The GA in Australia 4 4

[AJD]

Some Australian comics were knock-offs of American comics. This one has more than a little of the Fiction House about it:

But there was some very Australian work. Bluey and Curley started their life as 'larrikan diggers' before WWII, but they were still going strong when I read them in the daily paper in the late 1960s and 1970s. Apparently they failed in the american market. It isn't too hard to see why:

I grew up in the country and knew people who spoke like that. My kids think I'm kidding.

Finally, here's another very Australian work. This beautiful Sunday page from 1942 draws on the legends of the native Australians, which seems to be an appropriate place to finish an Australia Day update.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to thow another shrimp on the barbie.

[Duffman_Comics]

Australia Day? No wonder I'm pissed happy.

 

Couple of things to add here, as AJD has pointed out, John Ryan was a fan and collector who died way too young. Here is a newspaper article from September 1972 (I have posted it before) that has a picture as well as an article (replete with errors) on him and his collecting:

 

 

 

[Duffman_Comics]

Here' an example (from Silver Starr #5) of Pitt's ability with the female form. Not the most "action oriented" of pages, but nice nonetheless. Following is that issue's cover:

 

 

 

 

 

[Duffman_Comics]

Now it wasn't all Stan Pitt and John Dixon artistically here in Oz's Golden Age.

 

Here's an example by a mercifully anonymous (to me at least) artist -the cover to Silver Flash #16:

 

 

 

 

 

Think the cover "lacks a little"? Strap yourself in, here comes an interior page - one of the better ones:

 

[AJD]

Here's an example by a mercifully anonymous (to me at least) artist -the cover to Silver Flash #16:

 

According to Mick Stone's checklist, the culprit is Virgil Reilly. The online bio says he is the creator of the 'Virgil Girls' - I wonder what his GGA looks like?

[BB-Gun]

Australia Day? No wonder I'm pissed happy.

 

Couple of things to add here, as AJD has pointed out, John Ryan was a fan and collector who died way too young. Here is a newspaper article from September 1972 (I have posted it before) that has a picture as well as an article (replete with errors) on him and his collecting:

 

 

 

 

John Ryan was a regular subscriber to CAPA-alpha.

World of Ryandom was a regular feature and I guess he occasionally contributed a cover.

[Sqeggs]

Ok, on to some of the comics inside Ryan's book.

 

He focuses on Australian artists and characters rather than the reprints, so there's lots of things in here I'd never seen before. There was some shoddy work done by Australian artists (see the redrawn Two-Fisted Tales #35 cover earlier in the thread) but there was some great work too. Here's a great page from Silver Starr #1(1949). Most Australian comics were printed with B&W interiors right through the 1960s, althought the Disneys were a notable exception.

 

 

Geoff Litchfield might just have glanced at Hal Foster's work from time to time, but he went alright...

 

 

 

Those two page are really nice. Have the stories been reprinted anywhere?

[Scrooge]

Some Australian comics were knock-offs of American comics. This one has more than a little of the Fiction House about it:

 

 

You might want to investigate but it's possible you've got the relationship reversed. It appears that Fiction House reprinted Kazanda in Rangers, and not the other way around :thumbsup:

[AJD]

Sqeggs said:

 

Those two page are really nice. Have the stories been reprinted anywhere?

 

I seriously doubt it. There is very little collector interest in the originals and even less popular interest in stories from old Australian comics. There's a tiny Australian comic scene still, but nothing on the scale that would justify printing collected editions, unfortunately.

[AJD]

Some Australian comics were knock-offs of American comics.

 

You might want to investigate but it's possible you've got the relationship reversed. It appears that Fiction House reprinted Kazanda in Rangers, and not the other way around :thumbsup:

 

Hmm, you might be right. I'll dig around for some dates. It wouldn't be a first - Felix the Cat started life as an Australian character. And given the dates of the Waddles Wombat page above, it's tempting to wonder if Carl Barks ever saw it!

[AJD]

Time for the annual Australia Day for this thread.

This year's treat is a look into the file copies of Frank Johnson, publisher of many Australian written and drawn comics in the 1940s and 50s. His 1941-43 files are held at the State Library of New South Wales, who kindly allowed me to photograph them to share here.

Here are a selection of shots of assorted titles - sort of, which I'll explain later. The first ones are all from 1942-3.

The larger comics such as the Magic Comics in this pic (bigger than standard GA size) are from 1941:

 

More 1941 comics:

These earlier ones are a bit fragile and have brittle spines, though the interior pages are supple. Must be a different paper stock. You'll notice a few little flakes here and there. I had a discussion with the librarians and they have been sent off to the preservation folks for some TLC.

 

While these look like different titles, the covers show that they have many overlapping charcters and story lines. In fact, I think there were only a couple a month, and they are essentially the same one or two titles. In 1941-43 wartime paper shortages led to a law that you couldn't start a new ongoing series. But if you could round up enough paper you could publish a one-shot. In other words, these one shots are essentially continuations of the same 'title'. And you thought EC numbering could be confusing...

[AJD]

Here are a couple of the annotations inside the front covers that show that these were kept for copyright purposes:

 

 

I don't know if that was Johnson's own handwriting. There aren't any letters etc. in the files to allow a comparison.

[AJD]

Now for some content. Some of the local artwork was clearly derivitive of US-sourced material. Batman, anyone?

None of the interior artwork in these issues could rank with the best of the GA. But some of it was a reasonable standard and of a par with much American material from the early GA:

And some of it was awful:

[AJD]

Probably the art that saw the most love and craft was the series of one-page vignettes of notable Australians. Here are two of them.

Leon Errol

and Ronald Monson

[AJD]

To finish this once over lightly of an important player in Australian comic history, here are a couple of one-page gags from the comics. Most of the serials were serious matters, but the issues were padded out with 'gag' strips of widely varying quality.

I quite liked this one:

This one is of typical indifferent quality (but is still significantly better than the gags in some GA books I own - Blue Beetle #25 I'm looking at you specifically)

And this one is just, well,

So we don't leave Australia Day on that very peculiar note, the file also contained this oddity. It's a photocopied version of Prize comics that has been hand coloured using a brush and what looks to be watercolour paint. It's marked 'replica copy' and seems to have been made to have a copy in the files.

 

Anyway, I hope you liked these, but at least a little corner of Australian GA is now a bit more available. Before next Australia Day I think I'll try to get through the 75 shelf feet of John Ryan's collection in our National Library!

Hoo roo cobbers.

[Sqeggs]

Very interesting. Thanks for going to the trouble to make these available. It appears as if there are no issues with a war theme.

[cheetah]

Fascinating and very cool. Are there many copies still around or are the ones at the library the last remaining copies?

[Cimm]

Here's a scan of the only Aussie Comic I've had the pleasure of acquiring... got it pretty cheap off of eBay a few years ago...

 

[rjpb]

Thanks for sharing, always fun to see esoteric GA from around the world. I'd love to know more about the Crimson Comet. from what little I found on the web, he seems to have the typically bizarre GA origin, and it was a long running title, but GCD only shows a few issues. Any more covers to share, or info regarding artist and evolution of the character over the years?

[Point Five]

Thanks for sharing, always fun to see esoteric GA from around the world.

+1 .... These are quite cool. Had no idea they even existed!