Merton Lacey (16th February - 29th July 1996)

 

Animator/film maker/artist Merton Lacey was born today in Purulia, India in 1902.

Lacey was a newsreel cameraman for Fox Movietone News in Calcutta and between 1926 and 1940 made more than 40 short cartoon film advertisements which ran in India, Burma and Ceylon. Lacey was also artist, cartoonist and publicity manager for The Calcutta Statesman and created a comic-strip mongoose character called 'Benji' that appeared on the Children's Page. In 1947 Lacey immigrated with his family to New Zealand.

An animation created by Lacey at the Auckland Zoo is recorded in the New Zealand Film archive from 1930 although I'm presuming this is erroneous as Lacey presumably wasn't in New Zealand at that time.


Lacey contributed a half page comic strip Nez and Zena to the short lived New Zealand Pictorial magazine during 1954-1955. Lacey also had two comics featured in George F H Taylor's Christmas Annual, Eddie and Tu in Adventure on Wheels (14 pages) and Eddie and Tu and The Treasure (3 pages). I consider the square bound Christmas Annual (published circa late fifties) the first large collection of New Zealand comics with over 100 pages of George F H Taylor's comics alongside Lacey's work. During the seventies Lacey was also involved with the New Zealand Woman's Weekly.

New Zealand Pictorial - The Seekers

 

The New Zealand Pictorial magazine was published fortnightly between January 1954 and December 1955 by New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. A large format magazine, New Zealand Pictorial was filled with black and white photography and national news stories. Cartoons and comic strips featured throughout the two year run of publication with American Harold Foster's Prince Valiant a mainstay on the last page and Englishmen Syd Jordan's early work on Jeff Hawke featuring during 1955.

Local cartooning work also featured with panel gags by Auckland cartoonist Neil Lonsdale (1907-1989) and a comic strip, Nez and Zena, by recent immigrant to Auckland, Merton Lacey, (1902-1996). Several issues featured behind the scenes coverage of the first major studio film produced in New Zealand, The Seekers, based on the novel by John Guthrie (real name John Brodie).

The following comic strip adaption of The Seekers featured in the July 26th, 1954 issue of  New Zealand Pictorial. Sadly the artist is not credited. It is possibly the work of an artist that illustrated some true life stories in later issues which were also uncredited.

Severalmagazuines1 (1907- by re1989)907-1989)