[Downunder Dan]

The Adventures of Smoky Dawson was published by Colour Comics, and issue 7 was published in December 1957 (estimated). This story is drawn by Andrea Bresciani, an Italian-born cartoonist who emigrated to Australia in 1950. Bresciani was working as a cartoonist in Italy before emigrating, and continued in that profession in his new home. He is best known for the non-fiction comic strip Frontiers in Science for 10 years, during which time it grew from being published in one Australian newspaper to being syndicated to over 200 newspapers internationally. After this, Bresciani became involved in animated movies, working as an animator, layout artist and art director for Hanna-Barbera and Marvel Productions, working in a number of countries, including Spain, Germany, the Philippines and Australia. In his retirement, he turned his hand to sculpting horses.

Link to the comment: Smoky Dawson v the Bat

[The Australian Panther]

Dan,
Non-Australians and also many current generation Australians probably don't know that Smoky Dawson was a real person and why he would have had his own comic book, As many 'Western' stars did in the US.
Smoky Dawson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoky_Dawson

  Smoky Dawson AM, MBE (19 March 1913 – 13 February 2008), born as Herbert Henry Brown, was an Australian singer-songwriter and musician, who performed western and folk music with a tinge of country, he was a radio and television presenter, entertainer, and icon. He was widely touted as Australia's first singing cowboy complete with acoustic steel string guitar and yodel, in the style of Americans Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.[1]
Dawson had an extraordinarily long and prolific career, releasing his first single in 1941 and his last album in 2005, aged 92. Through his high-rating syndicated radio serials (at their height broadcast on 100 stations), The Adventures of Smoky Dawson, as well as television appearances, comic books and songs he created the persona of a happy-go-lucky singing cowboy.

   

[Downunder Dan]

The reason this story got singled out was that the villain, the Bat, resembles a UK supernatural hero also called the Bat. I shared it off-site as an interesting sort-of cross-over between two different country's comics. I hadn't particularly planned for it going online immediately, so I hadn't thought out supporting info, and wrote up information on Andrea Bresciani this morning to cover off the art - I'm not sure who wrote the story, but Bresciani often worked from other people's scripts. (I have no complaints about the story being published here.)

As anyone reading that Wikipedia article on Smoky Dawson will note, he had a complicated and busy life (particularly a difficult childhood). I'm not sure if his sidekick, Jingles, only existed on the radio and in the comic. (You can hear an episode of Smoky's radio adventures at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BfJodHMETE - at least something of these are still online, unlike the radio adventures of the Phantom Ranger.)