Comics in Australian Advertising in the 1930's

Advertising featuring comic strips from 1930's Australian Woman's Weekly. Artist's are uncredited but possibly include Wep, Noel Cook, Amandus Julius Fischer, Arthur Sharland Boothroyd, and  Wynn W Davies who all contributed cartoons and illustrations to the magazine during this period.

 

 

 

 

English Comics Diversion: Men Only

Comics and cartoonists from England were my entry point to comics and are still an interest, particularly material from the 1950's to early 1980's. I've been wanting to write about some of the work of this period and share samples of art so rather than start another blog I'll be posting the occasional English Comics Diversion here. The impression I get from my Internet trawlings is that the history of English comics and cartooning are severely underwritten about in comparison to the wealth of material available on American comics.

My particular favorite sites that cover English comics are Steve Holland's Bear Alley, Lew Stringer's Blimey!, the Comics UK  Forum, Paul Gravett, The Forbidden Planet Blog and Down the Tubes.

Whilst researching Ian Dickson I picked up a box of Men Only magazine digests from the late forties and early fifties. Men Only in this era comprised stories, articles and dozens of cartoons and illustrations in each issue. Peynet, Ronald Searle, Norman Mansbridge, Wyndham Robinson were amongst contributors to the pages of Men Only with distinctive caricature covers provided by Irish cartoonist Edward Sylvester Hynes (1872 - 1982).

Paper Trail

Had to take a break from the Paper Trail over the last few weeks for travelling, editing work, bereavements, and REAL LIFE...

Here is a summary of the entire Internet:

The big Pikitia Press news is the release of our new comic Peter Foster's adaptation of For The Term of His Natural Life this Sunday at the Melbourne Writers Festival:

Facebook it here.

This Saturday is host to another comics event in Melbourne, capital comics city of Australia. Exhibitchin’! is the title of Squishface Studios latest effort to get comics into everybodies lives. As well as works from David Blumenstein, Marta Tesoro, Ben Hutchings, Sacha Bryning, Sarah Howell, Ive Sorocuk, Arran McKenna and Jo Waite, they'll be bitchin' tunes, crazy costumes, chocolate-infested food, tarot readings, body art, a comics jam, badge-making, personality testing, portrait drawing... and an entire leg of ham.

Facebook it here.

Pat Alexander conducts a tour of Squishface studios in prep for Exhibitchin’!

A flux of comic printing plates have turned up on the Australian ebay in recent months, some from Australian reprints of foreign material and some from honest-to-goodness Australian drawn material. Most of these were destroyed after they had served their purpose. At the time of posting, this auction for a plate of the cover to Fiction House's Indians #21 had a few days to run.

Auckland based biennial literary zine POTROAST are looking for contributors for a special comics issue, details here.

Vice comics man Nick Gazin reviews Karl Wills's recent comic Princess Seppuku here.

Special Nippon edition of Karl Wills's Princess Seppuku

Paul Gravett interviews Shaun Tan

Tim McEwen has been working his way through his bedtime reading pile and offers reviews of Jill Brett and Greg Holfield's In For the Krill here, several Australian comics and a few international ones here, and Dean Rankine's Full Metal Chicken here, and his latest Andrew Fulton coverage is at The Australian Comics Journal here.

Andrew Fulton and other people

Inverted Dawn: Exhibition and comics launch at Tinning Street, Melbourne. Opening night September 6th - September 16th featuring Html Flowers (Cougar Flashy) and Girl Mountain (Simon Hanselmann)

featuring...
brothers hand mirror and
girl mountain live

 

 Simon Hanselmann

Tom Spurgeon writes here about the recently passing of art critic and historian Robert Hughes and his connections with comics as a cartoonist early in his career for the Observer in Sydney and in his appraisal of the work of Robert Crumb.

 Robert Hughes

 
Dylan Horrocks provides the cover for dystopic science fiction novel The Aviator by Gareth Renowden

F.E.C Comics are launching three new comics at All Star Comics in Melbourne, 22 September, 6.30pm. Have a look on Facebook here. I can't find anything on the normal Internet but F.E.C Comics are located here.

From the press release:

KRANBURN #4
Ben Michael Byrne returns with the beginning of his second chapter. Brand begins his war against Lord. Blood spillage is a promise.

FIRESIDE TALES
A horror anthology collecting three brilliant stories from some very talented Australian creators; Alex Smith, Andrew Shaw, Billy Tournas, Mike Wszelaki and Will Pleydon.

SEVEN
Fairy tales were once not so child-friendly. Alisha Jade delves into these origins and presents her interpretations.

Congratulations to Trevor Wood and Jen Breach for their recently concluded webcomic, Sawbones. After five years and 289 pages Trev recently posted the concluding page and a blog hinting at upcoming projects. Five years is a long time in webcomics, many don't last five months, so it's commendable to see the work Trevor and Jen have created and their decision to bring their story to a close.

Panel from Sawbones

Melbourne cartoonist Doug Holgate is amongst the speakers at the second Spotlight on Specialists seminars at NMIT, Fairfield, Melbourne on Saturday September 8th.

Details here.

   Doug Holgate

Mike Lynch has been posting galleries of cartoonists portraits including this one of New Zealand's most celebrated cartoonist Sir David Low.

Webcomic: Sigh Five

The Cartoonist's club of great Britain review Pat Grant's Blue.

 Pat Grant's Blue

There was a kerfuffle on the net a few weeks back with some folk critical of a forthcoming GARO tribute anthology. This provoked an interesting discussion of Kickstarter and publishing in general here and here and here and many other places. Of note the SP7 Alt. Comics tribute to Garo Manga edited by Ian Harker and Box Brown features amongst it's contributors Benjamin Constantine, a fine cartoonist from Brisbane. Check Benjamin out here and here and here.

Pikitia Press will be publishing new editions of James Davidson's Moa #1 and #2 later this year and all being well issue #3 will be available for the Melbourne and Auckland Armageddon cons in October. 

Moa on Facebook here.

Moa blog here.

Shelf Porn: Pikitia Press HQ August 2012

When I moved to Australia in 2007 I left behind several cubic metres of densely packed paper, twenty five years worth of accumulation, safely packed away in storage. Save for a Philip K Dick novel, I landed in Melbourne with just a bag of clothes and a keyboard. After a few years of mad collecting/spending in this wild land of opportunity I pared down my possessions and now try to keep only what I can fit in the space above which acts as an office/writing/drawing space.

As I get a bit older the books are feeling less precious to me. Do I really need that Barry-Windsor Smith Conan treasury? Over the last few years I've thought about getting rid of the lot when I turn fifty, save for my original art folders and a small bookshelf of the work I'm really fond of. There's no point in keeping all this stuff forever!

The Adventures of Albie a Rising All Black

The national sport of New Zealand, Rugby, has had more than a passing connection with cartooning with books and exhibitions commemorating some of the fine work produced over the years. The All Blacks' Book for Boys by Pat Booth was published in 1960 by Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. and features the Adventures of Albie A Rising All Black by an uncredited artist.