From Australia's most audacious political comic strip -Fabula-which featured thinly disguised leading politicians comes this illustration , regarded as too hot to run . The strip first appeared in the March 6, l969 edition of the national publication, Broadside, edited by Pete Steedman, published in Melbourne . It told how the always scantily clad Fabula, private secretary to Prime Minister Sir Jim Grey , protected him in a great southern continent, said to be a precarious outpost of civilisation surrounded by enormous numbers of hostile coloureds.
The capital of the country was the headquarters of Operation Panic !, the unique form of government practised by the cultured and sophisticated people. Fabula , plucked from the obscurity of the typing pool, a dynamic patriot, put herself physically and mentally at the disposal of her country, fighting its foes and preserving the cultural way of life.
The above version of Fabula , in typical deshabille, was unearthed during Pete Steedman's recent consolidation of his extensive files . The doctored published version showed Fabula in tights.
While the Fabula strip was being run , the controversy broke about unrest in the Conservatives over the influence Ainsley Gotto , 22, had over Prime Minister John Gorton as his principal private secretary. When Air Minister Dudley Erwin was asked why he had been sacked in 1969, he famously said :" It wiggles, its shapely, its cold blooded and its name is Ainslee Gotto ." Veteran reporter Laurie Oakes said most papers, fearful of defamation, dropped mention of cold blooded . The highly talented Gotto went on to become a successful international businesswoman .
Fast forward to our Charlie Chaplin MODERN TIMES in Australia and a Fabula-like comic strip would surely be a real goer . Is there somebody with a bit of nous and daring out there in the publishing world to take up this idea?
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Fabula in action in the corridors of power.
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