Is exploring the literary world for Australian pop culture akin to searching for a needle in a haystack?

The lack of acknowledgement of Australian pop culture in traditional and online publications should be no surprise when considering the overabundance of American pop culture references that inundate our daily lives. While little has been officially recorded concerning the actual history of Australian comics, even less has been documented on its seemingly tenuous future. However, one publication does stand out: John Ryan’s Panel By Panel [Figure 1] [Ryan, 1979]. In a commercial sense, it was the first and, unfortunately, the last, great work to ‘officially’ document Australian comics. In his blog, The Invisible Medium: Comic Studies in Australia, Kevin Patrick observes:

Given the sporadic attention paid by Australian academics to comics generally, recording the history of comic books in Australia has been largely left to fans and collectors themselves. They performed the ‘heavy lifting’ of discovery, documentation and research which, in any other field of print culture inquiry, would normally have been the preserve of academics. This is especially true of John Ryan, who wrote extensively about Australian comics for US and Australasian fan magazines [aka ‘fanzines’] throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

John Ryan liked to refer to himself as a ‘panelologist’. He was particularly interested in collecting comics published in Australia after the import restrictions were lifted in 1958. Ryan contributed to several American-based fanzines and was an active Australian and New Zealand Amateur Publishing Association member. In 1964, he published the first Australian fanzine, Down Under, and won the American Alley Poll Awards in 1964 and 1967 for his writings on Australian comics. This writing formed the basis of Panel by Panel. Ryan was motivated to publish his book, hoping it would act as ‘a source of enlightenment, nostalgia, and a means to identifying many long-forgotten strips and artists. For those with more academic interests, I hope it will prove a valuable research tool in presenting further examinations of the field’ [Ryan, 1979].

In 2015, Ryan’s extensive work was posthumously recognised by the Australian comics community, which awarded his family the Platinum Ledger Award ‘For Excellence in Australian Comics.’ No doubt John Ryan’s exceptional book puts into historical context the rise and fall of Australian comics, but as it was published in 1979 and the author has since died, Panel By Panel cannot comment on the continued survival of Australian newspaper strips and comic books. Nor can Panel By Panel offer any insight into modern techniques or ways to counter the impact of American pop culture. However, at least five Australian-based contributors have attempted to fill some empty word bubbles left by Ryan’s passing — Philip Bentley, Kevin Patrick, Bernard Caleo, Annette Shiell, and Daniel Best.

Philip Bentley was one of the founders of Fox Comics and Minotaur, arguably Australia’s most famous comic book store. At the same time, Kevin Patrick guest curated the State Library of Victoria’s 2006–07 Heroes and Villains exhibition, which showcased the Library’s comic book and graphic novel collection. Patrick is also an incredibly prolific writer on the history of Australian comics. His website, Comics Down Under: An Ongoing History of Comic Books in Australia [Patrick, 2016], offers fantastic insights into the artists and publishers that dominated the Australian comic book industry during the golden years and beyond. Daniel Best produced an impressive piece of research in The Amazing Rise and Spectacular Fall Of Newton Comics [Figure 4] [Best, 2012]; along with various biographies relating to Australian comics, notably his seminal work documenting the life of artist Keith Chatto in The Epic [Annotated] Life Story of Keith Chatto [Best, 2014].

Philip Bentley embarks on a journey through the Australian comic landscape via A Life In Comics [Bentley, 2013], which, by chapter four, unfortunately, devolves into self-reflection and often pitiful lamenting on his tortured struggle between Minotaur’s corporate success and his bohemian conscience. His grievances may have merit, but the context is lost inside a book supposedly looking at a ‘history of comics in Australia 1960-1990.’ Bentley’s multiple chapters on his involvement with indie magazines Inkspot and Fox Comics are somewhat enlightening but hardly worth dedicating fifty per cent of the book on, notably when these publishing ventures failed to generate satisfactory circulations, ran at a loss and neglected to pay the majority of their contributors. These chapters appear little more than self-serving rationale, which had little to no impact on the Australian comic scene outside the author’s immediate circle of acquaintances. In stark contrast, Word Balloons [Figure 2] [Bentley, 2007] and his blog Fragments from a Second Shore [Bentley, 2013] contain a wealth of comic art history that documents Australian pop culture up until the present day. These records represent constructive observations into what indie and mainstream writers, illustrators, inkers, and publishers encounter while developing their craft.

In his book Comic Books: Australian Society and Cultural Anxiety: 1956–1986 [Patrick, 2009], Kevin Patrick presents a complex account of the continued disintegration of the Australian comic industry. Hamstrung by successive governments who initially discouraged domestic cinema and later removed import restrictions on publications, leading to the annihilation of the locally produced comic book, Patrick points to a consumer no longer entertained by homegrown tales of outback bush heroics. These people now prefer to source their inspiration from American pop culture. It’s a theory Patrick echoes throughout several titles and his online blog Comics Down Under: An Ongoing History of Comic Books in Australia [Patrick 2016]. While these entries acknowledge the industry’s demise, the author, like many before him, offers little counsel to get the local industry back on track.

I was ambivalent in The Tango Collection: Over 50 Comic Creators from Australia and New Zealand [Caleo, 2009]; were the images brilliant art or simple indulgence? While the publication was mainstream, the content was very much underground. The Tango Collection directly resulted from the author’s love of indie comics, culminating in the mid-1990s with Caleo launching the Cardigan Comics imprint. Since that time, he has edited and published the bi-annual comic magazine Tango, observing: ‘I have watched comic books develop as a storytelling art, and am very excited about the directions for comic books as part of book culture and visual art culture in Australia’ [Caleo, 2009 p.14]. Much like Philip Bentley’s minimum circulation titles, Inkspot and Fox Comics, the impact of these comics on the wider comic community is doubtful. Finding independent publications [online or in traditional print] referencing Tango content is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. Undoubtedly, the publication has a place in Australian comic book history, possibly filed under indie. While documenting the artist’s creative life is commendable, particularly when a researcher can trace the inker’s success back to its origins, it doesn’t add anything to the particular themes I cover in my research.

Fortunately, significant insight can be sourced through Bonzer [Figure 3] [Shiell 1998], a publication compiled by the National Centre for Australian Studies. The book documents an exhaustive array of Australian comics spanning one hundred years from the early 1900s to the last decade of the 20th century. It features a comprehensive list of comics, the artists’ biographical details, and over 350 examples of their work. Bonzer is an excellent companion to Panel By Panel [Ryan, 1979], with each chapter covering a topic relevant to the genre. The publisher has assembled an impressive group of writers to cover themes as diverse as Ian Gordon’s From ‘The Bulletin’ to Comics: Comic Art in Australia 1890–1950; Annette Shiell’s Hone-Grown Heroes and Local Landscapes: Australia and Australians through Comic Books; Mark Finnane’s ‘A Moral Miasma’? Comics and Censorship in the 1950s and Ingrid Unger’s Women: Drawn and Drawing.

These essays are a valuable contribution to the story of Australian comics as they extend the narrative beyond retelling the rise and fall of comics during the golden years. While Bonzer is fundamentally a catalogue—albeit one with exhaustive referencing—it also allows the reader to understand better the complexities of an industry struggling to find itself amidst an ever-growing tide of non-indigenous pop culture. What Bonzer doesn’t offer is any insight into what lies ahead. In his chapter Contemporary Comics, Stuart Hale discusses the state of comics in Australia during the time it was written, however, when it reaches the end of the 1990s essentially it’s game over as, sadly, no follow up editions were published. This is a thread I am discovering in most of the publications I have so far examined—the inability or unwillingness to offer any form of blueprint or guide for those who follow on.

In The Amazing Rise and Spectacular Fall Of Newton Comics [Best, 2012], the author has compiled some spectacular research that shined a very bright spotlight on the business of publishing comics in Australia during the mid-1970s. Well after their demise, Newton Comics was, for many people, their first introduction to the world of Marvel. While the company spectacularly crashed and burned within a year of producing their first title with debts in the day exceeding AU$2,000,000, they also managed to make over one hundred and eighty Marvel-based titles [far more over the same period than even their American-based licensor], an effort that resulted in tens of thousands of comics ending up in fairground showbags for many years to come. While the subject matter of the comics Newton Comics promoted never specifically addressed Australian-centric titles, it does offer valuable insight into how local businesses saw the comic industry and managed to misread it so utterly.

Daniel Best has also been credited with Australia’s first comic book-related blog, 20th Century Danny Boy, to be featured in the Australian National Library’s Pandora archive [Best, 2016]. His insight into the lives and works of some of Australia’s leading comic creators is essential reading for any comic book scholar. Particular mention must be given to The Epic [Annotated] Life Story of Keith Chatto [Best, 2014] as it highlights a perspective of Australian comic book history rarely appreciated. Instead of viewing comic book history as ornamented pages, Best’s writing brings the people behind the panels to life. The reader begins to comprehend and ultimately appreciate that there’s more to our comic history than facts and figures. It demonstrates the world of Australian comics was populated by creative, inventive souls.

The comic book has evolved beyond the printed newsprint, so it would be negligent of me to ignore the literature of the digital age—the Internet [e.g. blogs], audio [e.g. podcasting] and video [e.g. documentaries]. Nominated for a Castaway Australian Podcast Award in 2017, the Radioactive Lounge podcast rose from the 2014 ashes of the NonCanonical Podcast, a regular comic book series focused on Australian pop culture and ran for 208 episodes. As one of Australia’s leading pop culture commentators, Radioactive Lounge was a more polished fortnightly production than its forbearer, with scripted and ad-lib commentary on the comic scene in Australia and its outside influences, particularly the United States [namely Hollywood]. Hosted by Lucas Testro and Larry Boxshall, each episode discusses current news and relevant issues, gaming, comic, and movie reviews, and features the occasional guest presenter and interview. While the focus is primarily on the United States pop culture, it is presented with a distinctly Australian flavour.

Several documentaries chart the evolution of the comic book. Many are American centric pop culture, however, there is one impressive work which focuses on Australian creators with Victoria’s capital as it’s focus. Produced in 2012, Graphic Novels! Melbourne! [Figure 5] was written and directed by Daniel Hayward and Bernard Caleo. Caleo, as mentioned in this chapter, is one of Australia’s leading comic experts. As Australia’s unofficial pop culture centre, Melbourne has attracted diverse comic book contributors, from writers and illustrators to publishers and promoters. Graphic Novels! Melbourne! Investigates the life and work of four indie and commercially successful graphic novelists: Pat Grant [Blue], Nicki Greenberg [The Great Gatsby], Mandy Ord [Sensitive Creatures], and Bruce Mutard [The Sacrifice, and The Silence].

Christine Gordon, the events manager at Readings Bookshop, says, ‘Melbourne is becoming part of one enormous movement of graphic novelists, you see this in other places such as New York and outside London.’ [Hayward and Caleo, 2012].

It is interesting to note that Allen & Unwin are the prime publishers for several of these artists, although they produce the works under their ‘Children’ imprint. These are definitely not works directed at children, however, it appears easier for business to classify the ‘graphic novels’ category as works suited for ‘young adults’ even though Book Scan’s data show these type of works are purchased primarily by adults for their own consumption [The Beat, 2012]. Graphic Novels! Melbourne! also interviewed several international comic book luminaries, including Scott McCloud [Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art] [Figure 6], Shaun Tan [The Arrival] [Figure 12], Dylan Horrocks [Batgirl] and Paul Gravett [1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die], all of whom lend their perspective to the development of comics culture in Melbourne. This documentary is an invaluable resource and has opened up many avenues for me to explore plot progression and marketing opportunities to develop my creative artefact.

As the corroboration shows, publications specifically addressing Australian comics — their rise and fall and tenuous existence — are sparse indeed. During my research, I have been unable to source any notable academic or practical writing that focuses on the future of the Australian comic industry. Many authors have resigned to looking at our comic history, critiquing the meagre offerings from the underground press, or embracing international publishers, hoping an Australian-themed title might make its way onto their bookshelf. The need to develop a new-media model is paramount if the local comic book industry is to survive being categorised as ‘children’s literature’ while struggling with the restrictive circulation of underground or indie publishing.

This is not the case for international comics, with hundreds of titles examining all aspects of this pop culture phenomenon. I have deliberately narrowed my literature search to publications that directly relate to or offer relevant insights towards Australian comic books’ history or ongoing evolution. Scott McCloud’s 1993 masterpiece Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art provides insight into the art of comic making on a level never before seen in this genre – essentially the science of comics presented inside a graphic novel. The author presents a definition, a vocabulary, and a grammar for comics. In his deconstruction, McCloud suggests that the grammar of comics is the reader’s translation of the visual messages into something recognisable from their experience. He explores the grammar used to represent time, emotion, and sensation and how colour can better represent such character traits.

Another outstanding work on the culture of comic books is Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods [2012] edited by Matthew Smith and Randy Duncan which offers a deeper understanding of the artistic and cultural significance of comic books and graphic novels by introducing key theories and critical methods for analysing comics. Each chapter explains and then demonstrates a vital process or approach students can apply to interrogate and critique the meanings and forms of comic books, graphic novels, and other sequential art. The author’s methods and investigative recourse are critical to developing my strategies and possibilities.

The rise of the graphic novel and its impact on traditional publishing [and publishers] is a fascinating case study. The late 1980s was a watershed moment for the comic book movement. Internationally, three significant publications created a pop culture sensation. Pantheon Books Maus: A Survivor’s Tale [Figure 7] [Spiegelman, 1986]; and DC’s Watchmen [Moore and Gibbons, 1987], and Batman, The Dark Knight Returns [Miller, Janson, and Varley, 1986] were hailed by fans and critics alike as the dawn of a new era. All three publications are, in my opinion, simply brilliant.

I suppose I was just thinking, ‘That’d be a good way to start a comic book: have a famous super-hero found dead.’ As the mystery unraveled, we would be led deeper and deeper into the real heart of this super-hero’s world, and show a reality that was very different to the general public image of the super-hero.

Alan Moore on the basis for Watchmen

What lessons can be understood and applied to Australian publications? One quickly refuted myth was that readers required graphic novels to come with words and pictures represented similarly to a standard comic book. The artistic representation in Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is dynamically opposite the stylised offerings and varied colour pallets applied by DC’s Alan Moore and Frank Miller in their respective publications. In 1992, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize, and all three publications were listed in Time magazine’s top 10 graphic novels of all time [Time, 2009]. To this day, all these graphic novels resonate with fans and critics. Maus seemingly opened the way for an audience to accept a fantastic Australian work by artist and author Shaun Tan more readily.

Winner of a 2006 Western Australian Premier’s Book Award, winner of a 2007 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, and nominated for a 2008 Hugo Award, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is a wordless graphic novel published by Hodder Children’s Books in 2006. Far from an actual ‘children’s book’, the story follows an immigrant’s life in an imaginary world that sometimes vaguely resembles ours. Tan’s illustrations are reminiscent of aged photos and often feature realistic-looking humans in abstract and bizarre environments resembling a combination of futuristic and old-fashioned aesthetics [Luen-Yang, 2007].

Throughout my research, I have found that while the published word count discussing Australian comics may be limited, it does not discount the value of what is being said. While the theme of Australian pop culture does not provide for an abundance of publications, the available academic and practical penmanship I have sourced is primarily of a very high standard. And, as my dissertation is essentially concerned with new media, I have expanded my exploration for relevant publications to encompass podcasts, documentaries, and the like. The scant documentation relating to the Australian comic book industry has caused me to narrow my focus and expand my senses. In that sense, I have managed to source publications that I feel can be of significant relevance that should further extrapolate or encourage additional research and discussion.

Brad Webb