[Robb_K]

This fortnight's review books contain satirical stories by Australian cartoonist, Emile Mercier, who is most known for his daily one-panel cartoon in Sydney's Sun from 1949 through 1968.  Born to French parents in New Caledonia in 1901, he immigrated to Australia in 1919.  For many years, he was a freelance cartoonist, working on individual cartoons and strips for several newspapers, including The Bulletin,  Truth, Daily Mirror, Melbourne Punch, Smith's Weekly, ABC Weekly, as well as writing and drawing many stories for Frank Johnson's comic book series, especially during WWII and the few years following it.  As you'll see from the featured books, he had a unique, loose, irreverent, comedic style.  Unfortunately, many of these "stories" are single episodes of continuing, long "epic" stories.  But they stand alone enough to provide enjoyment of the comedy, which was the main goal of his work, both admiring and making fun of the various types of typical Australian characters, mostly among the regular folk, or satirizing stereotyped popular heroes, such as "Supa Dupa Man (Superhero),  "Tripalong Hoppitty" and "Three Gun Ferdie" (American Cowboys),  "Secret Agent XXX 13", "Wocko The Beaut" a huge, strong boxer/wrestler type, amateur detective, and "Bowyang Bill" (an ordinary outback rancher, who has more than his share of adventures).

The first story is "Bowyang Bill" in "The Mystery of Wombat Gully", starting in "Exciting Magpie Comics", continuing in "Dauntless Magpie Comics", then we are missing several episodes, but we can continue reading it in "Wizard Magpie Comics".

Exciting Magpie Comics - Bowyang Bill Story


Exciting Magpie Comics can be found here:  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96082

Dauntless Magpie Comics - Bowyang Bill Story


Dauntless Magpie Comics can be found here:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96375

Wizard Magpie Comics - Bowyang Bill Story


Wizard Magpie Comics can be found here:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96536

Unfortunately, we don't have the other episodes of this story here at CB+, although Downunder Dan informed me that he's looking for those issues.  However, thanks to the AusReprints website, I do have the first pages of 2 of the missing episodes of "The Mystery of Wombat Gully", which give us clues about some of what occurred during those story gaps.  The first was printed in Modern Magpie Comics, which implies why Bill's father's friend, "Soup Plate" ends up with them meeting the German soldiers' leader and the Kommandant of their entire expedition, apparently after Bill and his father are recaptured, along with the skeptical, Soup Plate, upon showing the latter, the Germans' underground headquarters.

Modern Magpie Bowyang Bill 1st Page:



Gem Comics 45
This other Bowyang Bill 1st Page is from a very late 1947 reprinted Gem Comics episode, ostensibly near the end of the story:


That preview splash panel leads the reader to guess that the operation's "Chief" is none other than Adolf Hitler, himself, or, at least, a German who is one of his biggest admirer's.

Here is a later book collecting and reprinting all of Mercier's episodes of the "Mudrake The Magician" story, ""Mudrake and The Plotters of Skroomania", all of which were first issued in The Magpie One-shot comics series:
"Mudrake and The Plotters of Skroomania"


Mudrake and The Plotters of Skroomania can be found here:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=29678

It should be noted that during Australia's WWII paper restriction period (1941-46) Comic book publishers were not allowed to print on-going book series.  So, Frank Johnson and some other publishers issued several, or many one-shot, unique, comic book titles.  Johnson's "Magpie (series) tied all the one-shot titles together in a recognisable series, so readers could easily figure out that these different books would contain the already-known characters in the previous month's issue, just using a different main book title.

Dags & Co.
He is a collection of Mercier's "Dags & Co." daily newspaper strips from his Freelance Period, it is undated and doesn't have any credits, so we don't know which newspaper(s) carried the strip:

It seems to me, a distant "precursor" to "The Office".
It can be found here:  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=29677

I hope a poster can fill us in on Mercier's period drawing that strip, and which newspaper published it.

Universal Magpie, Fearless Magpie, Adventure Magpie, and Lucky Magpie Comics (among others) carried the long "Wocko The Beaut" story, "The Case of The Haunted Wheat Silo". Unfortunately, CB+ has only the Adventure and Lucky Magpie Comics, which we can read.  I've included them for review, as each episode stands on its own, especially given the starting narrative histories of the story at the beginnings of each episode, and that we also have the first pages containing those narratives for 2 of the earlier episodes. 

Here are Wocko The Beaut's earlier 2 Episodes' first pages with the narratives of the story's previous happenings:

Here's Page 1 of Universal's episode:




Clearly, the earliest episode we have is that which is in Adventure Magpie Comics, while the Wocko in Prison episode in Universal Magpie Comics, came next, and the 1st Page of the episode in Fearless Magpie Comics should be read following that, and the episode in Lucky Magpie Comics, which concludes the story, should be read last.  The full story is understandable when the 2 intervening episodes' first pages are read before the concluding episode.

Here are the two episodes we DO have:   
Adventure Magpie Comics - Wocko The Beaut


Adventure Magpie Comics can be found here:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=88247

Lucky Magpie Comics - Wocko The Beaut

Lucky Magpie Comics can be found here:  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=89466

I look forward to everyone's comments on Mercier's work and these stories.

[Downunder Dan]

Robb's nicely given you Emile Mercier's background, so as a bonus treat here's the Australian Cartoon Museum's short video covering Emile, with special focus on his single-panel comic gags (it's on YouTube, and is less than 6 minutes long) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCYxzGbJ2Uo

If you're so inclined, there's a collection of Mercier's cartoons on Trove, the single point of entry to a treasure trove of artefacts, curiosities and stories from Australia’s cultural, community and research institutions (which includes items available digitally, but also allows searching of catalogues of items held physically). The Emile Mercier collection of cartoons and drawings, 1949-1968 is at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-187966089

[Robb_K]

Thanks Dan, for adding those links to our thread, giving us more insight into the reverence Australians have for Mercier's work.  I look forward to reading everyone's comments.

[Quirky Quokka]

Thanks for those selections, Robb, and for the interesting background and explanations. I was born just as the Australian comic book boom was ending, so I had never heard of most of the comic books that are on the Australian and New Zealand section of CB+. Thanks to Downunder Dan and others who have managed to find and upload some of these rare comics. I always wondered why Australia didn't seem to have much of a comic book industry, apart from newspaper strips. But since joining this group and also purchasing the book "'Sunbreams' to Sunset: The Rise and Fall of the Australian Comic Book (1924-1965)", I've discovered that there was indeed a flourishing industry here, but I missed it. I grew up when the American comic books were flooding the market, especially those with TV cartoon tie-ins. Will look forward to reading these.

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

Thanks for those selections, Robb, and for the interesting background and explanations. I was born just as the Australian comic book boom was ending, so I had never heard of most of the comic books that are on the Australian and New Zealand section of CB+. Thanks to Downunder Dan and others who have managed to find and upload some of these rare comics. I always wondered why Australia didn't seem to have much of a comic book industry, apart from newspaper strips. But since joining this group and also purchasing the book "'Sunbreams' to Sunset: The Rise and Fall of the Australian Comic Book (1924-1965)", I've discovered that there was indeed a flourishing industry here, but I missed it. I grew up when the American comic books were flooding the market, especially those with TV cartoon tie-ins. Will look forward to reading these.

Cheers

QQ

I'm guessing that you could have found lots of 1940s and 1950s Australian-produced comic books for bargain prices in Antiquariat book stores during most of the 1960s.  But, probably by the early 1970s, or even late '60s, collectors were starting to drive up the prices, until they became rare an mostly sold on auction.  That happened in Canada to "The Canadian Whites" that were produced in Canada by Canadian publishers, hiring Canadian artists, because importation of foreignbooks was prohibited for World War II, and into 1946.  They cost a bloody fortune now!