Wonder Tales of Maoriland - A. S. Paterson
One of New Zealand's most prolific cartoonists of the early 20th century, A. S. Paterson produced an almost unbroken 25 year run of daily strips for the Dominion newspaper and provided illustrations for many magazines, advertisements and books. Wonder Tales of Maoriland written by publisher A. W. Reed included many examples of Paterson's black and white line work and some striking full page water colour illustrations.
Adventures in Space with Jim and Joy
This promotional comic was produced for Griffin's & Sons Ltd in the late 1950's. The back cover features an advertisement with Sir Edmund Hillary making note of him including energy-giving biscuits amongst his supplies on his Antarctic expedition during the International Geophysical Year Programme. Mentioned in past tense, the Programme was conducted over 1957 and 1958, so very likely this was produced 1958-1959.
With brightly primary colours and simple line work, the comic tells the tale of two children showing an alien race around the Griffin's biscuit making operation. At their height of production the Griffin's factory churned out 750,000 biscuits a day. The Lower Hutt factory depicted on page seven was closed after seventy years of operation in 2008 with Griffin's consolidating operations in Auckland. Unfortunately no artist or production credits or even copyright information are included in the comic. The style does bring to mind advertising illustrator Bill Haythornethwaite who was producing comics for A.W. Reed during the 1950's.
