Although it's been marked on the calendars of the character's die-hard fans for some months now, others amongst the comics-collecting fraternity may not realise that the Australian edition of The Phantom comic book celebrates its 60th anniversary this month, making it the world's longest-running edition devoted to this remarkable character.

Some may argue that The Phantom isn't an Australian creation, and therefore the Australian comic book bearing his name shouldn't be regarded as an Australian comic at all. And, on purely technical grounds, they're absolutely right. The character was, in fact, created by Americans Lee Falk and Ray Moore in 1936, initially for the American newspaper market.

But almost from the outset, The Phantom enjoyed greater popularity beyond America's shores, and has always consistently more popular with readers in Europe (particularly Scandinavia), Latin America, India, New Zealand and, of course, Australia.

In the local context, though, a case can be made that The Phantom comic book occupies a unique position, not only in the history of Australian comics, but also in Australian popular culture, as well. In its own way, The Phantom is the last surviving link we have to the postwar 'boom' era of Australian comics (1940s - 1960s), and was the foundation stone of Frew Publications' own range of Australian-drawn comics, including The Phantom Ranger, Sir Falcon and The Shadow, some of which continued to appear until the late 1960s and early 1970s (albeit as reprints of earlier editions.)

Which is why I've been fortunate enough to have published, not one, but two celebratory pieces about The Phantom's 60th Australian anniversary. The longer of the two, "The Phantom's 60th Australian Birthday", can be read online at The Chronicle Chamber.

A shorter piece, discussing the popular appeal of The Phantom in Australia, has also been published in the September 2008 edition of The Monthly, which is on sale at bookstores and newsagencies throughout Australia.

The magazine pictured at left came my way as part of a 'job lot' of western comics which I purchased online some time ago. I knew without looking inside that this would have to be a Murray Publishers title, probably dating from the 1980s. Two things about it struck me as odd, though. Firstly, there was no ‘Murray Comics’ logo on the cover. Secondly, since when did any of the creative personnel featured in a Murray Comic ever get a byline on the front cover? And as for this 'Roy Wayne', he didn't sound like any comic book writer or artist that I knew of.

The answers to these questions weren't long in coming, because when I turned to the opening page, I was surprised to see, not a comic book - but an actual novel, fully typeset, with grey-toned illustrations scattered throughout its 66 pages. It was, in short, a magazine-sized 'pulp' novel.

Now, to my knowledge, Murray Publishers only ever briefly strayed into the popular fiction field around 1962-63, when (under its then-current trading name, 'Magazine Services Pty Ltd') it issued the 'Best of Man' paperback series, which collected non-fiction features and short stories taken from Man, the men's magazine which launched the Murray publishing empire back in 1936.

We can only speculate as to why Murray Publishers were toying with western fiction, when this niche market was well and truly dominated by the Cleveland Publishing Company, established by the late Jack Atkins in Sydney during the mid-1950s, and which continues to publish several dozen new and reprint western 'novelettes' every year.

I'm not even sure if Murray Publishers issued other western 'pulp' novels during this period, but given that the company was issuing a prolific range of 'one-shot' comic book titles during this period, it's likely that Apache Scout may have been just one of several such titles. Regardless of how many were released, its clear that the experiment was not a successful one, given that Murray Publishers would quit the comic/popular reading market altogether by 1983.

Unlike the Cleveland Publishing Company, which employed a small army of Australian authors to churn out their western yarns, Murray Publishers, in this instance at least, used American material. Apache Scout was a reprint of a novel written by Roy Wayne and originally published by Avalon Books in 1981. 'Roy Wayne' (assuming this wasn't a pseudonym) appears to have written several western novels during this period, including Trail to Mesilla (DeKalb Co., 1979), Apache Rifles (Avalon Books, 1982), Raton Rustlers (Thomas Bouregy & Co, 1984) and Texas Feud (Avalon Books, 1986).

If you think that the cover to the Murray reprint of Apache Scout looks familiar, then you're right. Painted by the (Spanish?) artist 'FABA', whose work adorned several Murray western comic book covers, this same image was originally used on the Murray Comics one-shot title, Outlaws of the West, published in 1980. The difference with Apache Scout, however, is that Murray Publishers reversed the image - but, oddly enough, reprinted a grey-toned version of the same painting, facing the right way, on the title page.

At least two of the interior illustrations are cropped from colour paintings originally used for other Murray comic book covers. The image seen on page 38 of Apache Scout (left) was actually taken from another 'FABA' painting used as the cover for Trail Blazers of the West, published in 1981. Another illustration, seen on page 5 of Apache Scout, was also cropped from the unsigned painting used as the cover for Pow-Wow Smith (Indian Law-Man), issued by Murray Publishers in 1982. No doubt the other 'spot' illustrations used throughout Apache Scout have been similarly culled from cover designs used on Murray's western comic books at that time.

Such 'editorial thrift' was a hallmark of KG Murray Publishing Company (and its successor, Murray Publishers) for decades. Don Richardson, a former printer who handled many of KG Murray's comic book titles during the 1960s and 70s, said that the company “was like Walt Disney – they never wasted anything. Old cartoons from Man magazine in the 1930s were reused in the 1950s with new artwork.”

The constant reuse and recycling of old artwork was a decades-old practice at Murray’s. My copy of the April 1943 edition of Man, for instance, features several double-page illustrations by Howard Barron (1900 - 1991), depicting Allied aircraft in combat with Japanese air and sea forces. One of these same illustrations reappeared, over three decades later, as a two-page 'splash' image on the inside front cover of Australians at War, a spin-off title issued in the mid-1970s under the banner of Adam, Murray's other premier men's adventure magazine. This same magazine also featured other Howard Barron illustrations, again dating from 1942-43, and presumably culled from the wartime editions of Man.

Waste not, want not, indeed! But it was this hard-headed determination to squeeze every last cent out of its editorial content that no doubt helped KG Murray Publishing maintain its strong position in Australia's competitive magazine industry - perhaps second only to Australian Consolidated Press - for well over 50 years. (Apache Scout book jacket image courtesy of Antique Gun List.)

Whoever said that comic books were never meant to be performance art clearly forgot to pass that memo on to Bernard Caleo. Anyone who's ever attended a comic book and/or graphic novel launch in Melbourne during the last few years could almost be guaranteed to see Bernard - costumed, bewigged and daubed with greasepaint - lend an unforgettable theatrical air to the night's proceedings.

Now Bernard has joined forces with his fellow thespian, Bruce Woolley, to bring their unique production of Miracleman to the Melbourne stage. For those who came in late, Miracleman was the dark, brooding superhero serial written by Alan Moore, and originally illustrated by Gary Leach and Alan Davis in fondly-remembered UK comic, Warrior, back in the 1980s. (This strip was, in fact, a modern-day revamp of the 1950s-era British character, Marvelman.)

This two-man adaptation of the Miracleman saga will be performed at the Croft Institute (21-25 Croft Alley, Melbourne), between 2-12 July, at 8:00pm on Wednesdays & Thursdays, and at 6:30pm on Fridays & Saturdays. Tickets are $20 (full-price)/$15 (concession) and bookings can be made by calling 03 9497 8098, or via email to: bernard@cardigancomics.com

For those fortunate few who have seen previous incarnations of this show, Messrs. Caleo & Woolley assure us that this is a completely revamped, reworked and generally spruced-up version, teeming with props, incident and pathos.

There are just eight performances scheduled, and seating is limited, so do not delay in booking your tickets today.

And, as Miracelman himself would say: KIMOTA!

Queenie Chan, the author & illustrator of The Dreaming trilogy, will be appearing at Borders Melbourne Central on Wednesday 25 June 2008, between 5:00-7:00pm.

To coincide with the event, Borders Melbourne Central will also be staging a graphic novel competition, with entry available for two age-group categories: 8 - 13 Years (Most Original Design) and 13 Years + (Best 4 Frame Comic Sequence).

The winners will be announced at 6:00pm on the evening and each successful contestant will receive prizes courtesy of Madman Entertainment. (Entries must reach Borders Melbourne Central by close of business, Friday 20 June.)

To confirm your attendance, RSVP to Jayne Margett at Borders Melbourne Central on (tel) 03 9663 8909, or email her at: melbcentral@bordergroupinc.com

And, in case you missed it the first time, you can read the Comics Down Under interview with Queenie Chan here.

An interesting footnote to the ill-fated Gully Foyle comic strip recently came to me courtesy of Dennis Ray from Texas, who sent me a photocopy of an article by the late John Ryan, which clarified the events that led to Stan and Reg Pitt abandoning this ambitious project.

Gully Foyle was a planned newspaper comic strip adaptation of Alfred Bester's science-fiction novel, The Stars My Destination, which was conceived and written by Reg Pitt, and illustrated by his brother, Stan. Their work caught the interest of the Australian comics fan and historian, John Ryan, who, by the late 1960s, offered to act as the brothers' agent to assist in their efforts to sell the comic to American newspapers.

Ryan wrote extensively about the project, reporting on its progress and reproducing samples of the completed artwork, for various American comic fanzines in the USA, no doubt as a way of drumming up interest in the strip amongst readers and prospective publishers alike.

Some years later, Ryan wrote a piece titled 'Stan Pitt and Gully Foyle', which appeared in Sense of Wonder No.12 (dated 1972), a prominent fanzine published by American comics collector, Bill Schelly.

Here is an excerpt from Ryan's article, which explains how and why the Gully Foyle comic strip met its untimely end:

"I was about to follow up with [newspaper syndicate] NEA when we heard from John Higgins of the Ledger Syndicate. While pointing out that there were many problems involved, Higgins recognized the potential of the strip. Dozens of letters flowed back and forth across the Pacific Ocean...sometimes quickly, sometimes after agonizing delays.

Passing over the many obstacles and problems encountered in the months that followed, by November 1968 the Pitts were well on the way to completing the "buffer-stock" of 26 pages required by Ledger. During this period, I had been working out percentages, etc. with Robert Mills, Alfred Bester's agent. When the Ledger Syndicate cabled for copies of our contracts, late in November 1968, I wrote to Bob Mills about the urgency f the situation. His reply sounded the deathknell to GULLY FOYLE. Apparently, Bester had disposed of the movie rights to The Stars My Destination to Ashley Famous Agency -- and the motion picture contract called for the control of any comic strip use!

Our solicitor both wrote to and cabled Ashley Famous Agency -- but silence reigned supreme! And that was it -- that was the note on which the GULLY FOYLE strip died!"

This particular issue of Sense of Wonder is also significant because it contains another feature article by John Ryan, titled 'Yarmak the Fearless One', devoted to Stanley Pitt's fondly remembered adventure series, Yarmak - Jungle King Comic, which he produced for Young's Merchandising Company during the late 1940/early 1950s. Ryan's story has some interesting insights about changes requested of, or made to, Pitt's cover artwork, as well as a chronological list of the original, first-run Yarmak stories that appeared in the title's first 29 issues, as well as in the spin-off magazine, Jungle King Comics.

The fact that none other than Don Newton drew both the cover and interior artwork accompanying the Yarmak article is a further incentive to adding a copy of this rare fanzine to your collection! (Cover image courtesy of The Art of Don Newton website.)

Okay, this has almost has next-to-nothing to do with Australian comics, but quite by chance, I was interviewed last week by Peter Munro of the Sunday Age for an article he was writing about The Incredible Hulk.

The story was written partly in anticipation of the new Hulk movie to be released in Australia, but it also used the character as a springboard into a wider discussion about anger and rage in modern society.

Peter interviewed both myself, and my good mate Larry Boxshall of Alternate Worlds, who would have to be a contender for the title of "Australia's #1 Hulk Fan". You can read the article here.

As I explained to Peter Munro at the time, while the Hulk wasn't quite my favourite childhood comic book hero, I did nonetheless enjoy the character's rampaging antics, courtesy of Melbourne publisher Newton Comics' The Incredible Hulk magazine, which was one of that troubled company's longer-running titles. (Cover image courtesy of Daniel Best)

Talk about being "better late than never"! In July 2007 (yep, that's right - nearly a year ago!), I received a charming email from Balaji Sastry, who easily holds the title of being the internet's #1 fan of Lee Falk's classic comic strip, Mandrake the Magician.

Balaji's mission is to digitally archive as many daily and Sunday newspaper strips featuring the debonair, top-hatted magician, and publish them on his Mandrake the Magician blog, so fellow fans throughout the world can relive his classic adventures.

For a lifelong Mandrake fan like myself, Balaji's archive is nothing short of staggering. You can download high-resolution scans of Mandrake strips, many of which appear to be either complete storylines, or at least several weeks' worth of continuity from longer episodes.

There are also lovely reproductions of comic book covers, taken from Indian editions of Mandrake the Magician, featuring delightfully outlandish artwork. (I think if Lee Falk had instructed his artists to emulate the Indian comic book covers' style, then Mandrake the Magician might have reached an even wider audience.) The site also features covers and interior artwork taken from American, French and Yugoslav editions of Mandrake the Magician comic books as well.

While the mustachioed magician was frequently overshadowed by Falk's other great comic strip hero, The Phantom, there was much to commend Mandrake the Magician, which was, at times, the most surreal comic strip appearing in newspapers. Although Falk arguably invested more time and energy into The Phantom (which has enjoyed consistently greater international popularity as a result), Mandrake the Magician - especially when drawn by Phil Davis - remained an elegant and visually arresting series.

And, if you're new to this blog, check out my previous installment outlining Mandrake's publishing history in Australia.

My claim in a previous installment of Comics Down Under that I was no expert on the Australian publication history of Walt Disney Comics & Stories’ artist, Carl Barks, was proven true after I contacted Anthony Richards, who maintains the excellent Australian Disney Comics website. Anthony very helpfully set me right on some of the errors and incorrect assumptions I’d made in my piece about the Australian reprint of Barks’ classic Donald Duck story, ‘Adventure Down Under’.

“All W.G. Publications’ and Wogan Publications’ of [Disney comics] were printed in Australia,” he says. “The Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei prices that were printed in the top left-hand corners of the covers refer to the fact that, commencing in 1967, W.G. Publications’ comics – which previously were only sold throughout Australia and New Zealand – were being distributed to these countries, but were still being printed in Australia.”

Regarding the obvious retracing of Barks’ original artwork for the Australian reprint of ‘Adventure Down Under’, Anthony says that “W.G. Publications made up the comics from masters supplied to them by Disney – these were just black & white line artwork, while the colouring was done in Australia by W.G. Publications’ staff.”

However, as fellow Barks’ enthusiast (and comic artist) Dillon Naylor recently pointed out to me, the colouring on the W.G. Publications’ editions of Carl Barks stories rarely followed the colours used in the original American editions. Whereas the original Four Color issues featuring Walt Disney Comics & Stories used fairly naturalistic colour schemes, the Australian editions favoured much more garish tones.

“[Issue number] OS7 may be an exception to the rule where W.G. Publications did not have the Disney masters and instead traced it [the story] from an original Dell Comics print,” he suggests. “Ayers & James, which reprinted Disney Comics in Australia prior to W.G. Publications, very likely owned the rights to publish material from the original Dell edition of Four Color No. 159, as they reprinted the other story from it – ‘Ghost in the Grotto’.”

According to the Australian comic dealer and historian, Roger Morrison, tracing original American artwork in order to create camera-ready, black & white line work for the Australian edition was not an uncommon practice:

“Prior to October 1946….there were only 18 Walt Disney comics published in Australia. Of these, only 9 contained the work of Carl Barks and some of these were so poorly traced that the Barks’ style is virtually unrecognizable! This is particularly in the Australian edition of ‘Mickey Mouse and the Riddle of the Red Hat’ (Barks’ only Mickey Mouse strip) published by the Land Newspaper around 1945.” [i]

This was also a common practice, suggests Anthony, when it came to producing covers for the Australian editions of Walt Disney comic book titles: “Some of the Barks artwork was traced from panel art to make up the unique Australian covers (e.g. No.213), but it was usually not altered to any great extent.”

“However, the cover for OS7 is uniquely Australian and has not been reprinted anywhere else since – and that issue contains the only Australian printing of the ‘Adventure Down Under’ story.”

Thanks to Anthony Richards and Dillon Naylor for their assistance in preparing this article. However, any errors and omissions are the author’s own. Cover image courtesy of Australian Disney Comics.

[i] Morrison, Roger, ‘The Australian Barks’, Panel Power: Comicon III (Concord NSW, Limitless Visions, 1981), p.35

Comic books, like other popular entertainments, offer readers the promise of escape from their everyday world, a brief chance to experience bold adventures in exotic locales, far removed from their own. But what of the writers and artists who create these stories? Is this ‘just a job’ to them, or do they, too, lose themselves in the fantasies they create for others?

For Kevan Henry Hardacre (left), art was an escape from a bleak working life in northern Australia. Born on 23 October 1927, Hardacre grew up in Rockhampton, the so-called ‘Beef Capital of Australia’, in central Queensland.

“I was the most competent student in Lakes Creek Primary School and I went onto sixth grade before being co-opted into work at age 14,” he recalls.

“This time was the late period of the Great Depression and children were required to work by their parents, so that the families could survive with a modicum of decency,” he explains. “World War II was on the way, anyway, and our educators wanted to unload the poor children into work places, and then, into the armed services.”

Kevan’s father, a former health officer with the Rockhampton City Council, found a job for his son with his new employer. “It was the meat processing works at Lakes Creek, on the big, brown, lazy Fitzroy River,” explains Kevan. “It was an ‘essential industry’.”

“I did three rotating shifts from the start. I still feel a weird sense of wonderment remembering the work at night from 11:00 pm until 7:00 am. A big change for a child,” says Kevan.

“I was fearful of the place and the uncouth culture of the workforce, the overt intimidation and the below the belt pervasiveness of it all until, I got the hang of it and was able to hold my own. I knew I was different.”

Even at that young age, Kevan showed a talent for art well beyond that of his peers.

“I was always encouraged to draw by my father and teachers,” he says. “My father would sit us up at night around the big, old, worn communal table and sketch horses and other bush motifs for us, or tell us yarns about his days in the western Queensland bush, outback west.”

“He would talk about shearing sheds and greasy wool, with larrikins and larks – ghost stories, wild stories, adventure,” recalls Kevan. “Places like Barcaldine and Hughenden, Emerald and Longreach and Cloncurry – they crackled into wide-eyed vision out of the arid, wild, wild west.”

Throughout his adolescence, Kevan continued to develop as a completely self-taught artist, while filling his thirst for knowledge about the wider world through books. He read true-life adventure stories, as well as devouring books on natural history and art. Kevan also loved word derivations and always kept a dictionary handy. But, like many teenaged Australian boys growing up in the 1940s, he was ever mindful of conscription and military service.

“I was scheduled for call up when I turned 18-years-old in October 1945, but two months before that date the Americans dropped their nuclear bombs on [two] Japanese cities and that ground the war machine to a shuddering halt.”

Around this time, Kevan secured a job as a window dresser for an advertising contractor, Ted Leach. “He was a bronzed, strong young man, who had returned from army service in the Middle East and, later, New Guinea,” he recalls.

It may not have been the world of art he was seeking, but it offered a way out from what he called “the slaughterhouse blues.”

“I did display work, mainly window dressing, placing large cut outs of Black & White and De Reske Cigarettes up high on the greasy shelves of fish and chip shops and milk bars. Pharmaceutical and cosmetic advertising material was better when installed in much cleaner pharmacies.”

“I traveled a number of times to Gladstone and Mackay doing this work. The work in the chemist shop windows was still arduous, as these windows were extremely hot in the tropical summers. They were airless with tenacious dust always there. It was extremely difficult trying to avoid dropping a sweat blob onto the newly installed crepe paper decorations. One drop and the stretched paper went ‘bling!’ Start again.”

Hardacre, determined to forge some kind of career for himself in the field of art, made the move to the ‘big smoke’ and left Queensland for Sydney in 1949.

“I was prepared to do anything in the line of ‘art’ – whatever ‘art’ means to anyone,” he says. “I was lucky to get into the inner circle of artists then resident in upper and lower George Street and I was offered an opportunity to secure a studio there, in George Street, if I could find the right amount of ‘key money’.”

“The ‘key money’ was to be passed over to the outgoing artist who had initially paid the same amount to the landlord for the right to pay him rent on a small room,” explains Kevan. “I paid £500, a large amount back then, when wages were about £10 to £20 a week. Installed and bunking there illegally, strip-washing from a bucket after hours, and dining from street stalls in Chinatown nearby, I secured some work from Trevor Morgan, the printer on the next floor down.”

Back then, Kevan aspired to join the ranks of artists like Virgil Reilly and Wynne W. Davies, whose full-colour illustrations graced the covers of the tabloid-sized Australian Women’s Weekly, or those cartoonists who, as he puts it, “fearlessly frolicked through the page of The Bulletin magazine, with its pink-paper covers.”

“But no such Olympian triumphs for me; I found that my then skills would only be taken up by the then – proliferating comic book publishers,” he explains. “In the late 1940s, there was a plethora of publications, such as short story magazines, comic books and papers, put out by men trying to get back into ‘civvy’ life after the war and, no doubt, with some ‘rehabilitation’ cash assistance from the government.”

“Syd Nicholls regularly produced a black & white adventure comic with pirate stories [Middy Malone’s Magazine], all by himself – so well drawn, straight off the brush. And there was an historical series [Captain Justice] by Monty Wedd. Len Lawson created some sort of a masked cowboy [The Lone Avenger], before he got caught by his own misdoings and ended up in the caboose. Read about that one!” [i]

One of Kevan’s first comic book assignments was to illustrate a cowboy comic, ‘Trig’ Matson. The blonde gunslinger, described as a “range ‘tec” (range detective), originally appeared in Kayo Comic during 1946-47. Unusually for comics of this period, each strip in Kayo Comic was prefaced with an illustrated page of text, which introduced the plot, with the remainder of the story conveyed in comic strip format. While competently produced, neither a writer nor an artist is named on the original series of ‘Trig’ Matson, as is the case with the magazine’s other comic strips, Ace Gremlin and Nutkey and Professor Mikro.

Kayo Comic was one of several comic book titles issued by Calvert Publications, a company formed by accountant Denny White, which became a prolific publisher of Australian comics and popular fiction novels throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

‘Trig’ Matson was deemed popular enough to be rewarded with his own, self-titled comic book. Kevan Hardacre took over as illustrator of the lead feature, which was supported by Crimebusters, an eccentric trio of adventurers drawn by Michael Trueman, and a new series of Ace Gremlin, an unsigned science-fiction series, which has since been attributed to the illustrator, T. Brand. The 24-page ‘Trig’ Matson comic also managed to squeeze in short stories written by G.C. Bleeck, a prolific Australian ‘pulp fiction’ author.

Although credited solely as the illustrator on ‘Trig’ Matson, Kevan says “I am sure that I also wrote some scripts when I did not care for the libretto.”

When asked how he got the job, Kevan says that “the commission could have come from Arthur Gorfain[ii] or Royce Bradford[iii] at Press Features Service, which operated out of Castlereagh Street, Sydney. I understood that Mr. Gorfain was the owner of the business and that Royce Bradford was the Senior Artist or Art Production Manager.”

Kevan’s next assignment, and the one he would be best remembered for, came about through a chance referral from a fellow artist.

“Someone, possibly John L. Curtis[iv], told me about Peter Gormley[v] and I contacted him. He seemed to be a man with experience in publishing – an ex-journalist, I presumed, urbane and well-dressed, although often, most reticent,” he recalls.

“He [Gormley] was then running a press service securing material for publishers such as Young’s Merchandising. I believe that he had ‘stable’ of creative artists and got new work ready for a client list of publishers.”

“[My next comic], Char Chapman, was born out of a meeting with Peter Gormley, who suggested that I ‘do something like The Phantom comic’, which he said, to my surprise, was the biggest selling comic then published. He proposed that I create a new character with similar appeal, and to write the scripts and draw the artwork.”

“The war was over and, with all that male testosterone running around unbridled, adventurers were re-invading distant places, seeking ongoing adventures and writing about them. One such book, White Stranger[vi], enthralled me, city-bound in Sydney. It was about the white man's rediscovery of ‘the jungles’ in Sarawak and the Celebes, in what is now called Indonesia, and of the wildlife there, some of it human.”

“The word ‘Char’ meant ‘Tiger’ in Malay, I think, and I let it rip,” says Kevan. “The character just bound into life and I was able to draw jungles and pythons and depict much derring-do.”

Char Chapman was a famed big-game hunter and jungle guide who called the wilderness of Southeast Asia his home. However, he was better known to the myriad hill tribes and jungle clans as The Phantom of the East – “respected by peace-lovers – feared by renegades”, as one cover blurb put it. Sporting a pair of goggles and a blue headband, clad in a skin-tight red top emblazoned with an arcane symbol, and complemented by a pair of breeches and riding boots, Char Chapman, despite his eclectic wardrobe, cut an impressively heroic figure.

One is struck by Hardacre’s rapid evolution as an artist during this phase of his career, especially when comparing his early work on ‘Trig’ Matson with those first episodes of Char Chapman. His draftsmanship is much more assured, while his human figures exude energy and movement. And, once he gains an entire comic book to himself, Hardacre becomes more adventurous in his storytelling technique, experimenting with panel compositions and page layouts that better convey his stories’ frenetic action.

Char Chapman – The Phantom of the East[vii] made its debut as a supporting strip in Steel Barr and The Phantom Man Comic, published by Young’s Merchandising Company in 1950[viii]. Steel Barr was a granite-jawed District Commissioner who patrolled the African jungles, battling myriad threats while searching for his elusive opponent, The Phantom Man. Originally created for OPC’s Hurricane Comics series in 1946, writer and illustrator Lloyd Piper[ix] successfully brought his muscular hero to publisher Charles Young’s growing range of comic book titles.

Char Chapman’s adventures frequently took place against the backdrop of the ‘Malayan Emergency’, wherein British and Commonwealth military forces (including elements of Australia’s army and air force) fought against ‘Communist insurgents’ during 1948-1960.

“The Malay people were then trying to stop the British from regaining control of Malaya and Singapore after World War II,” recalls Kevan. “We re-invaded them and frustrated their drive for an independence that they wanted, but which we disallowed. This was done in the name of what we now call ‘security’, which allegedly keeps us safe from other peoples’ striving for independence and human rights.”

“The press was, of course, demonising them and, back then, I naively believed in the media services – and so Chapman was forever defeating the independence fighters. They were then called ‘terrorists’. Sounds familiar? You bet. Today, I would portray Char Chapman on the other side of the fence, as a champion of the people – a freedom fighter, certainly not an agent for neo-imperialism.”

Char Chapman was sufficiently popular for Young’s Merchandising Company to commission a spin-off comic magazine starring Kevan’s hero, which debuted in 1951. The character gained popularity and, as a result, sales increased.

“As I had found that one could not illustrate the fast-moving adventure strip stories where the action is described by script writers, I asked that I be given a free hand – and I got it. I was – and still am – a good visualiser. I roughly pencilled out the panels after jotting down a bare-as-bones scenario and I ad-libbed the dialogue and captions as I went,” he explains. “I could manage a page a day – but John L. Curtis frenetically knocked off three pages each day!”

Sadly, Kevan’s involvement with the Australian comic book industry was all too brief, culminating with Char Chapman – Phantom of the East, which concluded sometime in 1952[x]. But his reasons for leaving the industry were partly economic: “I felt that the publishers paid too little for so much work. But it taught me how to draw and how to work hard at art.”

“I was offered a job at Hudson Publications as a magazine artist, sometime around 1951, I think,” explains Kevan. “Norman O. Hudson then published Outdoors and Fishing and Seacraft magazines. As they prospered, we went on to launch Wheels, Two Wheels, Science To-day and Bride, along with other publications.”

“Initially, I painted covers, retouched photos and did some illustrations, but with the increased number of monthly magazines, we increased the number of in-studio artists – and I was eventually made art director,” he says.

“My job was to study the line-up as presented by the editors and assign the layouts to my artists, as well as commission illustrations with dinki[xi] and typography for headings,” explains Kevan. “Retouching of photographs was a big part of the work, as we printed by letterpress from acid-etched engravings on rough paper, the best then available in those days of short supply. The sizes of photographs and illustrations were strictly controlled, as the engravings were charged by the square inch and the budgets were tight. No big double-page spreads, then.”

Hudson Publications was later bought out by the K.G. Murray Publishing Company, which added Hudson’s titles to its already popular range of consumer and entertainment magazines. After working at Hudson Publications for close to two-and-a-half years, Hardacre re-established himself as a freelance artist, concentrating on the advertising and marketing fields.

He eventually started his own art and design consultancy business, which grew to employ six staff artists over the following two decades.

“We did advertising layouts and brochure designs for some advertising agencies, but I found that it suited my studio best to work directly with the marketing directors of large companies.”

“We designed logos and point-of-sale display units which we fabricated in various materials, from card stock to plastics and wood, brass and steel. I had a client list that embraced the then-largest companies operating in Australia, such as Unilever, Phillips Industries, Nikon and Canon through their agencies, as well as Peter Stuyvesant and Rothmans Cigarettes and Pan American Airways.”

After gradually retiring from the commercial design and production field during the 1970s, Kevan established his own, less commercial art practice, Hardacre Art & Design. He still finds time to select art assignments that reflect his longstanding interest in natural history and conservation. For instance, in April 2004, Kevan worked for the Australian Museum, producing bas-relief, plaque replicas of endangered fish species.

“I still do design work, but now I devote my skills to environmental - care practices,” says Kevan. “I design and fabricate SafetyNests, a range of nest boxes (pictured left) which effectively help to re-establish the habitats that are being lost through so-called ‘development’ and they will save the wildlife for our children’s’ future. I envisage a ‘green chain’ of SafetyNests across the globe.”

Hardacre’s love of the natural world shines through in his paintings of bird life, landscapes and maritime studies. This is perfectly in keeping with Kevan’s own personal philosophies, shaped by his interest in Buddhism, which, he says, embraces “everything that’s natural and nothing that’s for money only. Caring and sharing – and staying critical of humbuggery.”

The author would like to thank Kevan and Mark Hardacre for making this interview possible, as well as Graeme Cliffe, for his invaluable advice on Char Chapman’s publishing history. However, any errors and omissions are the author’s own.

[i] Leonard Keith Lawson (b. 16 August 1927), creator of The Lone Avenger and The Hooded Rider comic books, drove five female models on a photo shoot to bushland in the Terrey Hills area on 7 May 1954. After binding and gagging them at gunpoint, he raped three of them, and indecently assaulted the other two women. He was apprehended by police and was initially sentenced to death on 25 June 1954, but this was later commuted to 14 years imprisonment. A model prisoner, Lawson was paroled in May 1961 after just serving seven years. On 6 November 1961, he raped and murdered a teenage girl, Jane Bower, and was apprehended by police the following day during a siege at a private girls’ school where, while struggling with a teacher, Lawson’s gun went off, killing a student, Wendy Luscombe. Lawson was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1962 and died at the Grafton Correctional Centre on 29 November 2003.

[ii] Arthur Gorfain (b. 18 April 1912) established Press Feature Service after serving with the RAAF during World War II. His company employed 12 staff and supplied Australian newspapers and magazines with a variety of editorial content, such as puzzles, crosswords, short stories and cartoons. Gorfain is best remembered as the editor and publisher of The Silver Jacket, a popular Australian boys’ magazine published during 1953-56. He syndicated such Australian comic strips as Frontiers of Science to domestic and international newspaper markets, before selling his company to Alan Foley Pty Ltd in 1963. He subsequently established the Sunset Motel chain throughout eastern Australia.

[iii] Royce Bradford was a prolific magazine illustrator and comic book artist whose career spanned several decades. His comic book credits include The Bronze Cat (NSW Bookstall, circa 1943), Cole Steele (Wollumbin Press, circa 1950) and The Cloak tells Tales of Mystery (Horwitz Publications, circa 1959).

[iv] John Leslie Curtis (1917 – 2000) was originally a theatrical poster artist, before entering the Australian comic book field in the 1940s. He illustrated the comic book version of the popular Australian radio serial, Larry Kent (‘I Hate Crime’), and adapted several crime novels by British author Edgar Wallace, such as When the Gangs Came to London, for Australian comics. Some of his best work, including full-colour cover paintings and meticulous, black & white historical comic strips, appeared in The Silver Jacket magazine.

[v] Peter Gormley (circa 1920 – 1999) would later achieve international recognition as the manager of several high-profile musical performers, including the Australian singer Frank Ifield, British pop star Cliff Richard and the Australian-born singer/actor, Olivia Newton-John.

[vi] Wilcox, Harry, White Stranger: Six Moons in Celebes (London, Collins, 1949)

[vii] Early episodes of the strip appearing in Steel Barr and the Phantom Man Comic are titled ‘Cha Chapman – The Phantom of the East’, but the character’s name was altered to ‘Char Chapman’ for its self-titled comic.

[viii] An episode of Char Chapman – Phantom of the East appeared in the back pages of Spike’s Comic No.1, which starred a cheeky, larrikin kid, which was published by Young’s Merchandising Company, circa 1953. This story may have been a previously unpublished installment, left over after the original Char Chapman magazine was cancelled around 1952.

[ix] Lloyd Piper (1922-1984) produced comic books for several Australian publishers during the immediate postwar era, including Frew Publications, for whom he drew the Australian version of the American superhero, Catman, in Super Yank Comics. Piper later became an advertising layout artist, but returned to comics in 1972, creating the adventure strip Wolfe for Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, before taking over as artist on the long-running Ginger Meggs comic strip in 1974, which he drew until his death.

[x] The original series of Char Chapman – The Phantom of East ran for just nine issues, released during 1951-52. Although later editions, bearing issue numbers 17-19, were published, these were reprints from the earlier series, and were actually published circa 1959. The gap in the numbering sequence has led to the misconception that issue nos.10 -16 of Char Chapman were incredibly scarce when, in fact, they were never published at all.

[xi] ‘Dinki’ is the plural form of ‘dinkus’, a printing term that refers to a graphic symbol or motif, which identifies a recurring editorial feature, such as a letters page or review column, appearing on a magazine page layout.

Adelaide's own Aussie comics doyen, Daniel Best, has recently published an extensive interview he conducted with the late James Kemsley, writer and illustrator of the Ginger Meggs comic strip, who died on 3 December 2007.

The interview was originally conducted in February 2004, but remained in Danny's archives for various reasons until now. Even though Danny admits in his introduction that the interview only focuses on Kemsley's comic strip work, a planned follow-up interview covering his film and television career never eventuated.

Nonetheless, the interview will be of immense interest to fans of Ginger Meggs, and to anyone with more than a passing interest in the history of Australia's newspaper comic strip heritage. James Kemsley breathed new life into a once iconic character that was threatening to slip into irrelevancy and, for that alone, his life and work should be remembered fondly. And Danny's interview with Kemsley is as good a place as any to meet the man behind 'Meggsy'.

I recently had the good fortune to visit Sydney and attend the opening of Abstractions, an exhibition of abstract paintings and collages by Reg Pitt, which is currently on display at the St. George Regional Museum in Hurstville, New South Wales.

Reg is best known to Australian comic collectors as the frequent collaborator with his brother, Stan Pitt, on various comic book projects from the 1940s-1960s period, including Silver Starr, Yarmak - Jungle King and their glorious, but ill-fated, science-fiction newspaper strip, Gully Foyle.

But as visitors to this exhibition will discover, Reg has had a lifelong fascination with abstract painting and design, which he continued to explore alongside his career as a commercial artist. Some of the earliest works featured in the show, including pastel and acrylic works, date back to the early 1970s. However, the majority of pieces in the show, comprising vibrant paper collages, span the years 1998 - 2008, testimony to Reg's lifelong, restless urge to create.

If, however, you can't visit the Abstractions exhibition personally, you'll be pleased to know that copies of the exhibition catalogue, Abstractions: The Art of Reg Pitt, are available from Reg's son-in-law, Beric Henderson, an artist in his own right. This signed and numbered catalogue features a brief biographical portrait of Reg, and many vivid, full-colour reproductions of his work.

Copies of this limited edition catalogue are available for AUD$15.00 per copy, plus AUD$2.00 for postage and handling within Australia. (Customers outside Australia should contact Beric directly for international payment & postage details.) You can email Beric for further details, or write to him at: 13 Russell Street, Riverwood, New South Wales, 2210, Australia.