Stand Easy

Stand Easy after the Defeat of Japan, 1945 was part of a series of books published for the Australian Military Forces by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Material was solicited from the Australian military forces in early 1945 and the book was ready for print at the beginning of August. At that time the book was titled Up North in reference to the Australian Army fighting along an island front from Bougainville to Borneo. With the sudden ending of the war editors chose to defer production so depictions of the great conflict could be included. The title was changed to reference the ending of the war. Prose accounts of the war, cartoons, photos, verse, illustrations and maps were including in this volume.

 

Companion books in this series were produced annually from 1942.

1942 - Soldiering On
1943 - Khaki and Green
1944 - Jungle Warfare 
1945 - Stand Easy

Similar volumes were produced annually for the Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, Volunteer Defence Corps, First A.I.F and Second A.I.F. Credits to artwork and written material were designated to a member's army number and the editors chose to remain anonymous. With the conclusion of the war and this being the last volume in production it was decided to include an appendix of contributors and their corresponding army numbers. Many contributing soldiers returned to careers as writers and artists after the war, among their number William Ellis Green (WEG), who would go on to become one of Australia's most iconic cartoonists.

Terry Currie 1923 - 2013

The family of golden age New Zealand cartoonist Terry Currie notified me that he passed away at 90 years of age this week.

Paper Trail

Emily Dickinson at Gavin Aung Than's Zen Pencils

Luke Pickett and Gerard Dwyer close out chapter one of ACV with an epilogue. Read from part one here.

Nick Gazin reviews Karl Wills' Princess Seppuku in the Lower Depths for VICE. Wills' Jessica of the Schoolyard features in the forthcoming Michael Dowers curated, Treasury of Minicomics volume one, from Fantagraphics.

The Legend of Money Pig at Cakeburger.

Dylan Horrocks has started a new blog exploring spiritual belief, the year of belief. Horrocks' also featured in a creative commons case study for creativecommons.org.

Artic Circle cartoonist Alex Hallat talks to Soda magazine.

Tasmanian cartoonists Josh Santospirito and Chris Downes performed their live comic ghost story, The Shipwright & the Banshees to a sold out audience as part of MONA FONA 2013 in Hobart last night. Chris Downes' stunning poster is available here.

 J Caleb Mozzocco at School Library Journal interviews Roger Langridge.

Roger Langridge contribution to SATAN IS ALIVE anthology

The recently launched New Zealand comics anthology Faction Comics is now available in free digital form.

Fil Barlow is offering 5 day design tutorial sessions here. Series writer Brandon Graham shared Barlow's upcoming cover for Prophet #37. You may see it or you may not, Barlow shares via facebook an interview he did with Brandon Graham from Prophet #28.

Now sold out but keep an eye out for future opportunities to buy Simon Hanselmann's Artist Trash!

Hanselmann shared pages from his forthcoming “Australian” comics/art anthology Victoria Drugs Scene at Girl Mountain.

Our handsome Paper Trail masthead is courtesy of Toby Morris, here's his rendition of Joseph Dredd having a cuppa.

In the neverending quest of cartooning archeology I picked up a pile of old Auckland newspapers, The Weekly News, which my brother has been scanning and making notes on for me. Here's a couple samples,

The Ornate masthead of The Weekly News

Sir Gordon Minhinnick cartoon from Feb 9th, 1944.

Upcoming on Pikitia Press from the work in progress folder:

 Feature on Maori cartoonist Harry Dansey.

Wartime cartooning by Australian soldiers in Stand Easy after the defeat of Japan.

The early comics work of Tom Scott.

English Comics Diversion: Tobruk Original Art Boards

The Lion Summer Spectacular Epic Holiday Special featured comic and prose adaptions of films from the late sixties. Batman, James Bond: You Only Live Twice, Thunderbirds, and more were featured along with an Oliver Passingham (1925-2003) adaption of the Arthur Hiller film, TOBRUK. Passingham's career started on newspaper strips such as Lesley Shane, Rick Martin, Jane Fortune and Sally Marsh during the fifties. Reprints of his Lesley Shane newspaper strips by Amalgamated Press led to work on Rick Random, School Friend and other Amalgamated titles. In the sixties Passingham commenced work with DC Thomson where he would freelance for a further 33 years. During the seventies Passingham traveled, living in the Canaries, on the French Riviera, Monte Carlo and a year in Sydney, Australia during 1980, eventually returning to London in 1990. During this time he continued producing work for DC Thomson until his retirement in 1993.

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The original board of the first page of Passingham's TOBRUK adaption is comprised of a photostat reproduction of the Tobruk movie poster as a header, a moody night scene depicted in inky washes, and two panels showing frogmen sabotaging a french freighter, depicted with ink line drawings and white paint highlights. Upon examining the art-board I found Passingham had originally depicted the entire scene in washes as shown below with the bottom two panels still visible under the pasted on replacement.

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My presumption for the redrawn panels is that Passingham may have been compelled by editorial to redraw the characters to resemble their movie counterparts. He certainly nails the likeness of star George Peppard in the bottom panel close up. In those days of no video or internet reference Passingham did a fine job of capturing the scale of the movie and compressing it into the limits of a comic anthology.

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Trailer for TOBRUK starring Rock Hudson, George Peppard and Nigel Green.

Sources: Lion Summer Spectacular: Epic cover - http://www.comicpriceguide.co.uk/uk_comic.php?tc=lionsum , Oliver Passingham biographical notes - http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/oliver-passingham-exhibition-at-arundel.html (Written by Peter Hansen © 2005)

Cereal Adverts - Australian Women's Weekly

A selection of cereal adverts from the 1940's Australian Woman's Weekly. The first four Vita-Brits adverts are signed Hannan and are likely the work of Jim Hannan (John Thomas Hannan), a freelance commercial illustrator based in Melbourne, who was active during this period. Australasian distributors Gordon and Gotch were amongst Hannan's clients and he also illustrated books and produced recruitment posters during World War One.

 

 Source: trove.nla.gov.au