Comics Down Under

After the World - New Aussie Horror Pulp

2009-12-17T15:24:00.000-08:00

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"; so William Shakespeare wrote in Henry VI, Part Two (circa 1590-91), but we've had to wait until 2009 to see The Bard's wishes come close to fulfilment in the pages of Killable Hours.

Written by the psuedonymous 'Clay Blakehills', Killable Hours is set in the skyscraper offices of a Melbourne law firm, which is beseiged from within when most of its workforce is afflicted by a strange virus, which turns them into a ravenous horde of zombies. No one, from the senior partners down to the lowliest law clerk, is safe from the ensuing carnage.

Killable Hours is the the first horror pulp novella in the 'After the World' series, released by Black House Comics, publishers of The Dark Detective comic book series (For a review of The Dark Detective, click here.) Wrapped up in a gorgeous, blood-drenched cover painting by Jason Paulos, Killable Hours is an enjoyable piece of escapist mayhem, which sells for AUD$5.00 and is on sale at newsagencies everywhere.

Vernon Hayles & the Aussie Pin-Up Girl

2009-12-03T14:54:00.000-08:00

Flicking through a copy of Madeleine Hamilton's new book, Our Girls: Aussie Pin-Ups of the 40s and 50s (ISBN: 9780980436754/Arcade Publications), I was surprised to see a photo showing a smart young couple sitting in a magnificent sportscar, bearing the following caption: "Norma with her husband, illustrator Vernon Hayles, in the early 1940s".

'Norma' was, as it turns out, Norma Padula, a striking brunette who won the Pix magazine 'Beach Girl' photographic contest in 1941. Her husband, Vernon Hayles, will be known to collectors of Australian comic books as one of KG Murray's earliest Australian comic book artists, who penned such engaging science-fiction adventures as the one-shot title, Man Out of Space, and 'Fort Zero', which appeared in Climax Color Comic #11.

Hayles later collaborated with the acclaimed children's author, Ivan Southall, on a comic strip titled Mike Manly, which appeared in the Australian Woman's Day magazine during 1954-55 (Hayles succeeded Peter James, the strip's original illustrator, who remains best known for his 1940s jungle hero, Panther Man). Sadly, as with so many Australian comic artists of the post-war era, little is known about Vernon Hayles' life and work.

However, anyone interested in Australian post-war popular culture, particularly magazine publishing history, will enjoy Madeleine Hamilton's book, Our Girls. The biographical portraits of the pin-up models and photographers from that era make for engaging reading in their own right - not to mention the photographs, of course! - but the book highlights the important role that popular magazines such as Pix and Man played in shaping Australia's post-war aspirations and sense of national identity, albeit in a playful, lighthearted manner.

The Return of Captain Goodvibes

2009-11-30T02:21:00.000-08:00

To Australia's surfing fraternity, Captain Goodvibes needs little introduction. For those of us not familiar with the ways of 'skeg culture', this porcine, spliff-smokin', wave-riding superhero might need a little further explanation.

The creation of cartoonist Tony Edwards' fevered imagination, Captain Goodvibes was the Antipodean equivalent of Gilbert Shelton's underground comix hero, Wonder Warthog, and made his debut in the Australian surfing magazine, Tracks, in May 1973, remaining there until August 1981. Dedicated to the pursuit of good times (or should that be 'high times'?), Captain Goodvibes was sufficiently popular with the 1970s counterculture audience to burst out of Tracks, and appear in a few solo publications, such as the 1974 tabloid-sized comic, Captain Goodvibes: The Pig of Steel. Captain Goodvibes also apparently enjoyed a cinematic cameo in the 1975 surfing documentary, Crystal Voyager, appearing in a brief animated sequence during the film.

For those of you who can, through the thinning pall of dope smoke, still vaguely recall the good Captain in his glory days, or to anyone curious to know more about this genuine Aussie comic cult figure, then a mandatory visit should be made to the Captain Goodvibes Official Website, which has a brief history about the character, as well as a gallery of some of his finer exploits from Tracks magazine. (Thanks to Eddy Crosby for the heads up on this website)

Rediscovering the 'Frontiers of Science'

2009-11-15T18:54:00.000-08:00

Anyone doubting the comic strip's potential as an educational and instructional medium would surely cast aside such doubts upon rediscovering the 'Frontiers of Science', an Australian comic strip that was syndicated to over 600 newspapers worldwide between 1961-1982.

The brainchild of Professor Stuart Butler (School of Physics, University of Sydney) and journalist and filmmaker, Bob Raymond, Frontiers of Science was conceived as a means of explaining scientific phenomena and documenting aspects of scientific history, in a compelling, visual manner. Butler served as the scientific consultant on the series, while Raymond wrote the scripts for each daily installment.

Frontiers of Science was well-served by two accomplished illustrators; Andrea Bresciani, an expatriate Slovenian-Italian artist who spent much of his working life after World War II in Australia, and David Emerson, a prolific Australian cartoonist and painter, who took over as illustrator on the series in 1970.

The University of Sydney Library has recently launched the Frontiers of Science website, which features an online archive containing the first 200 episodes of the comic strip, along with biographical information about the series' creative personnel. This website is a handsomely formulated tribute to one of the unsung success stories of Australian comic strip art, which remains as informative and enlightening today as it did when it first appeared nearly 50 years ago.

Who wrote 'The Adventures of Biggles'?

2009-09-30T03:02:00.000-07:00

If your first answer to the above question was "Capt. W.E. Johns", then you're wrong - sort of. While Capt. W.E. Johns did, indeed, pen nearly 100 novels and short-story collections starring this quintisentially British aviatior hero, keen-eyed Biggles fans will note that no book appearing under Johns' name ever bore that title.

The Adventures of Biggles was, in fact, the name of the comic book published and created in Australia by Action Comics Pty. Ltd. (Sydney), launched in the early 1950s to capitalise on both the popularity of the Biggles books amongst Australian readers, and on the Australian-produced radio serial, The Air Adventures of Biggles, which was broadcast on numerous commercial networks during 1949-54.

The Adventures of Biggles comic book actually outlasted its radio serial counterpart, running for over 50 (non-consecutive) issues during 1953-57, and was illustrated by Australian artists, Albert De Vine and John Dixon. The comic was even reprinted under licence in Great Britain by Strato Publications - truly a case of sending coals to Newcastle!

Although Capt. W.E. Johns was credited as the author of the comic book series on the front cover of the comic book, a recent discovery I made confirms that Johns did not actually write any stories for the comic book version of Biggles. The accompanying scan of the inside front cover of The Adventures of Biggles No.17 features an interesting type-written note, which reads as follows:

"Biggles" comics are produced in Australia under an arrangement with Captain W.E. Johns, originator of "Biggles". The Australian written scripts are sent to England for approval before publication. I've written about two or three years' supply of 'Biggles' comic scripts for the Australasian market."

Frustratingly, the author of this note has neglected to include their name - was it penned by Albert De Vine, the credited illustrator whose work appeared in that same issue? Or was it the work of another writer?

The comment about obtaining overseas approval of the Australian comic book scripts was certainly boorne out in an unpublished interview I counducted with John Dixon earlier this decade, who succeeded De Vine as illustrator on The Adventures of Biggles:

John [Dixon] says he was given a free hand when it came to creating new Biggles adventures for the comic book series. "Although I do remember Capt. Johns commenting in a letter to [Australian publisher] John Edwards that 'Biggles did not fly jets'," he says. "I don't recall whose idea it was to update the character."

Dixon's recollections infer that he also wrote, as well as drew, the Biggles comic book stories. Whether the same was equally true of Albert De Vine, an artist about which maddeningly little is known today, can only be the subject of conjecture. I've reproduced the contents of this cryptic note, and the page on which it appeared, in the hopes that it might trigger someone's memory, out there, somewhere, who might be able to shed light on the identity of its author. (Image courtesy of the Rare Books Collection, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria.)

'Spanish-Australian' Comics @ AusReprints.com

2009-09-24T23:04:00.001-07:00

The AusReprints website, which is traditionally dedicated to Australian-edition reprints of DC Comics' series from the late-1940s to mid-1980s, currently features three in-depth articles documenting the intriguing Australian publishing history of several Spanish-drawn comic strips: Johnny Galaxy and the Space Patrol; Ringo, Big River Lawman; and A Man Called Sunday.

These articles, penned by James (creator of AusReprints.com), are an excellent contribution to Australian comics' 'fan scholarship', which examine a frequently overlooked aspect of Australian comics publishing history - namely, the presence of Spanish/European-drawn material, which gained significant exposure through Australian comic books (especially those produced by KG Murray and Gredown Pty Ltd) published from the late-1960s onwards.

Much of the material discussed in these articles only ever saw English-language publication in Australia, and exposed Australian readers (and aspiring comic creators) to the 'new wave' of Spanish writers and artists, some of whom whose work was also appearing in Australian editions of Warren Magazines' trio of horror comics - Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella.

While the editorial imperatives and commercial machinations that led to such an abundance of Spanish-drawn material appearing in Australian comics may be lost to present-day researchers, these articles nonetheless provide an excellent starting point, tracing as they do the complex, interlocking publishing histories of such strips as Johnny Galaxy, Gringo (retitled 'Ringo' for the Australian market) and A Man Called Sunday. (Image courtesy of AusReprints.com)

Conference Paper: The Contested Frontier - Comic Book ‘Westerns’ and Cultural Identity in Post-War Australia

2009-09-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

I recently had the pleasure of participating in the 13th annual Works in Progress conference, held at the University of Queensland during 4-6 September. The theme for this year's conference was 'Pockets of Change: Cultural Adpatations and Transitions'. The broad aim of WIP is to bring recent postgraduate students together from Australia and overseas to discuss their current research interests, and provide them with an opportunity to participate in what, for many, will be their first academic conference experience.

The WIP conference is oragnised under the auspices of the University of Queensland's School of English, Media Studies and Art History (EMSAH), and provided a forum for a diverse selection of speakers, whose research interestes ensured a broad range of responses to the conference theme of cultural adaptation and transition. I found the WIP conference an overwhelmingly positive experience and would encourage any current or prospective postgraduate students to participate in next year's event.

Presented below is the abstract from my own conference paper, which was based on a section from my recently completed honours dissertation.

The Contested Frontier: Comic Book Westerns and Cultural Identity in Post-War Australia

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the American ‘western’ proved to be a remarkably adaptable genre, successfully migrating from one mass medium to another, and continually reaffirming its public appeal in mass-market fiction, cinema, radio and television.

Comic books, too, were highly receptive to the ‘western’, which briefly displaced the costumed superhero as the medium’s most popular fixture in the years immediately after World War II. The popularity of ‘cowboy comics’ was by no means confined to the United States; western titles were amongst the most popular published in Australia from the mid-1940s onwards, appearing as they did at the peak of the domestic comic industry’s post-war ‘boom’.

Comic book westerns, however, found themseles at the centre of hotly contested debates about Australia’s sense of national identity. For some, the archetypal cowboy embodied the Cold War-era politics of the United States, while others saw in western comics further evidence of the corrupting influence that American culture exerted over Australian society. The public debate over comic books reflected the ongoing tensions in a triangulation of influence exterted by both British and American culture on Australia’s post-war sense of national identity. More importantly, such arguments tended to highlight class-driven distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture and the generational biases of their participants. Intriguingly, Australian publishers, writers and illustrators successfully appropriated the image of the American cowboy to their commercial advantage. They innovatively adapted the genre to meet Australian audiences’ tastes in ways that they were unable to achieve with the historically familiar, but morally problematic, figure of the Australian bushranger.

(Illustration courtesy of the Rare Book Collection, Monash University, Victoria.)

Review: The Dark Detective - Sherlock Holmes

2009-08-20T03:55:00.001-07:00

The sighting of a new, Australian-drawn comic book appearing on the shelves of the nation's newsagencies is cause enough for comment; but when a second issue of such a venture follows hot on the heels of the first, then surely something is afoot! Thankfully, The Dark Detective: Sherlock Holmes is not only remarkable for daring to venture outside the comic shop retail ghetto, but is also a thoroughly enjoyable comic book interpretation of the world's greatest consulting detective.

Written by Chris Sequeira and illustrated by Phil Cornell, The Dark Detective sees the ever-loyal Dr. John H. Watson reluctantly reunited with his irascible friend and mentor, Sherlock Homes, as they attempt to uncover a vast criminal conspiracy that threatens to engulf all of London. Their investigation is sparked off by a string of grisly murders which appear to have been committed, not by man, but by a supposedly mythical creature known as a chimera.

The fictional universe of Holmes' creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is well represented here, as Sequeira introduces key figures from the Holmes canon, including the great detective's brilliant brother, Mycroft Holmes (now serving as head of the Royal Information Portfolio, or RIP), the thoroughly competent Inspector Alec MacDonald of Scotland Yard and the self-styled 'Napoleon of Crime', Professor James Moriarty who may - or may not -be at the heart of this intriguing mystery.

Sequeira nicley captures the prickly temprament of Holmes himself, and faithfully invokes the overall temper and tone of Doyle's original stories, whilst unfolding the plot at a brisk, yet measured pace. Cornell's artwork strikes the right balance between dramatic illustration and caricature, while Dave Elsey's digital colouring cloaks the strip in alternately rich and sombre tones, which neatly evoke the mood of Victorian-era London, particularly with the second issue.

Indeed, the only drawback for me were Elsey's cover illustrations which, despite capturing Holmes's otherworldy character, nonetheless remain curiously flat and static. I would have preferred to have seen Jason Paulos' back cover treatment on issue #2 used as the front cover, not only because it is more visually dramatic, but it perfectly complements the penny dreadful-inspired mayhem of the interior stories.

But this is a relatively minor critique of a comic book that is an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable entertainment, and will become a welcome addition to the swollen ranks of comic book 'pastiches' featuring Sherlock Holmes and co.

The Dark Detective: Sherlock Holmes is published by Black House Comics and is available through newsagencies and comic book shops throughout Australia. Price: AUS$5.00/US$3.50.

Event: Dave De Vries' Film Debut - Friday 28 August (Melbourne)

2009-08-17T02:59:00.000-07:00

Dave De Vries is best known amongst Australian comic book fans as the creator and original illustrator of the popular late 1980s/early 1990s superhero group, The Southern Squadron, and as well as being a former contributor to the controversial horror comic, Phantastique. Oh yeah, and he's managed to snag a fistful of high-profile comic art assignments in the USA, including Batman, Green Lantern and The Phantom.

But Dave's latest creative venture sees him stepping out from behind the drawing board, and occupying the director's chair on his feature film debut, a sexually-charged thriller called Carmilla Hyde. So, what is this "Gen-Y cult sensation" all about? Here's an excerpt from the film's media release:

Starring Anni Lindner with an ensemble cast of some of Adelaide’s finest rising stars, Carmilla Hyde takes its audience on a spellbinding journey as Millie transforms from repressed nerd to wild and sexy Carmilla Hyde.

Millie, a shy introverted virgin, is drugged and seduced by her housemates. Awaking without any memory, Millie is confronted by internet sex tapes of her night of wanton passion. Humiliated and confused, she turns to hypnotist Dr Webster, and her memories are set free. Her memories, and her alter ego, the wild and sexy Carmilla Hyde. And Carmilla is hungry for revenge.

Melbourne moviegoers can get their chance to see Carmilla Hyde, when it screens as part of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF), which is being staged at various venus during 22-30 August 2009.

Carmilla Hyde will be screening at Glitch, 318 St Georges Rd, North Fitzroy, at 9:00pm, Friday 28 August. Check the MUFF website for ticketing details.

Comic Books, Australian Society and Cultural Anxiety: 1956-1986

2009-07-22T22:31:00.000-07:00

The heading for this blog entry is the title of the dissertation I wrote as part of my Honours Degree of Bachelor of Arts, which I completed last month at Monash University. It represents the culmination of nearly a year's work and, although it wound up being a very different thesis topic to the one I'd originally conceived back in 2006, I'm nonetheless very pleased with the final result.

For those amongst you who may be interested, you can read the abstract on the ComicsResearch.org website (Just scroll down to the bottom of the page to see my entry). As for the rather alarming image accompanying this blog entry, it is an interior illustration taken from the anti [American] -comic book pamphlet, Sin in Syndication: A Cultural Crime Wave that Menaces Australia!, which was prepared by the Australian Journalists' Association, circa 1950.

Where Did My Comic Book Collection Go?

2009-06-01T03:23:00.000-07:00

Back in 2005-2006, in a rare fit of civic duty - or temporary insanity, depending on your viewpoint - I decided to donate my entire collection of Australian comic books (spanning the years 1970-2005) to the State Library of Victoria. This same collection formed the partial basis for a major exhibition, Heroes and Villains: Australian Comics and their Creators, which was held at the State Library of Victoria between October 2006 - February 2007.

Now, long after the crowds have departed and the dust has settled, some of you may be asking: "What happened to your collection afterwards, Kev?" Well, the collection - easily the single biggest collection of modern (i.e. post-1970) Australian comics held anywhere in the country - has been gradually catalogued and added to the State Library of Victoria's inventory.

And, now, you can search the State Library of Victoria's online catalogue to check them out for yourself - just visit the Main Library Catalogue search page, and type in the phrase, 'Kevin Patrick Collection of Australian Comics', and you'll get results listing over 170 individual titles. Apparently, there are more titles to be added to the database, but library staff are apparently nearing the end of cataloguing this collection.

If you're visiting the State Library of Victoria - which I recommend you do, because it's an unsung gem of Melbourne life - then you'll need to submit an online catalogue request to have individual comic retrieved for you (It's a reference library, so you can only read/inspect items on-site). But despite these caveats, it's a great way to read & review a significant slice of Australian comic book publishing history.

Yaroslav Horak's Czech Connection & Me

2009-07-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

One of the 'fringe benefits' of maintaining this blog is that I'll often get surprising emails, completely out of the blue, from comic book enthusiasts across the world. The comparative ease with which people can contact one another via the Internet never ceases to amaze, and delight, me. Such chance encounters, while not impossible, were nonetheless quite rare back in the pre-Internet era of the mid-1980s, when I first began writing for Australian comic fanzines and correspondeing (by snail-mail) with comic book fans.

Late last year, for instance, I had a brief email exchange with Tomas Prokupek, one of the editors of Aargh! Komiksovy Sbornik, a Czech-based magazine devoted to comic art. Tomas was writing an article on Yaroslav Horak, who was born in Manchuria to Czech-Russian parents, and initially made a name for himself as a comic book writer-illustrator in Australia during the late 1940s, before achieving international recognition as an artist on the James Bond comic strip for the Daily Express newspaper (UK) during 1966-1977.

Tomas was in desperate need of some illustrations featuring Hoorak's earlier Australian work (little seen outside Australia), and I was only too happy to oblige by supplying scans of a Horak cover for Michael Chance Comics No.15 (featuring Horak's aviator hero, Jet Fury) and the Cop Shop comic book cover from 1983, which reprinted newspaper comic strip stories drawn by Horak, based on the Australian television series of the same name.

Concentrating on my university studies since then, I'd largely forgotten about Tomas's request until last month, when a copy of the handsomely produced 8th edition of Aargh! (pictured)lobbed in my mailbox, complete with Tomas's article on Yaroslav Horak. It's a gorgeous-looking magazine, which spotlights Russian comics, and Russian comic artists - hence the feature on Yaroslav Horak in this issue.

Time permitting, Tomas has promised to send me an English translation of his Yaroslav Horak article which I hope to reprint online, here at Comics Down Under. So, stay tuned....

The Truth Western: Early Gredown BC (Before Comics)

2009-06-06T02:49:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of Comics Down Under will no doubt be aware that the history of the Australian comics publisher, Gredown Pty Ltd (Sydney, NSW), is of ongoing interest to myself - and to more than a few other collectors of that company's eclectic and intriguing range of comic books, issued during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Pictured at left is yet another intriguing piece of the Gredown 'puzzle' - it might look like one of the company's numerous 'one-shot' Western comic books, but The Truth Western is, in fact, a non-fiction magazine, packed with lurid, tabloid-style accounts of the American West, including "The Incredible Cimarron War of the Vigilante Minister" and "The Untold Saga of Sheriff Pat Garrett", illustrated with contemporary photographs and newspaper illustrations.

The contents of The Truth Western appear to be reprinted entirely from the April 1973 edition of Frontier West, which was one of several US magazines (such as Real West, Golden West and Frontier Times) that flourished throughout the 1960s and 1970s, specialising in dramatic retellings of American Western history.

Bookending this magazine are publicity stills from a long-forgotten 'blaxploitation' Western, Thomasine & Bushrod, which are captioned '(Release Early 1975'). Given the film was originally released in the United States in 1974, it's most likely that these captions are referring to the film's Australian release date.

This is largely confirmed by the fact that, unusually for any Gredown publication, The Truth Western bears a publication date of 1974 - which means this quite arguably predates any of that company's long line of horror/war/western/science-fiction comic books which, to the best of my knowledge, only began appearing around 1975. (Though I am happy to be corrected on this point!)

The date 1974 is potentially significant, because that was the year when KG Murray Publishing's magazine assets (including its comic book range) were acquired by Australian Consolidated Press - and bolsters the theory that Gredown Pty Ltd was set up by Greg Murray (son of Kenneth G. Murray), in competition with the former family-owned business.

That Gredown Pty Ltd should publish a text-based, non-fiction magazine like The Truth Western is not as surprising as it may seem - it was quite common for Australian magazine publishers (such as KG Murray, Southdown Press, etc) to cobble together one-shot magazines dedicated to specific subjects, compiled from previously published material culled from other titles in their publishing 'stable'. KG Murray (later as Murray Publishers) would publish numerous one-shot titles, on topics like war and westerns, under the imprimatur of their better-known men's mags, such as Adam or Man.

While we are no closer to uncovering the truth about Gredown's origins or business operations, little nuggets like The Truth Western can, over time, help us fill in some of the blanks about this intriguing Australian comic book publishing company.

Who's the rarest Batman of them all?

2009-03-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

Many collectors seeking to answer this question might nominate Detective Comics No.27 (the debut of Batman), Batman No.1 (the debut issue of the first ongoing Batman title), or any number of issues introducing such iconic members of the "batman universe" as Robin, The Joker, or Catwoman, to name but a few.

But it's be fair to say that few Bat-fans would list Detective Comics No.243, published in May 1957, as an exceedingly rare, or sought-after Batman comic. But here in Australia, it seems, that this issue is an inadvertently "hot" item, because it forms the basis for Giant Batman Album No.14, which was published in Australia by Colour Comics Pty Ltd in 1968.

Actually, the Aussie version may have just as likely been a reprint of DC Comics' Giant Batman Annual No.5, published in the (USA) summer of 1963, which also featured the lead story, "The Giant Batman"

For reasons that remain unknown to collectors everywhere, it seems the mid-teen issues of this Australian reprint title (Giant Batman Album), are scarcer than rocking-horse poop. You actually stand a better chance, it seems, of scoring the 1st issue of this series, than you do of issue nos.13-16, or thereabouts.

Unconvinced? Well, today a copy of Giant Batman Album No.14 sold on eBay Australia for AUD$129.50.

Holy Mylar-sleeve with-backing-board, Batman!

Cleveland Publishing Online

2009-03-07T00:59:00.000-08:00

You've probably seen a Cleveland western many times before, even if you've never read one in your life - odds are you'll always find a handful, occasionally even a small mound, of them in the corner of book exchanges and opportunity shops all around Australia. They're those pocket-sized, stapled 'pulp novel' westerns, which sport lurid, eye-catching covers, emblazoned with such memorable titles as Come Die in Diablo or Good Enough for Yuma.

What you may not realise is that these 'American' westerns are true-blue, dinky-di, Aussie productions. They've been published by the Cleveland Publishing Company in New South Wales since the early 1950s, and the "old firm" is still in business to this day, punching out a fistful of new and reprint titles, which sell at newsagencies for $3.75 a throw. Great value for an entertaining read, let me tell you.

Another thing is that just about all of those westerns were written by Aussie authors, too - including Paul Wheelahan, who thumped out nearly 1,000 individual novels for Cleveland between 1964-1995 - it was Paul's second career, after forging a name for himself as a comic book writer and illustrator on such titles as Davy Crockett - Frontier Scout, The Panther and The Raven during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Many of those great covers adorning Cleveland westerns during the 1960s-1980s were the work of the late Stanley Pitt, who also had a serious comics pedigree behind him, as the creator of the science-fiction comic strip, Silver Starr and the Flameworld, and other SF series, such as Captain Power.

Cleveland Publishing also made a sizeable contribution to Australian comic book publishing, too. Despite entering the game relatively late, the company launched such titles as The Twilight Ranger, El Lobo - The Man from Nowhere, and the eagerly sought-after Aussie/US reprint title, King Size Comics during the mid-to-late 1950s. They also published the successful 'Silhouette' digest comic libraries in the late 1950s, which included war, western and romance comic book series.

So, why am I telling you all this? Because Cleveland Publishing has recently launched its own website, where you can learn about the company's history, check out their latest release westerns and purchase a selection of their previous novels from the 'Bison', 'Cleveland Classic' and 'Larry and Stretch' series.

Okay, pilgrims, you know what you gotta' do. Saddle up, and mosey on over to the Cleveland Publishing website, pronto!

RIP - Walter Arthur Granger

2009-02-20T01:37:00.000-08:00

Walter Arthur Granger, the Australian businessman who headed the local operations of Disney Enterprises, died on 12 December 2008, at 84 years of age.

Granger served with the Royal Air Force during World War II as a sergeant observer in the 'top secret' Lancaster bomber unit, 101 Squadron. He returned from active service in March 1946 and was granted control of Disney Enterprises' Australian operations in 1947, after the death of his father, Walter Rogan Granger, who had founded the business, possibly some time in the late 1930s or early 1940s.

The Granger family name is best known amongst Australian comic collectors for its long association with the popular series of Walt Disney-based comic books, published under the W.G. Publications and Wogan Publications imprints from the mid-1940s to the late 1970s.

Obituaries for Walter Arthur Granger can be found at the Sydney Morning Herald and Double Bay Bowling Club websites. Further information on Australian Disney comic books can be found at Australian Disney Comics and Disney Comics Worldwide.

Previous entries concerning Walt Disney comic books in Australia featured on the Comics Down Under blog can be found here - and here.

(Image courtesy of Disney Comics Worldwide)

Review: The Leather Nun and Other Incredibly Strange Comics

2009-01-08T02:35:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a way to disprove the commonly-held belief that comic books are nothing more than "long-underwear types" (i.e. superheroes), simply produce a copy of Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury's latest book which, in less than 130 pages, beautifully illustrates just how diverse - and flat-out weird - the comic book medium can be.

The Leather Nun and Other Incredibly Strange Comics is an affectionate, informative and eye-opening "cooks' tour" of the outer fringes of the global comics village, encompassing American biblical comics (The Gospel Blimp), nude Italian superheroines (La Donna Ragna), cautionary tales from Canada (Super Shamou) and fake 'samizdat' comics from behind the Iron Curtain (Octobriana).

It's pleasing to see several Australian comics featured herein as well, including Norman Clifford's Wonder Wings Comic, the Durack sisters' charming retelling of Aboriginal dreamtime tales, simply titled A Book of Picture Stories, and Terry Trowell's delightfully offbeat Purple People Eater.

Each illustrated two-page entry provides a brief synopsis of each comic, biographical nuggets about their creators (where available) and a pithy defence as to why each comic earned its place in this book. Even the most well-informed comics aficionado will be surprised, and delighted, by some of the outlandish and eccentric comics on display in this book.

If you're looking for a belated Christmas stocking-stuffer, or want a disarming addition to your own comics reference library, then put The Leather Nun and Other Incredibly Strange Comics at the top of your shopping list.

The Leather Nun and Other Incredibly Strange Comics, by Paul Gravett & Peter Stanbury. Aurum Press Ltd/ISBN: 9781845133207/Australian price: AUD$24.95

Moira Bertram: Queen of the Comics - V2.0

2008-11-26T13:17:00.000-08:00

Back in December 2003, I wrote an article for Collectormania magazine about Moira Bertram, one of the few women to work in the Australian comic book industry during the 1940s and 50s. She was, and remains, in my opinion, one of the best comic book illustrators this country has yet seen. Anyone who's ever had a chance to see some of her full-colour comics from the late 1940s will testify that her work is as fresh and engaging now, as it was when it first appeared sixty years ago.

I posted a slightly modified version of this article on the Comics Down Under blog in July 2007, but thanks to the generosity of American comic artist and historian, Trina Robbins, I've been given access to previously unpublished information about Bertram's life and work, which I've since used to substantially revise and update the article.

Given that much of Bertram's best work was published by KG Murray in the late 1940s, I've opted to publish this article at AusReprints, the excellent tribute site to KG Murray comic books maintained by James Zanotto. The earlier version of the Bertram article has now been removed from this blog, so readers may enjoy the revised (and copiously illustrated) version here. (Cover image scan courtesy of AusReprints)

Aussie comics, university, and me....

2008-11-19T01:40:00.000-08:00

Regular readers of the Comics Down Under blog may have noticed a distinct 'drop' in the level of frequency of my posts, and might therefore be tempted to think that I, too, have dropped off the radar.

Thankfully, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, I have been largely absent from this blog, but I have a valid reason - and it's comic book-related, too, which makes my absence even more worthwhile.

Earlier this year, I decided to return to university studies, fifteen years after I'd completed my undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree. Why? Well, a number of reasons come to mind, including a desire to bolster my 'academic qualifications', as a precursor to a possible new career path for myself. More importantly, though, I felt I needed some extra intellectual stimulation, especially after I'd put such major projects as the Heroes and Villains exhibition and the Amazing Australia children's book series behind me.

Which is why I'm now currently undertaking an Honours in Communications course at Monash University, where I'm writing a thesis on globalisation and the Australian comic book industry during 1959-1983.

Why am I focusing on this particular period in Australian comics' publishing history? Because, I think, it's been a vastly overlooked era, one which saw a thriving domestic publishing history confronted by a raft of challenges, including renewed competition from imported American comics, systemic changes to the American comics' industry which had a major impact on Australian publishers, and increased exposure to international (or 'globalised') centres of comic art production, particularly in Europe. The rise of organised comics' fandom in Australia, with its attendant network of specialty comic book shops, also had an influence on the declining fortunes of Australian comic book publishers by the early 1980s.

I'll be examining these challenges through three major comic book genres, which dominated the output of most of the major publishers during this period - westerns, romance and horror comic books. Fans and collectors might argue that superheroes were the dominant genre amongst Australian publishers, but I'd be willing to bet that, in terms of sheer volume of published material, westerns, romance and horror titles probably held the lion's share of the Australian market during this 25-year period.

I have to admit that writing this thesis has been a challenging process, one which has forced me to re-examine material which I thought I knew inside & out with an altogether new set of 'eyes'. And I'm not even entirely comfortable with the use of the term 'globalisation' in the context of this thesis, as its such a broad term in its own right, which has generated reams of contentious debate in academic circles.

But despite the frustrations and prolonged periods of 'writer's block' (like the one I'm experiencing now, which is why I'm taking time out to write this blog entry!), I am enjoying this project, and will no doubt be as intrigued as my examiners will be to see the finished product when it gets spat out of my printer by the middle of next year!

So, please bear with me if I seem to 'disappear' from this blog for extended periods of time - I will drop in as I have any interesting news or insights to share, but for the next few months, I am a slave to my thesis topic!

(Cover image courtesy of AusReprints - Australian DC Comics Reprint Gallery)

Tony Rafty OAM – Comic Book Pioneer

2007-01-24T22:58:00.000-08:00

His signature is familiar to countless readers of the Sydney Sun and Sun-Herald newspapers, where his cartoons and caricatures were a regular feature for forty years.

Yet like so many famous newspaper cartoonists of his generation, Tony Rafty got his start as a comic book artist.

What sets his work apart from his peers is that Tony Rafty is widely credited with producing the first original Australian comic book that helped kick-start the Australian comic book industry.

Born Tony Raftopoulos to Greek migrant parents on 12 October 1915, Rafty grew up in the Sydney suburb of Rose Bay.

During the 1930s, Tony began working as a caddy at the Royal Sydney Golf Club. Not only did it provide his family with much-needed income, but it fuelled Tony’s lifelong passion for the sport that would play a big part in his artistic career.

By this time, Rafty began drawing caricatures of prominent sports personalities, working freelance for local newspapers and magazines.

“I got my first job with a sporting newspaper called The Referee,” recalls Tony. “It was published by Ezra Norton – but then he decided to close the bloody thing down!”

By the end of the decade, Tony began serving as a soldier with the Commonwealth Military Force.

He often spent his military leave in Sydney, knocking on publishers’ doors. “One day I just happened to wander into the offices of the New South Wales Bookstall Company,” he says.

By 1940, the NSW Bookstall Company was nearing its twilight years. Founded by Henry Lloyd in 1879, the business was purchased by Alfred Cecil Rowlandson in 1897, after Lloyd’s death.

Under Rowlandson’s stewardship, the business pioneered cheap paperback book publishing in Australia. At its peak (c.1904-1922), the NSW Bookstall Company produced nearly 5 million books, which it sold through a network of railway & tram-stop bookstalls, private lending libraries and newsagencies.

“That was where I met Brendan Dowling, who was the boss at the time,” according to Tony. “He was a lovely man and I’d always call in on him, whenever I was down in Sydney on leave.”

While the NSW Bookstall Company was no longer the dominant force in local book publishing, it could take advantage of the recently imposed ban on imported periodicals.

“One day, in 1940, Dowling said to me, ‘Will you do a comic strip for us? We’ll print it’.”

“I’d not read many comic books before then, maybe a few Yankee things,” admits Tony, “but I used to enjoy those English tabloid comics, which had lots of humour in them.”

Never having drawn a comic book before didn’t concern him, either. “You know what it’s like when you’re young – the world’s yours for the taking and you rip into it. So, if he asked me to do a comic book, I got stuck into it.”

So began the creation of Australia’s first original comic book – Jimmy Rodney on Secret Service.

“I wrote and drew it myself – but I made up the story as I went along,” he freely admits.

The story centres on a spy gang, led by a hooded figure known as ‘Zon’, to steal the plans for a secret ‘sub-sea ray’ – a weapon with which, according to its inventor, Professor Cooper, “our submarines will be invincible against enemy action.”

When the spies murder Professor Cooper, Jimmy Rodney of the Secret Service is assigned to the case. The killers’ trail takes Rodney aboard a submarine, where he poses as a crew member under the watchful eye of Vance, the gun-toting captain. After taking part in the submarine’s secret military exercises, Rodney defeats the spy ring and helps destroy the vessel.

Published late in 1940, Jimmy Rodney on Secret Service also featured a text story, Phantom Raider (subtitled ‘Enemy agents at work off Australian coast’), written by Rod Maynard. Selling for 4d, it became the first of NSW Bookstall’s wartime comics.

While Rafty’s unfamiliarity with the medium is evident in his awkward page layouts and redundant captions, his brisk, confident rendering evokes the work of comparable artists like Les Such. There is little doubt that, had Rafty been given the opportunity to produce further titles, he could have become a notable comic book artist, with a distinctive, energetic style.

Rafty says he was given free reign with the comic. “But I would’ve shown it to some of my journo mates, to make sure I got the grammar and expression right.”

Because his time with NSW Bookstall was so brief, Rafty never met any of the company’s other comic book artists, such as Terry Powis or Will Donald.

“I mainly associated with the artists from [the newspaper] Smith’s Weekly, such as George Finey, who gave me my first art lessons, Syd Miller, Stan Cross and ‘WEP’ [William Edwin Pidgeon].”

“I can’t recall what I was paid for it [the comic],” says Tony, “or whether Dowling just took me out for a feed as payment!”

While acknowledging his work’s historical importance, Rafty claims that “comic books didn’t catch on [in Australia] until after I left the field, when people like Syd Nicholls came along.”

Rafty’s cartooning career was put ‘on hold’ after he joined the AIF in 1942. He was appointed an official war artist and was stationed in the Pacific, covering the New Guinea campaign and other theatres of war.

After World War Two ended, Rafty was assigned by the Sun newspaper to cover the Indonesian war of independence, where he met, and became friends with, the future President Soekarno.

Travelling to London for the 1948 Olympic Games, Rafty embarked on his lengthy career as a sports cartoonist and caricaturist, as both freelancer and staff illustrator for Associated Newspapers. He retired in 1980 and received an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 1990.

The author would like to thank Mick Stone of Camberwell Books and Collectibles for his assistance in preparing this story. This article originally appeared in the December 2006 edition of Collectormania magazine.

Comics Across the Channel

2007-01-26T16:21:00.000-08:00

If ever you needed proof that comic books were, and still are, a global medium, then you need only glance at the contents of most Australian comics published during the 1970s to see that comic book publishing was a truly international business, long before the term 'globalisation' entered our everyday speech.

As we've explored in previous installments, comics from both America and Spain travelled a circuitous path before they appeared between the covers of Australian comic magazines published by such local companies as KG Murray Publishers and Gredown Pty Ltd, particularly during the 1970s.

Yet the recent addition of two British comic books to my collection indicates that the export trade in European comics was already well-established in the immediate postwar era, and resulted in some intriguing exchanges between different nations' comic book publishing industries.

When I first saw this copy of Captain Tornado No.54 displayed above, I initially thought it was some obscure British ‘pirate adventure’ comic from the 1950s. After all, the seal in the top left-hand corner proclaims it is 'Approved - A British Publication'. The publisher is listed as Press Books Ltd, while L. Miller & Son Ltd., a company with long ties to the British comics industry, is named as the distributor.

Yet there was something about the style of the interior artwork which suggested that this comic was not the work of a British illustrator. Also, some of the captions and speech balloons looked as if they had been resized, or edited in some way, which suggested that English was not the original language in which this comic was printed.

Then, tucked away in the corner of a single panel, was the artist's name - Claude Henri. Now that certainly doesn't sound like a traditional English name, does it?

As it turns out, the comic book I was reading was originally called Captaine Tornade, and was the work of a prolific French comics artist, Claude-Henri Juillard, whose career appears to have spanned several decades from the postwar era onwards.

Another intriguing feature about this comic was a small symbol in the bottom left-hand corner of the cover, which featured a masked cowboy's head superimposed over the letter 'Z', with the phrase 'Justice & Loyalty' printed alongside it.

Wait a minute! A masked cowboy? The letter 'Z'? Could this, in fact, be a reference to the original pulp magazine hero known as 'El Zorro'?

Yes, as it turns out, it is. But this was not an American comic strip incarnation of the masked swashbuckler nicknamed 'The Fox' by his enemies. No, this particular Zorro was yet another French comic strip, this time drawn by Andre Oulie, and was the star of the self-titled Zorro (Jeudi-Magazine), which debuted in 1946.

Even more intriguingly, this French version of Zorro also crossed the English Channel, where it was translated and published as a black & white comic book, presumably at some point during the early-to-mid 1950s. My copy of Zorro No.61, while sharing a near-identical format with that of Captain Tornado, lists Mundial Press as the publisher - but L. Miller & Sons are still the same distributor.

Yet both of these comics contain in-house advertisements urging readers to buy "the other Grand Comics in this series", which included Sgt. O'Brien, Robin and Pango - all "on sale at newsagents each month - Price 6D".

While I've come up empty-handed in my search for references to Sgt. O'Brien, the online biography for Andre Oulie lists him as the creator of a 1947 French comic strip, Robin l'Intrépide - which is presumably the source of the English edition Robin comic book?

And as for Pango, a quick search of eBay UK came up with some cover scans to a British comic, this time listing L. Miller & Son as the publisher on the front cover, called Pango, dating from the mid-1950s. This 'jungle boy' adventure comic is, presumably, another translated French comic, reprinted for the UK market - even though its physical format (title masthead, publisher's logo, etc) differs slightly from that of Zorro or Captain Tornado.

We tend to think that the first stage of 'Cross-Channel' exposure between British and French comics (leaving aside the English translations of Asterix and Tintin) occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, partly as a result of the 'new wave' in adult French comics, such as Metal Hurlant (published in the USA as Heavy Metal).

Yet as these 1950s comic book curios show, English schoolkids were already savouring the pleasures of French 'bande dessine', decades before the 'small press sophisticates' of Thatcher's Britain discovered their first issues of Pilote and the like.

(Presumably, Australian kids growing up in the 1950s got to enjoy these translated French comics as well, as it's highly likely that these titles were exported to Australia during that decade.)

How, and why, such French comic strips as Captaine Tornade, Zorro and Robin l'Intrepide came to be translated for the postwar British comics market, may never be fully explained. But these long forgotten sixpence comics amply demonstrate that comic books were already becoming a truly international medium, even as the dust from World War Two had barely settled.

Skywald Magazines & Aussie Horror Comics

2007-02-08T02:45:00.000-08:00

In my previous blog entry, 'The Spanish Connection', I put forward some explanations to account for the proliferation of Spanish/South American comics appearing in Australian comic books published during the 1970s.

Some of the most intriguing examples of these 'Aussie-Spanish' comics were produced by Gredown Pty. Ltd., a Sydney-based publishing company which produced a staggering range of horror, western, science-fiction and fantasy comics during the mid-to-late 1970s.

These large-format, one-shot comics featured a truly eclectic mix of American and European comic strips, combining older material from the early/mid 1960s with more recent comics which may have first seen print overseas just months before their appearance in these Australian magazines.

Gredown's comics not only sported some lurid titles, but also featured dramatic painted covers, some of which were the work of Australian comic artist Phil Belbin, who served as Gredown's Art Director during the 1970s, along with many uncredited illustrations from Spanish/European artists.

While Gredown's major rival, KG Murray Publishers, capitalised on the 1970s 'boom' in horror comics with its Australian edition reprints of Warren Magazine titles like Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella, Gredown drew much of its horror comics inventory from Skywald Publishing Corp., an American company which launched its own range of 'adults only' horror comics, including Psycho, Scream and Nightmare, between 1970-75.

Whereas KG Murray Publishers was content to reprint complete issues of Warren's trio of horror comics in their entirety, Gredown chose not to launch Australian editions of the Skywald titles (which had all been cancelled in America by early 1975), preferring instead to reprint selected Skywald stories alongside other American and European comic strips used in their magazine.

Yet few, if any, of the ongoing serials for which the Skywald magazines are best remembered, such as 'The Human Gargoyles' and 'The Victims', were ever reprinted in Gredown's range of Australian horror comics. And, as it turns out, there was a very good reason for this - and it's a reason which may help partly explain why so many Spanish comic strips began appearing in Australian comic magazines during the 1970s.

The late Alan Hewetson, the writer largely credited with forging Skywald's unique 'Horror-Mood' stories, recalled his first meeting with Skywald's publishers, Israel and Herschel Waldman, soon after they appointed him as editor.

Herschel Waldman: "I know you are going to make some changes, and that's okay, but I have to tell you we've made this deal with an agency in Spain [Selecciones Illustradas/SI] to do a lot of our artwork, and financially this is something that's going to have to stand. Everything is syndicated, and this agency does all this syndication work for us with their artists only; they won't syndicate our American artists...We want you to write as many stories as you can as the syndicator likes your stuff because you're so graphic."

This would certainly explain why so much of Skywald's material, as drawn by SI's stable of Spanish illustrators, appeared in Gredown's range of Australian horror comics. And, according to Hewetson, Skywald's Spanish-drawn stories were also published in Spain (Dossier Negro), Italy (Vampyr), France (Gauchemar) and "especially South America, where we had a huge distribution."

While SI was by no means the only Spanish agency syndicating comic strips worldwide throughout the 1970s, they were arguably the largest - and could well have been responsible for the lion's share of translated Spanish/European comic strips appearing in Australian comic magazines during that decade, including those published by KG Murray and Gredown.

The Alan Hewetson quotes used here are taken from an excerpted interview which appeared in Comic Book Artist Vol.2, No.5 (December 2004). A full-length version of this same interview appears in The Complete Illustrated History of the Skywald Horror-Mood, published by Headpress. Thanks to Dillon Naylor for bringing this material to my attention.

The Original (Australian) Ghost Rider

2007-02-20T03:31:00.000-08:00

The following entry was partly inspired by my mate Daniel Best's recent review of the movie Ghost Rider, which, apart from being shot on location in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia, is based on the 1970s-era Marvel Comics character of the same name.

Devotees of Golden Age-era comic books will, however, be aware that the Marvel Comics' charatcer was preceded by a Western cowboy hero known as The Ghost Rider, which first appeared in such series as A-1 Comics (#27, published 1950), before appearing in its own solo title, which lasted for 14 issues and was published by Magazine Enterprises during 1950-54.

In 1967, after the trademark for the original Ghost Rider series lapsed, Marvel Comics used the name to relaunch a new series, which was virtually identical to the Magazine Enterprises' version, even to the point where it featured new artwork by one of the strip's original artists, Dick Ayers. However, the character was renamed The Phantom Rider, after the original name was used to christen Marvel's new motorbike-riding, supernatural superhero - which is the subject of the abovementioned movie.

Just to complicate matters further, the independent American comic publisher, AC Comics, recently acquired the publication rights to the Magazine Enterprises' library of characters, including The Ghost Rider. However, AC Comics had to to reprint the original series as The Haunted Horseman, as Marvel Comics still retains ownership of the Ghost Rider trademark.

However, I'm willing to bet that few comic book fans outside Australia (hell, even within Australia, let's be honest!) are aware that there was an Australian comic book character, also known as The Ghost Rider, which may have even predated his 1950s American counterpart - and was on the scene decades before anyone had even heard of Johnny Blaze (the alter-ego of Marvel Comics' Ghost Rider character.)

Back in 1948, a Melbourne company known as Atlas Publications, scored a big hit in the postwar Australian comic market with a new character called Captain Atom. Initially published in full-colour (a rarity for Australian comic books, both then and now), Captain Atom was written and illustrated by Arthur Mather and sold over 1 million copies during its first year of publication.

Bouyed by this unexpected success, Atlas Publications quickly expanded its comic book range, which featured a mix of reprint compilations of British and American newspaper comic strips (such as Garth and Brenda Starr, to name a few), along with all-new titles written and drawn by Australian comic artists.

One of these locally-produced comic book series was a Western titled - yes, you guessed it! - The Ghost Rider. Although undated, the first two issues of Atlas's new comic was priced at 6d (sixpence/6 cents), which certainly places its debut sometime prior to June 1951 - after which most Australian comics' cover prices leapt by 25% to 8d (8 pence/8 cents).

However, there was nothing remotely 'ghostly' about this series. Steve Jarrett was described as "the wanderer of the West", drifting from one job to the next. Only his trusted horse, Moonshine, ever saw Jarrett slip out of his range clothes and don a simple face mask to become The Ghost Rider, whenever trouble threatened - which it did, quite often!

The comic was drawn (and most likley written) by J. Morath, an artist whose name (at least as far as I know) seldom graced the pages of Australian comics since working on The Ghost Rider. Despite the near-universal popularity of cowboy comics and pulp novels amongst Australian readers back then, it's unlikely that The Ghost Rider series would have enjoyed the success it did had it remained in Morath's crude and unimaginative hands.

Thankfully, the comic was handed over to Terry Trowell, a West Australian artist who would eventually relocate to Melbourne, where he worked as a comic book illustrator for Atlas Publications throughout the 1950s.

With Trowell at the drawing board, The Ghost Rider qucikly became one of the best Western comics on the Australian market. While he retained the character's 'civilian identity' of Steve Jarrett, Trowell gave The Ghost Rider and his fictional world a much-needed makeover.

Set after the American Civil War of 1861-65, The Ghost Rider had now become an ex-Confederate cavalryman , who occasionally joined forces with a Mexican gunslinger known as the Mariposa Kid to fight crime throughout the ‘Wild West’. Dashingly dressed in remnants of his Civil War uniform (in a manner which anticipated the Charlton Comics character, Captain Doom), The Ghost Rider cut a dramatic figure, and outwitted his opponents with his lightning-fast 'quick-change' gun-draw.

The Ghost Rider was drawn with great verve and style by Trowell, who managed to convey lots of action and bustling activity with a remarkable economy of line. While it never shared the mythic quality of Keith Chatto's El Lobo - The Man from Nowhere, or enjoyed the same level of commercial success as Len Lawson's The Lone Avenger, Terry Trowell's version of The Ghost Rider was, and remains, an immensely entertaining comic book series.

Yet The Ghost Rider was just a small part of Terry Trowell's artistic career, both within comic publishing and beyond, which I hope to explore in future installments of Comics Down Under.
(Cover image courtesy of BSP Gallery Bookshop. )

Exit The Panther

2007-03-13T04:35:00.000-07:00

I was taken aback by a recent posting made by British comics impresario, Terry Hooper, on the Yahoo! ANZAC Comics Group, bemoaning the closure of my website for The Panther comic book. To be honest, I didn't think many people would either notice (or particularly care) that I closed the site down, but Terry's comments made me realise that there might be a few people "out there" on the Internet who might be interested to know why I pulled the plug on my defunct comic book's website.

The short, and utterly mundane reason, was money. My domain name renewal (http://www.thepanthercomic.com/) and website hosting fees arrived (like all bills do) at the same time earlier this year. These arrived hot on the heels of being retrenched from my bookstore 'day job' (which occurred just before Christmas), and not long after my wife and I had just moved house - which is always an expensive process.

So, when confronted with the choice of paying several hundred dollars to maintain a website for a comic book which hasn't seen print for nearly 5 years, or using that money towards more constructive purposes (such as everyday survival)....well, it really wasn't much of a choice at all.

But there was a larger, and perhaps unspoken reason (to my mind, at least), behind my decision to pull the plug on The Panther comic website. Looking back, I think I kept the site going these last few years (albeit in a greatly truncated format), was that I still nursed the faint hope that I'd be able to relaunch The Panther comic book, if and when my personal finances permitted.

Believe me, no sooner had I cancelled my Panther comic book series in May 2002, I would often break out a notepad every few months, and try & come up with a financial formula that would allow me to continue self-publishing The Panther, even to the point where I could at least recover my production costs, let alone make a modest profit.

Yet no matter which way I crunched the numbers, I couldn't find a way to relaunch The Panther comic, without incurring an unreasonable financial burden. I still kept the site going, in the vain hope that I might stumble across that 'magic formula', and keep The Panther in print - somehow.

But I finally had to face reality and realise that, if I was going to shoulder the financial cost of relaunching The Panther comic book, there was no way I could make the sums "add up" in my favour. So, when those website bills landed in my mailbox earlier this year, it was the proverbial 'nail in the coffin' insofar as my own dreams of publishing The Panther once more.

While there was a pang of regret that came with letting this last vestige of my publishing venture vanish from the Internet, I certainly have no regrets about publishing The Panther comic book in the first place.

I was immensely proud of what I achieved, especially in light of my own meagre resources. I generated significant media publicity for the comic's launch, which translated into a very healthy 'sell-through' rate (i.e. the percentage of my debut issue's print run which was actually purchased by customers), and proved (on a modest scale, at least) that there was still a market for locally produced comic books in Australia.

My distributor, Gordon & Gotch, certainly thought so, as they actually increased their order for the subsequent issues - which is almost unheard of for most Australian comics sold through newsagencies.

Especially gratifying was the response I got from readers, ranging from young kids and teenagers, who sent in their drawings of The Panther, through to adult 'baby boomers' who remembered the original Panther comic book series from their own childhoods during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Perhaps the biggest 'fringe benefit' of the whole exercise was meeting Paul Wheelahan, creator of The Panther, with whom I formed a close friendship, united by our fondness for comics and other mutual passions, like classic American movies and Western novels. Paul was a staunch supporter of the project from the outset, and it simply wouldn't have happened without his support.

There many other people who helped make The Panther comic book a reality, such as my 'funk-mate' Trish Rode (my former layout artist on Netweek magazine) who physically put the magazine together; Darren Close (founder of the original OzComics.com site and creator of Killeroo), who designed the original Panther comic book website; Dillon Naylor, who created two lovely Panther poster designs for me; Greg Gates, who recreated The Panther logo and illustrated the first four covers of the series; and Cameron Swayle from Gordon & Gotch, who gave the comic the 'green light' to be sold through newsagencies (arguably the biggest hurdle facing any self-published Australian comic book).

Needless to say, none of this could've happened without the support (and patience!) of my wife Sophie, who attended more comic book conventions, and stuffed more envelopes with comics, than any husband has a right to expect. She gave me the encouragement to pursue my own crazy dream of being a comic book publisher - and I'd like to think that the experience helped give her the impetus to pursue her own ambitions to become a film producer.

Shane Foley appeared later in the piece, doing a gorgeous cover for issue #5 of The Panther. My greatest regret is that the comic didn't last longer, so I could showcase the beautiful illustrations he did for the planned (but never-published) sixth and seventh issues. (As a 'bonus', however, I've reproduced the 'alternative' - and unpublished - cover design Shane did for issue #5 of The Panther, which accompanies this blog installment.)

More importantly, Shane and I continued to work together over the intervening years on his epic fantasy comic strip, The Saga of Shakah-Rune, which I sold on his behalf to an Australian children's magazine called Krash. The series ran for nearly 2.5 years (itself a record for most locally produced strips appearing in Australian kids' magazines) and is in many ways a showcase for some of Shane's best work as writer and illustrator. I was immensely proud of the small part I played in helping get this great comic strip series before the wider audience that it deserved.

Looking back, that's not a bad legacy to leave behind for a comic book which rang for just five issues, back in 2001-2002. So, I don't feel too sad about taking down The Panther website, after all. But anyone interested in rediscovering this classic Australian comic book character should visit The Panther tribute website maintained by local fan and comic collector, David Studham.

The Devil and Jim Doone

2007-03-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

Decades before James Bond blasted on to the big screen, Australians got the chance to revel in the jet-set lifestyle with our very own 'international man of mystery' - 'Devil' Jim Doone.

With his jet-black hair and pencil-thin moustache, Devil Doone looked like a cross between Clark Gable and Errol Flynn. You knew, just by looking at him, that he could handle a machine-gun, race a sports car and mix a martini with equal aplomb. The fact that he was red-blooded ladies man went without saying.

Unlike many of his comic book contemporaries, Devil Doone was always meant for grown-ups. He first appeared in the pages of Man Junior in 1945. Man Junior was the pocket-sized kid brother of publisher K.G. Murray's enormously popular Man Magazine. Filled with tough stories, sexy cartoons and 'exotic' photos of pretty girls, Man Junior was Down Under's answer to American men's magazines like Esquire and Playboy.

Devil Doone was the creation of the Brisbane radio copywriter and novelist, Ron Carson Gold. Little is known about 'R. Carson Gold', as he was often credited in print. Aside from writing the Devil Doone comic strip, his known published works include several Western novels for Frank Johnson Publications' Sure Fire Westerns series, published in the late 1940s. He also contributed to GP Detective Stories, a crime fiction magazine produced by the Gayle Publishing Co., Sydney, sometime in the 1940s or 1950s.

Aside from his lengthy involvement in chronicling the adventures of Devil Doone, Gold's most prominent legacy is The R. Carson Gold Short Story Competition, which is still held annually by The Fellowship of Australian Writers (QLD) Inc., offering $1,000 in prize money for the best short story.

The Devil Doone comic strip was originally illustrated by June Mendoza, who simply signed her work 'Mendoza'. Born to musician parents, June Mendoza was, by her late teens, producing magazine illustrations, book jacket designs and record sleeves. She illustrated the Devil Doone comic for less than a year, before achieving greater recognition abroad as an acclaimed portrait painter.

Carl Lyon also drew a few episodes of Devil Doone for Man Junior during 1945-46. A regular adventure strip artist for Frank Johnson Publications' comic book line during the 1940s, Lyon remained actively involved in Australian comics throughout the 1950s, before joining Stan Cross as an art assistant on the Wally and the Major comic strip, which Lyon eventually took over in 1970.

The August 1946 issue of Man Junior saw the debut of the artist most identified with Devil Doone - Hart Amos.

Returning from military service in New Guinea, Hart Amos quickly found himself a berth in the K.G. Murray magazine empire, producing comic books for Murray's postwar 'Blue Star' and 'Climax Comics' lines, as well as back-up strips like Hurricane Hardy for Murray's reprint editions of Superman.

From the outset, Amos displayed a confident art style that grew more assured with each new Devil Doone story. Each self-contained adventure ran anywhere between 4-10 pages during the strip's life, which no doubt forced Amos to become an effective and economical storyteller.

The premise of Devil Doone, the urbane man of action, gave Amos scope to take the character anywhere in the world, accompanied by his giant, bald offsider, 'Desert Head'. Fight Communist guerillas in Southeast Asia? No problem! Go 10 rounds with a world champion boxer? Of course! Hurl a racing car around the track at Monte Carlo? Give him the keys!

Recognising the character's popularity, K.G. Murray launched a spin-off comic book, The Adventures of Devil Doone, in 1949. The first issue featured a cover by June Mendoza, but subsequent issues sported covers and interior artwork by Amos, who was now firmly established as the series' resident illustrator.

Devil Doone's magazine serialisation posed some unusual problems for K.G. Murray. The series' early episodes ran anywhere between 8-10 pages, so the publisher waited until there were sufficient episodes available to fill a standard comic book.

Early issues of the comic book were published in the landscape format, which was the de facto standard for many Australian comics in the late 1940s. However, when Devil Doone was published in the traditional portrait format, K.G. Murray would sometimes print the title page for each story in full-page size, but reprint the remaining pages two to a page - sideways! This method allowed Murray to squeeze what should have been a 40-page comic book into a 28-page comic book!

Reading Devil Doone is a fascinating history lesson in its own right, charting as it does Australia's shifting political and social attitudes during the 1950s and 1960s. It managed to touch on such diverse themes as the growing beatnik/hippy counterculture, Australia's escalating involvement in the Vietnam War and increased sexual permissiveness - with plenty of two-fisted action and scantily clad ladies thrown in for good measure!

The Adventures of Devil Doone comic book underwent a few format changes during its comparatively long life. For much of the 1950s, it was a 28-page comic book, but issues 39-41 were published as 100-page 'Giant' comics. This was in keeping with K.G. Murray's other giant-size reprint titles of the late 1950s and early 1960s, such as Five-Score, Century and Hundred Comic. By the early 1970s, however, the Devil Doone comic was being published in 52-page editions.

Aside from illustrating Devil Doone, Hart Amos was a prolific artist on both Man and Man Junior magazines. He also did numerous covers for Murray's line of DC Comics reprint titles, including Colossal, Gigantic and Mammoth Comics. This arguably made Amos the first Australian artist to illustrate the likes of Superman and Batman!

After working on Devil Doone for nearly a quarter of a century, Amos had had enough. Writing in Cartoonists in Australia (View Productions, 1983), Amos recalled: "During all this time...I had not taken a holiday and was slipping into the trap of work overload. And one morning the trap snapped shut...I hit a psychological block and found I couldn't draw a damn thing! Frightened stiff, I had to quit Murray magazines and ease off from the pressure of publishing deadlines."

Amos left Devil Doone in mid-1969, after which the strip was handled by a succession of illustrators. These included the Spanish artist Josep Gual (who would illustrate the European edition of the James Bond comic book published by Semic during the early 1980s) and Melbourne's Gerald Carr, who became best known for his self-published horror comic, Vampire!, between 1975-1979.

"I did three episodes, but only two were published," says Gerald. "Man Junior folded before the third one was published."

The last issue of The Adventures of Devil Doone (No.47) was published in 1971 and showed just how much the series, and perhaps its audience, had changed. Reprinting both of Carr's Devil Doone stories, along with episodes by Josep Gual, the comic had become even racier.

Despite the presence of a regular love in interest, in the shape of the buxom blonde Morna, Devil was to be found in more near-naked clinches with exotic ladies than ever before. Yet it wasn't enough to save Devil Doone in the end.

"The Murrays were trying to breathe new life into Devil Doone," says Gerald Carr. "It's just an opinion, but I think they were influenced by the popularity of James Bond," he says, "but Devil Doone - a comic I was fond of - belonged to the days of Errol Flynn and Clark Gable."

This column is partly based on material previously written for ModernTales.com and was previusly published in the June 2004 edition of Collectormania magazine (Australia). Cover image courtesy of Australian DC Super-Hero Reprint Gallery