Continuing sketches from the black and white life of one of Australia’s best known cartoonists, Vane Lindesay , also illustrator of numerous publications , award winning book designer , bibliophile.
Lindesay’s
definitive
work on Australian comic art ; he has also
contributed numerous articles to the
World Encyclopedia of Cartoons.
In
the immediate period after WWll, one
of the many publications Lindesay was involved with was the
trail-blazing monthly ,
Tomorrow , launched in 1946
by the John Reed
/ Max Harris publishing
group . Produced in the Angry Penguins editorial office , 48 Queen Street , Melbourne , it was a forerunner of Nation, The
Observer and Nation
Review. In his autobiographical
A Life So Far Some Fragments
Recalled , Lindesay said it was fresh, provocative , topical and
anti-establishment. Within its 32 pages of international and local
news , features and cartoons it
attempted to guard the peace , fight censorship and thought control, oppose red- baiters , and
express concern about atomic arms build- up.
At the request
of Max Harris , Vane , a freelance cartoonist , provided
a full-page colour comic strip ,
Bob Superming, satirising Prime Minister Bob " Pig-iron"Menzies .
Recently
discussing Tomorrow
with Vane , he said Superming , like Superman, wore a skin tight costume
with the letter S on his chest. From
memory , Superming was a
baddie , trying to make off with a female, the Labor Party , saved from his clutches
by ALP hero ,
Ben Chifley.
The magazine
closed after only
10 editions , killed off because
of the rationing of expensive newsprint ,
lack of advertising support
, barriers placed against
its distribution by vested interests and what
Max Harris described as wide
community apathy.
The editor,
Jack Bellow , was
a well known Sydney
journalist , formerly
involved with the Packer
Press , who had been prominent in the battle for control of the Labor Daily newspaper in the tumultuous Jack Lang years in NSW . In 1947 ,
he founded with other newspaper men Atlas Publications to cash in on the wartime imposed ban on imported
publications , including comics . One
of the many Australian
comics produced by
the company was
the popular Captain Atom, drawn by Arthur Mather . Atlas Publications
expanded but eventually went bust publishing Family Circle.
Other Tomorrow
staff were John Sinclair, later
the (Melbourne) Herald music critic ; Peter
Ryan ,who became managing director of the Melbourne University Press , and the young
poet, Geoffrey Dutton .
Apart from drawing the
Superming comic strip, Vane was also
designing stage settings for the
amateur radical playhouse named New Theatre which trained and produced many stage , cinema and
radio personalities. NEXT : Vane’s insights into a cavalcade
of colourful characters, magazines , books and
his artwork .
