Wizard Comics

Comic book

741.5994/40

A Lack of Local Skill

By John Ryan Panel by Panel Pg 158

“Because there was no established indigenous comic book industry (in Australia) there were no skilled comic book personnel in the country. In the US … shops produced comics on a production line basis with one man writing the scripts, another laying out the page, another pencilling the comic, another inking it, and another man lettering. …Local publishers had to rely upon individual artists and in doing so established a precedent allowed by most Australian comic publishers -  that the artist was responsible for the entire comic. They had to become one man production units handling all phases of the comic including, in most cases, the cover. Artists were recruited by word of mouth and almost anyone, regardless of their artistic ability or knowledge of the medium, was given a trial”.

'Good' Children's Literature

By Dr Kevin Patrick Comic Adventures SL Magazine Autumn 2015 pg 11

"The provision of ‘good’ children’s literature through free government libraries was seen by many as a bulwark against the corrosive influence of comic books. Yet even as calls for the Commonwealth and state governments to censor comics grew louder, John Metcalfe, Chief Librarian of the Public Library of NSW (now the State Library), defended children’s right to enjoy ‘contemporary literature’. Reading matter such as comics, he told Woman magazine in 1954, simply reflected the times in which they lived".