I'm trying to post something everyday but I don't have much time so here is a lazy post of covers from Wellington Publisher Feature Productions, active in New Zealand during the 1940's - 1950's. Feature Productions were easily the most prolific of New Zealand's many golden age publishers with one of the worlds lengthiest runs of Mandrake the Magician comics with 222 issues. Quite possibly the world's longest run of Brick Bradford comics as well lasting 108 issues, and The Phantom on monthly, biweekly and weekly schedules at times producing a respectful 556 issues.
To the best of my knowledge this Publisher's lineup was entirely made up of American newspaper strips licensed from King Features Syndicate. I'm not sure if English strip Garth was also licensed through King, but several issues of his adventures were published in the late 1940's.
The rarest FP comics are The Cisco Kid series, collector Geoff Harrison had heard they existed for years but not seen any of the actual comics until this year when we tracked down the first several issues.
I personally own issues #1 - #18 of Big Ben Bolt, possibly the only collection of these to exist anywhere, this of course means nothing to anyone but I just wanted to show off.
Covers here are all from The Adventures of Brick Bradford. Drawn by an unknown New Zealand artist, typically reproducing a panel or element of art from the internal stories. Brick Bradford covers were very odd in that many of them don't feature characters, just focusing on landmarks or modes of transport. Covers that do feature characters often show them depicted from behind. Very odd choices by this unknown artist. Regardless they are all amazing and coloured with the right colours.
This post did not end up as lazy as I intended it to be.
* Special thanks to Allan Kemp for additional info.
