Newton Comics - The Rise & Fall - Daniel Best Interview

Daniel Best's pozible campaign for his book on Australian publisher Newton Comics book is in it's last twenty hours. Daniel has met his target but I'm sure would welcome any more contributions to support the production costs of the book. I asked Daniel a few questions via email about his background in comics and his forthcoming book.

Please consider supporting Newton Comics - The Rise & Fall pozible campaign here.

What were the first comics you read?

The first comics that I can remember reading was the Death of Gwen Stacey issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, way back when they were released in the early 1970s. My mother taught me to read, but insisted that I read books, not that she had anything against comic books.

 

When did you first encounter Newton Comics?
 

I first encountered Newton Comics when they were released in 1975/1976. They were cheaper than the American versions and usually contained far more interesting material.  The posters and swap cards, along with the iron-on transfers also sold me - I'd buy them and chop them up mercilessly - swap cards in school books, posters on walls and iron-ons on shirts. But, hey, that's what you did as a kid in the 1970s. I didn't know, nor did I care, that these things would be worth anything down the track. Newtons were perfect for children - the true disposable comics.

 

What attracted you to researching comics history?
 

I've always had a fascination with history in general and, more often than not, it's the stories behind the official or published stories that have interested me the most. I first became interested in learning about comic book history in the early 1980s when I discovered magazines like The Comic Journal, but my interest really picked up when I found a battered copy of All In Color For A Dime at a library book sale for ten cents. That changed my outlook on comic books and comic book history in general. From there I discovered some old Alter Egos and a few FOOMs at a second hand store and never looked back.

The same second hand store used to sell me comic books for between five and ten cents each - from 1981 to 1984. They'd get stuff in like the John Byrne X-Men, Iron Fist, old Gil Kane and John Romita Spider-Man's, Silver Age Marvels and the like for peanuts. But never any DC. Like an idiot I lost the lot.

At what point did you consider turning your research into Newton Comics into a book?
 

I started to get interested in Newtons again in the early 2000s when I found a copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #1. I wanted to know what the story was behind these comics. I knew about the many Australian reprint comics, mainly the DC reprints that KG Murray did in the 1970s and 1980s, the Federal and Yaffa reprints of Marvel and the Gredown reprints of rare horror material, but these were new to me, in a way. Old, familiar comics, but new in their own way.  I hopped on the internet and did a search and found...nothing.

Then Robert Thomas did his brilliant Newton Comics article for The Sunday Observer (which used to be owned by Maxwell Newton, the same guy who owned Newton Comics) and I was hooked. I started collecting them and writing about them on my blog and there was a great interest. From there I began to interview people who were involved with Newton Comics and, once Robert and myself sat down and compared notes, I thought, "There's a book in here." That was in 2005.

I then caught up with Kevin Patrick in Melbourne. What he doesn't know about Australian comics isn't worth knowing, but he admitted that he didn't know a lot about Newton. I mentioned the idea of a book and he replied that nobody has ever written a book about an Australian comic book company, so why not be the first? By then I was really leaning towards it.  On the same weekend I was chatting to Philip Bentley, who founded Minotaur Books in Melbourne, who said, "You know, Maxwell Newton was named a spy in Parliament." That sold me. I started work on it in 2007, once I finished the Jim Mooney book, and I've been working on it ever since.  Now it's ready for publication!

Those three guys, Robert, Kevin and Phil, have been brilliant helps along the way, sharing ideas, research and allowing me to bounce things off them.

Daniel's blog Oh Danny Boy has a wealth of articles on Australian and American comics.

Images from the Newton Comics facebook here.

Happy 38th Birthday, Jason Franks

Sunday Gem: Richard Fairgray tumblr

H B K Hislop - Laughs Magazine

Gallery of Laughs covers from the late 1940's and 1950's by New Zealand Publisher H. B. K. Hislop.

Background notes of H.B.K. Hislop here. 

Earlier Laughs cover gallery here, here ,here, here, and here.

 

English Comics Diversion: Playbox August 13th 1949

Happy 28th Birthday, Frank Candiloro

The Black and White Maestros by Les Tanner (Part Two)

[Editor's note: the following survey of Australian cartoonists was written by cartoonist and cartooning historian Les Tanner for the centenary issue of Sydney publication, The Bulletin, published January 29th, 1980. Les Tanner's Family maintain a facebook page for him here.]

Read part one here.

 Phil May Self portrait

The Black and White Maestros by Les Tanner (Part Two)

Phil May was of a different kettle. Eighteen years younger than Hop, and sickly, he was recruited by W. H. (Hot-on-the) Traill after a Conan-Doyle-like adventure involving a meeting with a stranger in the Bayswater (London) swimming baths, a search and running to earth in a flat in Drury Lane, and an argument about salary (what's new?). So much rubbish and myth has been written about Phil May that it's worth noting that his economy of line had nothing to do with the vagaries of The Bulletin press. It had everything to do with his admiration for the careful paring away of non-essentials. Traill once said to him: "Look here, Mr May, Hopkins puts a good deal more work into his drawings than you do. Can't you finish yours up a bit?" May replied: "When I can leave out half the lines I use now, I shall want six times the money I am being paid now."

Unlike Hop, May didn't give a damn about politics and demanded that cartoon ideas be written out for him. Even "Things I see when I'm out without a gun" wasn't his title. It was Hop's suggestion. May just did the drawings. But what drawings — and what people to work with!

Phil May Postcard

The more you read around The Bulletin's early years, the more aware you become of Archibald, his zest and his vigor, prodding and pointing to some aspect of life, whether it was a woman buying meat or a child crying, as he walked artists and writers around the streets. Both May and Norman Lindsay recalled these outings. No wonder Phil May's output was so great — 900 drawings in two years — with such a man egging him to more and fresh ideas. How many editors have the wit and style to start out named John Feltham and end up as Jules Francois?

By the end of the century, the pantheon was almost complete. George Rossi Ashton, who had come to Australia to join his brother, Julian, succeeded Phil May. George Lambert, Fred Leist, Frank Mahony, B. E. Minns, Alf Vincent, Percy Spence, Tom Durkin, D. H. Souter, Ambrose Dyson and Hugh McCrae, all "saving their best work for The Bulletin," appeared together with Hop in the Christmas edition of 1899.

 D. H. Souter

Such were Archibald's persuasive talents that he even talked Tom Roberts into covering the Melbourne Cup of 1886. No wonder everyone wanted to be in the magazine.

In 1886 Traill left and, after some ups and downs, Archibald persuaded William Macleod, one of The Bulletin's original illustrators, to give up his work on the Picturesque Atlas of Australia and take up the management. (An artist with business sense is not the contradiction it sounds; ask Rudy Komon). Macleod and Archibald became equal partners and an added dimension was given to the kindly understanding of artists already present at The Bulletin.

 Our demoralized black brother
Police Trooper: ‘Well Jacky! What have you been up to this time?’
Jacky: ‘Not much, boss. Only swearing like a plurry trooper.’ (Frank Mahony)

(From Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki Collection)

Critics argue as to whether it was A. G. Stephens or Julian Ashton who discovered Norman Lindsay. The artist has said in effect it was neither but his friend, Jack Elkington, who recommended him to Archibald. No one doubts who accepted the recommendation.

In 1901 the young Victorian artist arrived in Sydney on the same day as the Duke and Duchess of York. "Flags, bands, banners and triumphal arches everywhere," he wrote, "and not a room to be had anywhere."

Lindsay and photo-engraving were made for each other. M. G. Skipper, writing in 1930 for The Bulletin's 50th anniversary, said: "If Norman Lindsay had to draw for the wood engraver he could no more have developed his peculiar style than Beethoven could have produced his symphonies if he had had to score them for the tom-tom." Personally, I would have said Debussy, but what's in a name in the afternoon of a faun?

Norman Lindsay's style has its adherents and opponents. Most of his family certainly took to it with glee. At times it's hard to know whether it is Norman, Lionel, Percy or Ray's creature looking at you through those slanted eyes. The only exception was when something big and portentous had to be drawn. Then it was all stops out for Norman as the pen-tip dipped into bravura and the War God sounded his gong.

The one Lindsay no one denies is sister Ruby. She, significantly, didn't use the family surname. She signed her work simply Ruby Lind and you can still fool people, who can spot any of the other Lindsays, with her work. Cool elegance of line and stylish economy of composition were her earmarks. She married Will Dyson, the cartoonist, and died tragically in the influenza epidemic of 1919.

Lionel Lindsay made himself a household name with a character in The Bulletin that Norman had got bored with after two or three drawings — Chunder Loo of Akim Foo, the boot-polish Indian.

 Chunder Loo of Akim Foo, the boot-polish Indian - Lionel Lindsay

 

The Black and White Maestros © the estate of Les Tanner.

English Comics Diversion: The Wonder Feb 2nd 1946