AJD

Nice book! Certainly a toughie in nice shape. Yes, don't see too many of those in god shape - probably a combination of the cover price and the sheer size of it making it harder to keep nice. That;s a great pickup. What are the contents like?

Hmm, you might be right. I'll dig around for some dates. It wouldn't be a first - Felix the Cat started life as an Australian character. And given the dates of the Waddles Wombat page above, it's tempting to wonder if Carl Barks ever saw it!

I seriously doubt it. There is very little collector interest in the originals and even less popular interest in stories from old Australian comics. There's a tiny Australian comic scene still, but nothing on the scale that would justify printing collected editions, unfortunately.

Great books Frank. Alas, that collection didn't have any of the ones I'm looking for. That's a shame because yours look really nice.

According to Mick Stone's checklist, the culprit is Virgil Reilly. The online bio says he is the creator of the 'Virgil Girls' - I wonder what his GGA looks like?

Some Australian comics were knock-offs of American comics. This one has more than a little of the Fiction House about it: But there was some very Australian work. Bluey and Curley started their life as 'larrikan diggers' before WWII, but they were still going strong when I read them in the daily paper in the late 1960s and 1970s. Apparently they failed in the american market. It isn't too hard to see why: I grew up in the country and knew people who spoke like that. My kids think I'm kidding. Finally, here's another very Australian work. This beautiful Sunday page from 1942 draws on the legends of the native Australians, which seems to be an appropriate place to finish an Australia Day update. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to thow another shrimp on the barbie.

Ok, on to some of the comics inside Ryan's book. He focuses on Australian artists and characters rather than the reprints, so there's lots of things in here I'd never seen before. There was some shoddy work done by Australian artists (see the redrawn Two-Fisted Tales #35 cover earlier in the thread) but there was some great work too. Here's a great page from Silver Starr #1(1949). Most Australian comics were printed with B&W interiors right through the 1960s, althought the Disneys were a notable exception. Geoff Litchfield might just have glanced at Hal Foster's work from time to time, but he went alright... Anyone else see Carl Barks in Waddles Wombat? (For that matter - does anyone see a wombat here??) Yet this was published the same year as Barks' first comic work (Pirate Gold, October 1942) so it seems to be an amazing coincidence of styles.

There's a ton of interesting information and anecdotes in the book. It explains why Australian comics were absolutely bewildering during the war years. There were very tight restrictions on paper supply and the rules were that no new ongoing series could be started. The result was that most comics were published as one-shots, with no numbering (and usually no dates). Sometimes stories were split between issues, but there was no way of knowing when (if) later parts would appear. Also, publishers couldn't always find large supplies of paper on standard rolls, so comics appeared in a range of shapes and sizes. I've posted this one before, but here it is beside a standard Dell book: Here's another odd size and shape book I picked up recently, It measures about 24 x 12 cm (or 9 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches for metrically challenged types). It reprints newspaper strips, including Taliaferro Donald Duck dailies, two panels across the narrow pages:

Happy Australia Day 2013 cobbers. I thought I'd mark the occasion with some scans from a book I recently had the pleasure of finding in a second hand bookshop in a country town. I couldn't pay for it fast enough - I've been looking for a complete copy since I saw the one in the New South Wales State Library that has had all the best pictures cut out. In fact, most of the ones I'm about to post were missing from that copy! Here's the book: It's a big book and doesn't fit my scanner, but I'll work around that. John Ryan probably did more than anyone else to document Australian comics, and this book is obviously a labour of love. It was also his legacy - he died from a heart attack aged 48 not long after it was published. Ryan's collection (or at least a sizeable chunk of it) has ended up in the National Library of Australia. Unfortunately, it's not indexed at all and is just listed as: Description ca. 1940-1960. 9.25 m. (66 boxes) + 2 fol. items. Summary A collection of Australian and overseas comics and cartoons which include Australian reprints of material from overseas ; comic books by Australian artists and writers including Syd Nicholls, Stan Cross, Emile Mercier, John Dixon, Will Donald ; original drawings for cartoons and comic strips. Some series names in the collection are, Batman, Bulldog, Brandon and Horwitz. There are also comic fan magazines and some original cartoon drawings. That's right - 9.25 shelf metres in 66 boxes!! I'll head down there when i get a chance and see what's in those boxes and take some pictures. Here's the back cover of his book, showing Fatty Finn Vol 10 #3. This was an anthology comic that reprinted various Australian strips.

Peter, it is just possible to overthink things.

That Jean Grey piece is fantastic. A slightly different vein for my latest pickup:

Jeez Cheetah, do you have any decent books to post? Just kidding of course. Those are beautiful. (thumbs u

Thank you. It's a gerber 6 - I didn't know that until I just looked it up. I thought almost all of the duck books would be a 3 or 4. According to Gerber this one is tougher than those around it.

One of my goals this year was to get a single digit WDC&S. Tick.

I'll chip in with a view. 199 and 328 yes, definitely. The other two not so much. Lost in the Andes (223) Luck of the North (256), Land of the Totem Poles/Trail of the Unicorn (263, great twofer), Ancient Persia (275), Golden Helmet (408) and The Gilded Man (422) all rate higher in my book. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are as many views as posters! I'd include 238 Voodoo Hoodoo, but I'm hunting that myself, so I'll keep quiet about it. Edit: forgot Shacktown

I'm around ... just busy. Found a little time to scan a couple of recent arrivals that might be of interest - Cool - nice to see you posting again. I'm partial to those OG issues with Barks and Kelly. Unappreciated gems, some of those B^5 (Barks Barney Bear and Benny Burro) stories.

Welcome to the duck thread Marty - I think you are the first original owner of a book of that vintage we've had. Very nice it is too.

A couple of cool splash panels from Doll Man Quarterly #6 I bought this book for the war bonds cover and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the contents.

This post escaped my attention the first time around, which I think makes your point. But that's a very nice book.

A couple of new ECs of slightly different types... love 'em both though.

I think everyone loves the dinosaur stampede! That story is one that I never read as a kid - it was reprinted in Australia but that issue didn't seem to find its way to my small country town. It was a very pleasant surprise when Gladstone re-ran it. Those are beautiful books Mr Bedrock! I'm jealous of the FC238 - that's a book that has been high on my want list for years now, but I can't find the right copy.

Great stuff tb. The analyst in me wants to take your table and correct for inflation, calculate the NPV by discounting by the bond rate etc etc, but I think the picture is still pretty clear.

Those are cool. I especially like the WW2 covers.

Dr Suess and Carl Barks - two of my all time favourites.

One of my collecting foci for 2012 was this run of wonderful war comics. The final one arrived today. Two Fisted Tales and/or Valor next...