More Kolynos Toothpaste Advertising

  Syd Miller's Red Gregory and The Little People

I wrote about Kolynos Dental Cream advertising here, suggesting their print campaign was likely the work of an Australian cartoonist. Comics Historian Kevin Patrick has suggested it may have been the work of Syd Miller who produced an early fantasy series for Smith's Weekly, Red Gregory and the Little People, which was collected as two comic books in the 1940's. Stylistically the work on Red Gregory is very similar to the Kolynos advertisements. Miller also had a strong record in doing comic strip advertisements, most notably as co- creator of "Chesty Bond", in the mid-late 1930s. Kevin suggested Miller as a the likely artist, "... Based on similarity of linework, depiction of curvaceous women, etc."

 Syd Miller's Fatty Finn's Comic

 

Red Gregory and The Little People Page 5

In response to a suggestion from myself about the disparity between lettering/calligraphy styles in Red Gregory and the Little People and Kolynos work, Kevin commented, "The quality of lettering/calligraphy would have to have been of higher standard for a business advertisement client like Kolynos. Comic books/strips would have been a nice sideliner earner for Nicholls, no doubt, but wouldn't have paid as much as advertising work, I suspect."

 Red Gregory and the Little People comic circa 1940's

Red Gregory and The Little People Page 4

Samples of Kolynos advertisements from the Australian Woman's Weekly

 

Red Gregory images sourced from the Rare Books Collection, Monash University Library (Melbourne, Australia) [http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/rare/). Thanks to Kevin Patrick for additional information.

Kolynos Dental Cream - Australian Advertising

Kolynos dental cream ads featured in Australian newspapers and magazines in the 1940's with comic illustrations and format similar to the syndicated Ripley's Believe or Not panel strip of unusual facts. For the Kolynos adverts the unusual facts all relate to teeth. The Kolynos line of oral care products was created by N.S. Jenkins in 1908 and sold worldwide, eventually to be bought out by Colgate-Palmolive in 1995. Although no artists are credited on these ads, I'm fairly certain they were produced in Australia as Kolynos advertising campaigns for print and television were created in many countries including New Zealand  and Australia.

 

Click images below for Australian Kolynos television adverts circa 1945.

Examples of American Kolynos comic strip advertising

 

Another example of Kolynos advertising through comics in America was the Whitehall Pharmacal Company published , Kolynos Presents the White Guard, in 1949. The White Guard tells the story of man's efforts to protect his teeth from disease and decay.

Sources: http://aso.gov.au/ , http://trove.nla.gov.au/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianmontone/sets/ , http://www.mycomicshop.com