Australian cartoonist Monty Wedd was born today in 1921 and over the course of his life was a prominent creator of newspaper & magazine cartoons and comics books. Amongst his creations were The Scorpion, Bold Ben Hall, The Ned Kelly historical strip, Captain Justice, King Comet, and the Australian history strip Birth of A Nation. During the fifties Wedd contributed to a line of card-bound educational comics depicting important occasions in Australasian history. Wedd also worked in animation for Artransa and Eric Porter on series such as Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon, Charlie Chan, The Lone Ranger, Rocket Robin Hood and Super Friends. Over the rest of today I'll be posting samples from various works by Monty Wedd.

Last year Comicoz produced a lavish hardcover collection of Wedd's Ned Kelly strips, currently available on special in the Comicoz store.

Monty Wedd in 1960 with his collection of War Relics

Below: A selection of Wedd illustrated covers for The Australian Chucklers Weekly.

Virgil Reilly (1892-1974) was a significant contributor to the golden age of Australian comics with his work on Silver Flash and his Frog-Men, Punch Perkins and The Invisible Avenger. Reilly was also a prolific illustrator of magazines, books, programmes, posters, newspapers and in advertising.

One of the few long running series of the fifties by a single artist was Reilly's Silver Flash, with 54 issues produced during 1950-1955 and 3 issues of Captain Silver Flash circa 1955. Each issue featured frantically rendered artwork that owed as much to the Boy's Own adventure of English Comics as the dynamic action of American comics of the time. A complete tale featured in each issue with Captain Silver Flash and his submarine crew battling arch villains and underwater sea monsters whilst saving the requisite damsels in distress.

Pikitia Press are proud to debut at SPX 2014, a reproduction of The Adventures of Silver Flash and his Frog-Men #1. Our reproduction will be expanded to 40 pages including a biographical essay and gallery of Reilly artwork.

Grateful thanks to Kevin Patrick for some of the comics history featured above.

Virgil Reilly Film Illustrations .

Wartime cartoons by Virgil Reilly.

Australian Woman's Weekly painted covers by Virgil Reilly.

Kevin Patrick's Virgil Reilly profile.