AJD Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 Great books guys! It's nice to see Australian comics being appreciated. Cheetah: they are wonderful copies of hard to find books - were they Geppi's at one stage? He seems to have had a phenomenal collection of Australian comics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheetah Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Great books guys! . Cheetah: they are wonderful copies of hard to find books - were they Geppi's at one stage? He seems to have had a phenomenal collection of Australian comics. I got them for next to nothing on ebay. I've no idea if they were ever Geppi's, but I'd find it unlikely. The covers are vibrant but there are a few back cover stains and enough imperfections most of them fine or less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstrange Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Very cool jungle books!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frisco Larson Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Here's a Batman 72 that I was able to pick up at the same time I got the Superman 58. It doesn't list a date on the CGC label, but I'm gonna say it's safe to post it here in the Golden Age area. As good as it ever gets, condition-wise! Thanks Alanna!!! Once again, thanks for keeping this thread alive!! I was VERY happy to see this thread this morning (thumbs u I have become interested in comics from all over the world in the past few years. I have some that I need to get scanned or photographed that I can add to this thread and probably start some others. It comes to mind that I purchased a few Australian Catman comics from my good friend Ricky at Bedrock City this past year in Chicago. I'll post pics when I get them taken. This website is a pretty handy guide to Oz reprints. The Batman #72 would seem to have been (re) printed in May 1956. If you like John Dixon's "Catman", keep a lookout for Paul Wheelahan's "Panther" - a very similar flavour, and like Dixon's Catman an original strip - not a reprint. Thanks Duffman, for both the website info and the Panther heads up. (thumbs u Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frisco Larson Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 I found a number of Aussie Fiction House reprints on ebay a couple of years ago. Decent shape, all B&W with the stories starting on the inside front cover and continuing to the back cover on all but one. Published by John Edwards Company. Not dated but has to be the 1950s at least. Nice pick up Cheetah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frisco Larson Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 LOVE this one!!! Cheetah your collection is unbelievable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frisco Larson Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Superman #5 VERY very cool West Do you collect EVERYTHING?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Mentallo Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Great books guys! . Cheetah: they are wonderful copies of hard to find books - were they Geppi's at one stage? He seems to have had a phenomenal collection of Australian comics. I got them for next to nothing on ebay. I've no idea if they were ever Geppi's, but I'd find it unlikely. The covers are vibrant but there are a few back cover stainjavascript:%20void(0);s and enough imperfections most of them fine or less. If you got them from Diamond International Galleries then they would have been Geppi's. (thumbs u Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheetah Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Great books guys! . Cheetah: they are wonderful copies of hard to find books - were they Geppi's at one stage? He seems to have had a phenomenal collection of Australian comics. I got them for next to nothing on ebay. I've no idea if they were ever Geppi's, but I'd find it unlikely. The covers are vibrant but there are a few back cover stainjavascript:%20void(0);s and enough imperfections most of them fine or less. If you got them from Diamond International Galleries then they would have been Geppi's. (thumbs u That certainly rings a bell. I can't be 100% positive as it's been a while and I've bought more than a few books since then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frisco Larson Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 Here is a Catman that I bought last night. Obviously, I don't have it yet, but it looks cool and I can't wait to get an in-hand look at it (thumbs u Yorick 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frisco Larson Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 Here is the back cover to the Catman 22. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frisco Larson Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 This is a shot of the Catman 22 interior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted November 15, 2011 Author Share Posted November 15, 2011 Here is a Catman that I bought last night. Obviously, I don't have it yet, but it looks cool and I can't wait to get an in-hand look at it (thumbs u Interesting - that one is a later reprint of the first Australian reprint. The 12c cover price means it was published after 1966 (decimal currency introduced). The one I linked to has the pre-decimal 1/- (one shilling) cover price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frisco Larson Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 Here is a Catman that I bought last night. Obviously, I don't have it yet, but it looks cool and I can't wait to get an in-hand look at it (thumbs u Interesting - that one is a later reprint of the first Australian reprint. The 12c cover price means it was published after 1966 (decimal currency introduced). The one I linked to has the pre-decimal 1/- (one shilling) cover price. Very interesting indeed!! All of this is new information to me, which makes it even more fun. I also have issues 20 & 21 which have a cover price spelled out as "12 cents" rather than this issues "12 c". Once again, I'm not really sure what that means as far as age. Those were the ones I bought from Ricky in Chicago and I don't have scans of them yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted November 15, 2011 Author Share Posted November 15, 2011 Frisco-man said: AJD said: Interesting - that one is a later reprint of the first Australian reprint. The 12c cover price means it was published after 1966 (decimal currency introduced). The one I linked to has the pre-decimal 1/- (one shilling) cover price. Very interesting indeed!! All of this is new information to me, which makes it even more fun. I also have issues 20 & 21 which have a cover price spelled out as "12 cents" rather than this issues "12 c". Once again, I'm not really sure what that means as far as age. Those were the ones I bought from Ricky in Chicago and I don't have scans of them yet. Australian cover prices are a rough guide to age, just as with American comics. But there was more variation in the Aussie ones than than the long period of dime comics in the 'States. This page shows Australian WDC&S comics. The price from 1946-1951 was 6d = sixpence = a nickel. There was a single 8d (eight-pence) issue then they were 9d (ninepence) through to 1954. From 1954 - end 1965 they were 1/-. For the first few months of 1966 (the currency change was in February - cue the song for Australians old enough...) they carried decimal and pre-decimal prices, so 10c and 1/- From May 1966 on they went up to 12c, and then later 15c, 20c, 25c etc. Not all Australian comics changed prices at the same time, but it's not a bad rule of thumb for age. Generally speaking the 6d issues are hardest to come by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 Ok, I can't let Australia Day go past without giving this thread a bump. I've got myself more and more interested in Australian comics since I started this thread, and have been digging around in various archives. I've discovered that major libraries in Australia hold no less than 113 boxes, or over 12 shelf metres, of Australian comics 1930 - 1960! Some of them are reprints of British and American comics, like these ones: The Two-Fisteds are mostly reprints of ECs title, with stories from different issues mixed together. But they would be rounded out by material from almost anywhere. #8 has a one pager from Soldier of Fortune #5, an obscure (to me) AGC comic, according to the GCD. The cover of #8 is a badly redrawn version of EC TF35. I have no idea why. and the EC for comparison: And one last one. I was hoping to post some discoveries I'd made in National and State libraries, but time and a reluctance to spend $22 per scan defeated me. I now have permission to go and make my own digital images, so there'll be more to follow. For now, note the publisher, Frank Johnson, and the fact that this comic has no cover number. For years I wondered why Australian comics before 1946 were mostly one shots. The answer lies in the Tariff Act of 1937 and WWII paper rationing. I'll explain it all later. But for now here's 'Wocko the Beaut'. Enjoy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duffman_Comics Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Emile Mercier - now there's a guy that would have been fun to meet. From the linked Wiki: "While on the staff of Smith's Weekly, Mercier contributed a cartoon which included a cat in the foreground. Mercier added a cross under the cat's tail, representing its anus. The Smith's Weekly art editor rejected the cartoon and gave Mercier an angry lecture about including 'smutty gimmicks' in his work. Mercier then drew a down-drawn holland blind under the cat's tail, which hid the cat's anus but emphasised its presence, and re-submitted the cartoon." Couple of Frank Johnson published WWII Oz comics here, and interesting that that the lion seems to have been swiped from one cover to the other. Which came first, I have no idea as these local products have no indicia and rarely include other identifying date markers, like advertisements and such: Colour covers, but all black and white interiors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted January 26, 2013 Author Share Posted January 26, 2013 Happy Australia Day 2013 cobbers. I thought I'd mark the occasion with some scans from a book I recently had the pleasure of finding in a second hand bookshop in a country town. I couldn't pay for it fast enough - I've been looking for a complete copy since I saw the one in the New South Wales State Library that has had all the best pictures cut out. In fact, most of the ones I'm about to post were missing from that copy! Here's the book: It's a big book and doesn't fit my scanner, but I'll work around that. John Ryan probably did more than anyone else to document Australian comics, and this book is obviously a labour of love. It was also his legacy - he died from a heart attack aged 48 not long after it was published. Ryan's collection (or at least a sizeable chunk of it) has ended up in the National Library of Australia. Unfortunately, it's not indexed at all and is just listed as: Description ca. 1940-1960. 9.25 m. (66 boxes) + 2 fol. items. Summary A collection of Australian and overseas comics and cartoons which include Australian reprints of material from overseas ; comic books by Australian artists and writers including Syd Nicholls, Stan Cross, Emile Mercier, John Dixon, Will Donald ; original drawings for cartoons and comic strips. Some series names in the collection are, Batman, Bulldog, Brandon and Horwitz. There are also comic fan magazines and some original cartoon drawings. That's right - 9.25 shelf metres in 66 boxes!! I'll head down there when i get a chance and see what's in those boxes and take some pictures. Here's the back cover of his book, showing Fatty Finn Vol 10 #3. This was an anthology comic that reprinted various Australian strips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted January 26, 2013 Author Share Posted January 26, 2013 There's a ton of interesting information and anecdotes in the book. It explains why Australian comics were absolutely bewildering during the war years. There were very tight restrictions on paper supply and the rules were that no new ongoing series could be started. The result was that most comics were published as one-shots, with no numbering (and usually no dates). Sometimes stories were split between issues, but there was no way of knowing when (if) later parts would appear. Also, publishers couldn't always find large supplies of paper on standard rolls, so comics appeared in a range of shapes and sizes. I've posted this one before, but here it is beside a standard Dell book: Here's another odd size and shape book I picked up recently, It measures about 24 x 12 cm (or 9 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches for metrically challenged types). It reprints newspaper strips, including Taliaferro Donald Duck dailies, two panels across the narrow pages: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted January 26, 2013 Author Share Posted January 26, 2013 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... Anyone else see Carl Barks in Waddles Wombat? (For that matter - does anyone see a wombat here??) Yet this was published the same year as Barks' first comic work (Pirate Gold, October 1942) so it seems to be an amazing coincidence of styles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
