The Morning Crew: Lutsy, Biggzy, Deaksy, Pricey, Galey, Inkie, Chappy, Labby, Abby, Snowy, Fitzi and Fitzy

Radio for breakfast in Australia:

Thane Russal

Thane Russal's British version of Security (1966), a garage-style pop arrangement of the Otis Redding song, seems to have been popular nowhere except in Australia, where it was quite a hit (#7 Sydney #24 Melbourne #4 Brisbane #8 Perth). In fact, a lot of Aussie Boomers might even know it better than the original.

I left it out of my Only in Oz series, though, because it had already been given the full treatment by Glenn A. Baker in Hard To Get Hits, a CD series from the 1990s with a similar premise to Only in Oz. In fact, it was Baker, in his liner notes to Hard To Get Hits Vol. 1, who finally identified Thane Russal as Doug Gibbons.
Thane Russal's Security even inspired a 1976 dip o' the lid by Australian band Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, their first single. This gave me an excuse to write about everything I've ever been able to find out about Russal/Gibbons and his Security, over here at the website.

I can't recall seeing a photo of Russal/Gibbons until I saw this New Musical Express ad from March 1966.

Images: New Musical Express, 4 March 1966, p.5

Boofhead book, 1945

I found this ad for a Boofhead anthology in the Melbourne Argus, Saturday, 18 August 1945. The other bloke just has to look at Boofhead and his hat flies off.

This whole edition of the Argus is online at NLA's Australian Newspapers website. This was a big news week: the Japanese had surrendered a few days earlier, and the main headline is AUSTRALIANS FOR JAPAN: INCLUSION IN FORCES OF OCCUPATION.

(It says something about my preoccupations that I would bypass the end of the War in the Pacific to focus on a tiny ad for Boofhead. Oh, and if you want to go straight to the comics pages they're here and here.)

Australian Newspapers is one of a number of digitalised historical newspaper sites, some of which I've listed at this section of my links page.

For more on the Boofhead phenomenon, see my earlier post about this unique Australian comic strip.

Drift magazine cover, 1967

This is from the cover of Drift, a short-lived Sydney magazine from the late 60s.

Phil Jones And The Unknown Blues had a minor but well-remembered local hit with their arrangement of If I Had A Ticket (1967).

The song's sources go way back to traditional gospel, with a recording at least as long ago as 1927, and jazz-r&b versions by Chris Barber outfits in the early 60s. There's more about the song's history and the band at the website.

Thanks to Terry Stacey for sending this.

Lynne from the Musical Notes blog says that the producers of Drift, who had met at the Uni of NSW, included 'Merv Rabies' (Tony Robinson), Ross Smythe-Kirk and Bill 'Florence Lawrence' Tranchitella [Link] The Musical Notes page on Phil Jones and the Unknown Blues is informed by local knowledge: highly recommended [Link]

Chucklers Weekly (2): comics

About a third of the Chucklers Weekly was given over to full page comic strips, Australian and imported. These comics appear in the two editions I have, each filling one or two pages:

• Captain Justice (Australia, Monty Wedd)
• King Comet and the Space Rangers (Australia, Monty Wedd)
• The Blue Triangle featuring Dan Cooper (Belgium, Albert Weinberg, French-language comic, from Tintin magazine)
• Rivets (USA, George Sixta)
• Beetle Bailey (USA, Mort Walker)
• Wendy and Jinx (UK, wr. Valerie or Michael Hastings, dr. Ray Bailey, from Girl magazine)
• The Jackson Twins (USA, Dick Brooks)
• All About Debbie Reynolds (Australia, Arthur Hudson)

There is also a single strip for younger children:

• Joey Jumper Serial (Australia, Anonymous)

And a single panel cartoon:

• Wilbert (USA, Gill Fox)

Australian illustrator, writer and animation artist Monty Wedd (b.1921) is a prolific creator of historical and educational comic strips. He began drawing the fictional bushranger comic Captain Justice in the late 1940s, before Chucklers Weekly, and he later continued it in the Australian Woman's Day in the 1960s. From the 1970s he produced well-researched comic strip series about real life Australian bushrangers, Ned Kelly and Ben Hall. Monty Wedd's work was also seen in the Australian Children's Newspaper, published by the national broadcaster the ABC (it was the second magazine I ever subscribed to, after Chucklers Weekly). Arthur Hudson who drew All About Debbie Reynolds (below) and Monty Wedd both contributed to the The Australian Children’s Pictorial Social Studies series of educational comics.

Click on an image to enlarge it.

References, further reading: 1. Dan Cooper at CoolFrenchComics.com. 2. Monty Wedd - Australian cartoonist by Greg Ray at Collecting Books and Magazines. 3. Dick Brooks, The Jackson Twins at Lambiek.com. 4. MortWalker.com and the Wikipedia entry on Beatle Bailey. 5. Wendy and Jinx: Valerie and Michael Hastings at Steve Holland's Bear Alley; Ray Bailey at Lambiek.net. 6. George Sixta, Rivets at Lambiek.com and ComicStripFan.com. 7. Gill Fox at Ger Apeldoorn's 50s blog. 8. John Ryan, Panel By Panel (1979).

Chucklers Weekly (1)

Chucklers Weekly was a children's magazine published in Sydney that seems to have flourished in the mid- to late-50s. It was the first magazine I ever subscribed to, when I was 9 or 10 years old. I was a member of the Charlie Chuckles Club, named for the magazine's kookaburra mascot.

My childhood collection being lost forever, I bought these two copies online, from 9 January and 28 August1959.

Click on an image to enlarge it.

Percy Leason in the USA

After I posted one of Percy Leason's Wiregrass cartoons, John Adcock over at the excellent Yesterday's Papers sent me some examples of Leason's illustrations from the time when he'd emigrated to New York.

Leason left Australia in 1937 and his family followed soon after. He stayed in the States until his death in 1959, painting, teaching, railing against modern art, and illustrating for books and magazines. (Garrie Hutchinson, Wiregrass: A Mythical Australian Town, 1986.)

These illustrations are from 1958, for the Golden Stallion series by North Dakotan writer Rutherford G. Montgomery.

Coincidentally, Percy Leason is currently included in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia until 19 October, Misty Moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915 -1950. The theme of the exhibition is the tonalist Australian painter Max Meldrum and his followers. At the ABC Melbourne website you can see a charming Leason portrait of his chidren, from the exhibition.

[Click on an image for larger view.]