II, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was responsible for Australia’s currency exchange controls, which were subsequently transferred to the newly-created Reserve Bank of Australia in January 1960. Exchange controls were abolished in 1983 after the ‘floating’ of the Australian dollar.

[xiii] This long-standing resistance to imposing a “tax on books” ended on 1 July 2000, with the introduction of a 10% Goods & Services Tax (GST) on nearly all Australian consumer products, including books and periodicals.