Above: Norman Clifford, Melbourne 1959 Norman Clifford was one of many talented and enterprising Australian artists who created opportunities for themselves in a competitive comic book market in the 1950s by creating stories which resonated with local audiences, and stood out among the American and British comics which crowded newsagents' shelves at the time. His passion for aircraft and aviation history inspired him to create a string of successful air combat-themed comics that capitalised on the Royal Australian Air Force's then-current involvement in Korean War (1950-53), and the p ..read more

I originally wrote 'Antipodean Currents' in 2016, after being commissioned to write a brief "layman's history" of comic art in Australian and New Zealand from the late 19th century to the present day. It was originally intended for an academic essay collection, but the project was eventually cancelled, and it never saw print. I subsequently made an illustrated PDF version of this essay available on my Academia page, but this was only available to Academia.edu subscribers. As I've had numerous academics and comic fans/historians ask me to send them copies over the years, I've decided to pu ..read more

I originally wrote 'Antipodean Currents' in 2016, after being commissioned to write a brief  "layman's history" of comic art in Australian and New Zealand from the late 19th century to the present day. It was originally intended for an academic essay collection, but the project was eventually cancelled, and it never saw print. I subsequently made an illustrated PDF version of this essay available on my Academia.edu page, but this was only available to Academia.edu subscribers. As I've had numerous academics and comic fans/historians ask me to send them copies over the years, I've decided ..read more

One of the reasons why I have only made infrequent blog posts during the last 12-18 months is that I have been preoccupied with various academic/scholarly writing projects. "Publish or perish" is the commonly heard mantra repeated to "early career researchers" like myself, as your chances of securing postdoctoral research grants and/or semi-secure full-time employment is based in part on your academic writing output. Well, that's the theory, anyway - the reality, for me at least, has been far from encouraging. Despite being told on numerous occasions that I have produced an impressive body of ..read more

This is a portrait of a paperboy in Collins Street, Melbourne, taken by photographer Mark Strizic. It was reproduced in a book of Strizic's photographs, "Melbourne: A Portrait", published by Georgian House in 1960. Mark Strizic (pictured below in 1958) was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1928, but following Hitler's rise to power in 1933, his family fled to Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia) the following year. He subsequently made his way to Austria at the end of the war to escape the Communist regime in Yugoslavia, and emigrated to Australia in 1950. After working as a clerk for Victorian Ra ..read more

The Australian Cartoonists' Association announced on 25 November 2020 that acclaimed Australian comic-strip artist, Yaroslav Horak, had passed away after a decade-long struggle with Alzheimer's Disease. The following blog post is a revised and expanded version of my article, 'Yaroslav Horak: The Man Behind the Masks', which was originally published in Giant Size Phantom, no.9 (May 2019). Yaroslav Horak’s childhood reads like the dramatic scenario for one of the countless comic-book adventures he went on to draw for most of his adult life. He was born on 12 June 1927, in Harbin, Manchuria, whe ..read more

The following is the second (and final) part of my revised and updated account the "Gully Foyle" comic-strip saga, which  I originally wrote for the long-expired PulpFaction.net website back in 2007. You can read the preceding installment by clicking here. You may also want to read Daniel Best's comparable account of Reg and Stan Pitt's "lost" comic strip masterpiece at his  20thCentury Danny Boy blog. Readers are also encouraged to visit the Stan and Reg Pitt Facebook Group, to view and share rare artwork and photographs devoted to these artists' lives and work.  The Bi ..read more

The following is a revised and updated version of the article I originally wrote for the long-expired PulpFaction.net website back in 2007. Since then, the full story behind the “lost” comic-strip adaptation of Alfred Bester’s SF novel, The Stars My Destination, has been told in even greater depth by Daniel Best on his 20thCentury Danny Boy blog. But my intention has been, for many years now, to republish my original account of Stanley and Reginald Pitt’s lost comic-strip masterpiece, Gully Foyle. I hope you will enjoy discovering this fascinating fragment of Australian comics history. You can ..read more

Queenie Chan, Australian manga artist NOTE: This blog entry is a modified version of a post I submitted to the "Australian Comics History 1960-2010" Facebook group on 20 June, 2020. The questions I raised here generated a lot of enthusiastic debate and discussion, so I thought I'd share it with the readers of this blog, as it may be of interest to the broader community of Australian comic-book fans, collectors and historians. As someone who's written about the history of Australian comics for many years - both as a fan and as an academic - I've always been interested in identifying a ..read more

The Ledger Awards were launched in 2005 to formally recognize both outstanding new works by Australian comic book/graphic novel creators, as well as acknowledge the work of earlier writers and artists who made historically significant contributions to Australian comics. The 2019 Ledger Awards Annual is now available to download as a single PDF file from the Ledger Awards website, and is an invaluable record of the many diverse and exciting new comics and graphic novels currently published in Australia. This year's posthumous Ledger of Honour went to Stanley and Reginald Pitt, two brothers wh ..read more