A founding member of the Society of Australian Black and White Artists, artist John Baird (1902-1988) originally created Pip and Emma with writer Nancy Thompson for Sydney newspaper Smith's Weekly.
Sunbeams Comics Supplement 9th December 1944 - Bib and Bub
One of Australia's longest running strips, May Gibbs’, Bib and Bub, first appeared in the Sunday News on 3 August 1924 and ran until 1967.
Sunbeams Comics Supplement 9th December 1944 - Adventures of Tightrope Tim
I wish I could present to you a chronological run of the eight years Reg E Hicks' Adventures of Tightrope Tim strip ran in the Sunbeams supplement (1941 - 1949) but alas I only have a spotty collection of installments mainly from the latter years of World War Two.
Sunbeams Comics Supplement 9th December 1944 - Ginger Meggs
Created by Jimmy Bancks in 1921, Ginger Meggs is currently being celebrated in an exhibition at the Sydney Museum. The Ginger Meggs comic below featured in the children's four page Sunbeams supplement accompanying Melbourne paper The Sun News-Pictorial published 9th December, 1944.
Mystery New Zealand Cartoonists #2 Dennis Clarke
Presumably self published by Bodgie Print Co. in Auckland, 1979, Pacer Comics by Dennis Clarke is one of the most fascinating New Zealand comics I've found from this era. Drawn in a scratchy line that brings to mind European cartoonists like Sergio Toppi and some of the loose experimental work of Alberto Breccia, Pacer Comics features three stories, ELX, The Enchantment of Pentreath, and The Kiwi Once Did Fly. The printing in this comic is a bit poor in places, making some of the scratchy images and text hard to decipher, regardless this is a quite an interesting comic and accomplished production, possibly not Clarke's first? It doesn't seem to be influenced by any mainstream comics available in New Zealand at the time either and very different from anything else I'm aware of coming out of New Zealand in the 1970's. Does anyone know Dennis Clarke? Or is anyone out there familiar with his work?
ELX is an adventure story with the lead character exploring fantasy realms in a clash with Death. Vaguely an Antipodean Doctor Strange with science fiction elements?
The Enchantment of Pantreath is a six page wordless almost abstract in places comic. I'm not sure but it could be from the perspective of a psychiatric hospital patient experiencing nightmare visions.
The Kiwi Once Did Fly is subtitled From Maori Mythology and features the most straight forward story featuring the son of a Tohunga Aorangi and the Birdwoman.
