While that can be true on some occasions, on the whole, the bulk of the people I’ve admired, either growing up or even into my now advancing adulthood, have been wonderful. Some have been a pure delight to meet, and some have even become amazingly close friends. I say, do meet your heroes, do reach out to them and say hello. Engage with them and see where it lands. But do beware, because will be some encounters that will be a bit of a surprise for the wrong reasons.

I had one such encounter this past weekend.

I went to the Adelaide Supanova for a number of reasons. Kevin Eastman, he of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fame was going to be there. I was sold just on him, and he was one of the highlights, even if he did say I looked somewhat like Larry David. A great guy, amazing to talk to and very, very down to earth indeed. Others there included Billy Boyd, Sean Astin and a number of actors from the Middle Earth series and Aliens. Sadly, due to time, I didn’t meet any of the Colonial Marines, but I did get the LOTR actors and they, to a person, were incredibly humble and seemed happy to speak to everyone. I share a story about when I met John Astin (also in Adelaide) with his son, Sean, who seemed genuinely touched by the memory. That he referenced it the following day at his Q&A only reinforced it.

But, as you’d expect, there was one. I won’t name the person, but they are, or more to the point, once were very famous. They starred in one of my all-time favorite films and I was thrilled to have the chance to see, hear, speak to and get an autograph.

Well, one out of four isn’t bad.

The actor turned up to their Q&A, late. Some of the answers to questions seemed very rehearsed, no problem there, but some of them were simply factually incorrect. Oh well, I thought, you don’t expect an actor to be involved in every single aspect of a film, so perhaps they were told a certain thing that wasn’t quite right. After just over thirty minutes, the session was wrapped up and off they went. No signing at that point. That was to happen the next day.

I got there early on Saturday and lined up with my DVD cover ready. The actor came in (late again), sat down and looked very, very disengaged from everything. Once the signing session started, his management began informing people that there was a additional cost of having a DVD or video cover signed, even though that cost wasn’t listed anywhere. It was pointed out that this notice had been added to the web-site the night before - I, and everyone else, had bought the signature tokens well before that. It would transpire that, in addition to the signing fee, additional fees were to be paid for personalization, extra words (that one I happily paid as I wanted the famous expression from the film on the cover), and items such as album covers, props, posters, books and the like all had additional fees attached. I argued the point and managed to get my cover signed.

And that was it. I said hello, nothing. I mentioned that it was one of my all time favorite films. Nothing. I thanked the actor as the cover was pushed back at me. Nothing. It was robotic, even more so than Stan Lee was towards the end. It was brutal. It happened to everyone, no matter what they had.

Now I’m not sure what was going on. When the actor wasn’t signing they just sat there, looking into space, totally removed from what was going on. No talking, no playing with the phone – nothing. And before you say, well, age does that, this is a guy who is not yet 70. There were people there, older than he, who were very engaged in the process and the fans.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that the actor left early the next day. It was sad, seeing them sitting there, bored to tears, looking like a reanimated corpse propped up and nobody wanting to come near them. Hell, I’d have left early too. I’d have not bothered to come for all three days.

I met one of my heroes and it was a bit of a letdown. I didn’t want a dance session, or a full blown Shakespeare performance, but I’d have appreciated a simple hello in response to mine. That’s the least they could do when taking the better part of $200 from me. But, hey, I’ll still watch the movie with joy, but then a large part of the appeal of the movie for me was, and always will be, the soundtrack. And this is not a whine, I got my DVD cover signed. In that regard, I’m happy.

And it won’t stop me from telling my heroes that I love their work. Even if they don’t want to hear it.

If you get the chance to meet them, the Lord of the Rings actors are simply brilliant. Every single one of them. And they always have been – I’ve yet to meet anyone connected to that series that hasn’t been anything but utterly delightful. Long may they reign.

How to spot a scam.

1] The email address it came from is all wrong.

2] I’ve never written, let alone published, any memoirs because, frankly, I don’t think I’m that interesting a person.

3] I’ve never written a book called The Chicken Shop Incident. That was written and published by a different Daniel Best (yes, there are a few of us out there. We should have our own private chat room) who lives in London.

4] Almost the same wording as the scam email that almost got me earlier this year.

Writers. If you get an email like this, just delete it. It’s a very intricate and involved scam, designed to part you with thousands of dollars. And it’s going all over the world. There’s now entire web-sites devoted to this particular scam and its variant.

Caveat emptor

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

It may sound like a joke now, over 100 years later, but in 1923, there was a strong possibility that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were about to relocate their cinematic empire and set up shop in, of all places, Adelaide, South Australia. Such a move, if successful, would have seen Adelaide become the New Hollywood.

When word broke at the end of July, 1923, that the dashing Fairbanks, easily the most popular and best-known male film star in the world behind Charlie Chaplin, and his wife Mary Pickford, would be coming to Adelaide to film Fairbanks’s next movie, The Black Pirate, in and around the Adelaide Hills the city went crazy. Fairbanks, and by association, Hollywood, was coming to Adelaide. How could this happen?

When it came to planning movies, Fairbanks was meticulous, often spending more time in pre-production than actual filming. Every stunt was rehearsed to perfection, every set and location was perfect, and The Black Pirate was going to be no different. In order to find the right location to film The Black Pirate, Fairbanks had sent a location scout, Sam Blair, on a worldwide trip in 1923 to find terrain that was suitable for filming a pirate movie. The criteria was simple, a place that was close to both water and wild bush.

Adelaide, in the early 1920s, as now, certainly fit the bill with oceans and foothills both remarkably close to the city center with even wilder bush only a few hours’ drive out of town. Blair had already scoped out New Zealand as a possible location, but, once he saw what Adelaide had to offer, he duly wired Fairbanks and announced the news.

Fairbanks had been planning The Black Pirate since 1922, and his plan would see him ready to roll cameras in early 1924. As Blair explained it, the production would see Fairbanks, along with his cast and crew, to come and live in Adelaide while they filmed. As a bonus for film fans, although not in the film, America’s Sweetheart herself, Mary Pickford would also be making the trip and presumably travelling around the country taking in the sights. Social sets began to buzz at the thought of having Hollywood royalty in their midst for an extended period of time.^[1]

After a week in Adelaide, Blair had witnessed enough to announce that not only would The Black Pirate be made in Adelaide, but Fairbanks and Pickford would also be establishing a studio there with the view of making future films, thus making Adelaide as important to the film world as Hollywood.^[2] Pickfair was going to be an Adelaide concern. This was earth shattering news and both the Federal and State Governments of the time pledged full support and funding to make it happen.

The visit reached its zenith when ads appeared in the newspapers. The first, on Monday 6 August, called for, ‘A swanky young man to impersonate Douglas Fairbanks’.

The next day the bomb dropped. The following ad appeared in the newspapers.

It was huge. 3,000 attractive young Adelaide ladies would be used in the film. The girls of Adelaide didn’t have much time to primp themselves up. They had to get ready, get their best frocks and get into West’s Olympia on Hindley Street three days later. The Daily Herald compared the call for 3,000 women to the 30,000 workers required to assist then South Australian Premier, John Gunn, defeat what it called the Black Knight of South Australia (as epitomised by Lord George Curzon) – that being those who were attempting to stall Gunn’s efforts at reforms to improve the lives of South Australians through getter roads, more housing and better conditions for workers overall.^[3]

Gunn and his reforms aside, the question was, would 3,000 women and girls turn up?

They turned up. They turned up on foot, by train, tram, motorcars and on horseback. Some had their mothers with them, most didn’t. They came from the suburbs and country alike. They all came wanting one thing – to get a chance to be in the film with Douglas Fairbanks.

On the 11^th of August, Blair oversaw auditions for extras. Thousands of star-struck women, with ages ranging from 10 to 40, all hoping for their big chance to star in a Hollywood movie alongside the glamorous Fairbanks, turned out at West’s Olympia on Hindley Street.

The resulting cattle call stopped traffic and the news itself pushed the then visiting Sir Harry Lauder to the barest of mentions in newspapers. Blair commented that the Adelaide women were equally as pretty as in any city in the world and added an incentive of wanting to film a test reel to show Fairbanks. Once the casting call was finished and names taken down, Blair moved on to Melbourne. Adelaide, flushed over its good fortune, sat back and waited for the impending arrival of Doug and Mary and, in order to get ready, made sure that Doug’s latest film, Robin Hood, was sold out at every screening.

Those who would be lucky enough to be picked for a screen test would be required to return on the following Sunday, which was an issue as trains and trams didn’t run. The country girls were at a loss. Those from Glenelg simply stated they’d stay in Adelaide until Sunday and those from nearby Glen Osmond said they’d just walk back to West’s.

On Saturday, two more representatives from the Fairbanks studio arrived with a movie camera to film the screen tests. Cameraman F.A. Jeffrey filmed the girls outdoors at the Adelaide Railway Station. Upon their arrival, by train, the men had to walk under an arch of flowers built by West’s. The bulk of the girls waiting had flowers and cheered the men as they made their way to the back of the train station.^[4]

Things started to look a bit grim right from the start. Two days later Blair spoke to the media. Instead of wanting 3,000 girls for the film, Blair reduced the number to a mere 50, none of which would be going any further than the Adelaide Hills and certainly not to the rumoured South Seas locations.^[5]

The wait was in vain. January 1924 came and went with no sign of the famous couple. February, March, the same result, not even a whisper. Everyone’s hopes were finally dashed, in April, as the former head of John Martins, Mr H Tingey, wrote to the Sunday Journal about his encounters in Hollywood. He had been star spotting when Fairbanks and Pickford appeared in front of him fare-welling a mutual friend.

Tingey saw his opportunity. He rushed the couple, handed Pickford a stuffed koala and asked Fairbanks when he was intending to visit Adelaide and begin filming The Black Pirate. Taken aback by the question, Fairbanks more than likely had no idea what Tingey was talking about. But Fairbanks was nothing if not polite, cheerful and amiable. He wasn’t the kind to merely ignore Tingey’s question. He thought for a minute, took a breath and spoke.

“Nothing definite has been decided,” he diplomatically told Tingey. “Plus, we’re too busy to visit Australia right now.” Blair had told the couple all about Australia, and New Zealand, Fairbanks continued, and both he and Pickford were very keen to visit, but, until such a time as they could afford the time to take the trip, which would see them at sea for over twelve weeks in total, it would have to wait. And with that answer Fairbanks neatly closed the door on any filming in Australia.^[6]

^{Short answer: no.}

It wouldn’t take Adelaide long to see a real Hollywood movie star though, as Louise Lovely would return to Australia from America in 1924 and would bring her A Day At The Studio stage show to the city on 25 October 1924, also at West’s Olympia.

The question as to why Fairbanks didn’t film in South Australia, if indeed it was such a perfect location for him, or anywhere else in Australia for that matter, isn’t that difficult to answer. Fairbanks had decided to go all in on The Black Pirate. It was to be filmed in full colour and no expense was spared. Australia, for all of its perfect locations and keen extras, just didn’t have the infrastructure required to support such an elaborate and complex film. Special cameras and film stock would have to be sourced and used, the coordination of shipping all that would be required halfway around the world, and the contingency plans for any failure or disaster, would have been cost prohibitive. The sad fact was that once the numbers were crunched, shooting anywhere outside of America was just not even considered.

After six months of pre-production, location scouting, colour film tests and casting, the movie was made off the coast at Catalina Island, in California, using a restored clipper ship dating back to 1877. Shooting was finished by Christmas Eve, 1925. None of it was filmed in Adelaide, or anywhere in Australia, or New Zealand for that matter. The Black Pirate was released in 1926. Fairbank’s first colour film, it is now universally hailed as one of the best movies that Fairbanks ever made.

Fairbanks never visited Australia, and he passed away in 1939. The original West’s Olympia was knocked down, also in 1939, and a new cinema built on the same location. Today it is the home of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Mary Pickford outlasted Douglas Fairbanks by forty years, passing away in 1979. She never visited Australia, let alone Adelaide, either.

In 1977 Douglas Fairbanks Jr. visited Adelaide, touring as the lead in his play, The Pleasure of His Company. It was as close as anyone in Adelaide got to seeing Doug Sr. Despite being interviewed by several media outlets, nobody thought to ask Doug Jr. about how close, or indeed, how far, his father was from making a movie in Adelaide over fifty years earlier.

^{The News, 11 August 1923}

^[1] The Mail, 28 July 1923 and The Register News Pictorial 30 July 1923 are just two examples of the coverage afforded to the Fairbanks production.

^[2] The Mail, 4 August 1923

^[3] Daily Herald, 8 August 1923

^[4] News, 13 August 1923

^[5] Ibid

^[6] The Saturday Journal 5 April 1924

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Moving pictures first came to South Australia in 1896, when theatre manager of the Theatre Royal^[i] in Adelaide, and sometime actor, Wybert Reeve^[ii], allowed cinematographe representative Frank St. Hill, who had been part of the earliest screenings in Sydney and Melbourne, and his assistant Frank Moody to screen moving pictures before a matinee audience on Monday, 19 October 1896.

The screenings would be utilizing an Edison Vitascope, which, although impressive for an 1896 audience, were crude next to relative new cinematographe’s designed and built by the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis.

The doors opened at 2pm, and the screening was scheduled to start promptly at 3pm. Those attending were promised ‘a revelation in science’ and ‘living photographic pictures, life-size reproduction of figures and objects in action’.^[iii] The cinematograph in question was said to be a combination of a kinetoscope and a light capable of producing 3,000 candlepower, which would then throw the images onto a screen.

The plan was to have the first screening at the Theatre Royal, after which time the entire apparatus and film would be shifted just up the road to the nearby Beehive Building^[iv] where, once installed, would offer multiple screenings for the next few days. This idea didn’t go exactly as planned though.

At 3pm, the presentation began, but, due to a misunderstanding, the curtains over the windows weren’t drawn enough, so light streamed into the Theatre Royal diluting the effect. Reviews stated how it was a vast improvement over the much smaller images of the then popular kinetoscope.

Although most of the early films screened in the state, and indeed the country overall, are lost to time, contemporary advertisements and reviews tell us that the films included Buffalo Bill, who demonstrated a repeating rifle by shooting at off-screen Indians, a Spanish dancer named Carmencito, a ‘nigger’ minstrel who’s antics were ‘very good’ and s skit featuring Pocahontas and Captain Smith, which was marred by a delay in the screening and the natural light. Also on the bill were a ‘wide-eyed kaffir’ named Chirgwin, a female acrobat and contortionist, a prize fight in which two fighters beat each other for two rounds, actor Frank Lawton^[v] and a skirt dancer whose gyrations was ‘the most successful of the pictures’.^[vi]

The evening screening, at the Beehive, in darker conditions, produced a better spectacle. Unlike screenings in Melbourne and Sydney, the Beehive screenings, nine per weekday, eleven on a Saturday,^[vii] were stand-alone displays. In the other cities, screenings were part of an overall vaudeville show.

The first run at the Beehive ended in the second week of November. At the cost of one shilling for adults and half shilling for children under twelve, the season was a success with packed houses reported for all sessions. St. Hill and Moody duly left the equipment behind with Reeve and took off for other opportunities.

^{Wybert Reeve. Image courtesy the John Riley/Fred Hailes Scrapbook (Theatre Heritage Australia)}

Reeve had seen the amount of profit that came in with the cinematographe, and the reasonably low expenses incurred. There were no wages to be paid to actors, nor were there any problems with temperamental performers and divas. He promptly engaged the magician Carl Hertz, who had brought the first cinematograph to Australia and held the first screenings in Melbourne, for a run to begin on Boxing Day 1896. It was here that the true birth of cinema in Adelaide began.

The owner of the Lumière cinematographe, Mauris Sestier, arrived by train from Sydney where he had been running a highly successful salon called Salon Lumière, on 23 December 1896 and, after setting his cinematographe up, opened his rehearsal to the press on Christmas Eve 1896. The Evening Journal reported the results.

The effects are so realistic that one can hardly believe that the figures thrown upon the screen, life size, are not human beings, whose movements are viewed through a window, for every flash of the eye, varying expression of feature, characteristic action, and attitude is as frankly presented as though the living subject were before the spectator. They are truly though somewhat crudely described as “living pictures of life scenes and people.” One sees all the incidents of the most exciting episode on a racecourse, the arrival of a train, rushing, as it were, right Upon the audience, and, above all, a bathing scene, in which the waves come sweeping upon the beach so freely that one can fancy that one bears the swish of the water. There is a train which arrives at Flemington, and 300 people are absolutely seen coming out from the train, and familiar faces can be readily recognised in the throng. Nothing so close akin to nature has ever been exhibited in Adelaide.^[viii]

The ‘episode on a racecourse’ was none other than the 1896 Melbourne Cup, one of the first films ever made in Australia. Long thought to have been filmed by Australian photographer Walter Barnett under the direct supervision of Sestier, the true origins of the film have been questioned since. Barnett and Sestier did film at Flemington in 1896. They filmed selected scenes at the VCR Derby, including the Derby itself, which was won by the same winner as the Melbourne Cup, Newhaven.

The pair arrived back at Flemington for the Melbourne Cup and set their apparatus up and duly shot the Melbourne Cup, and it was this film, along with eighty others that Sestier brought into Adelaide.

The shows themselves were so popular that Carl Hertz was barely mentioned, despite being a world renowned magician and the person who was now recognized as being the first to screen moving pictures in Australia.

What singled Reeve and Sestier out from other exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney was a decision to take the cinematographe out of the Theatre Royal and on tour to the suburbs and country areas once the season ended on 29 January 1897. The reasons for the tour were simple. It wasn’t that easy to visit the Adelaide CBD for those in the country, and it certainly wasn’t cost effective for those from the country to visit and stay overnight. Those in the suburbs fared slightly better, with a network of horse drawn trams operating, albeit slowly, which enabled people to visit the city from inner suburbs such as Kensington, Hindmarsh, Walkerville, Burnside, Prospect, Enfield, Nailsworth, Maylands and North Adelaide and their immediate surrounds.

If people couldn’t get to the cinematographe, Reeve would bring the cinematographe to the people.

The first stop was Port Adelaide Town Hall on Saturday 30 January 1897. From there the following towns experienced the cinematographe:

Gawler Institute: 1 & 2 February

Institute Hall, Kapunda: 3 & 4 February

Kadina Town Hall: 5 February

Institute Hall, Moonta: 6, 7 & 8 February

Kadina Town Hall: 10 February

Institute Hall, Port Pirie: 11, 12 & 13 February

Petersburg Town Hall: 15 February

Broken Hill Town Hall: 16 to 22 February

Burra Institute: 26 February

Glenelg Town Hall: 27 February

Mt Barker Institute: 1 & 2 March

Institute, Strathalbyn: 3 & 4 March

Once the tour was finished, the apparatus was set up at the Victoria Hall, Gawler Place, and the films were exhibited there until May 1897.

Sestier sold his cinematographe to Wybert Reeve at the beginning of May and took delivery of fifty new films from the Lumière factory in Lyons, France. Having seen how popular, and lucrative, the country tour had been, Reeve decided to go back out on tour, only this time he would stay out from the start of May until the start of November. Also on the tour for selected dates was Carl Hertz.

The tour started at the Semaphore Town Hall on 6 May and by the time it finished back in Adelaide on 4 November, Reeve visited fifty-one towns, including Remark, Lucindale, Hamley Bridge, Millicent, Nairne, Clare, Gumeracha, Angaston and Tanunda, as well as return trips to the same towns he’d visited on the first tour. He also played town halls in Norwood, Glenelg, North Adelaide, Unlet, St. Peters, Hindmarsh, Mount Barker and Burnside. Upon his return to Adelaide, Reeve took off for New Zealand and undertook a tour there. Contemporary accounts noted that the exhibition of the cinematographe was greeted with indifference.

What happened to Reeves original Lumière Cinematographe? That’s a mystery for the ages. What follows is what is known.

Returning to Australia in January 1898, Reeve advertised the cinematographe that he’d bought from Sestier for sale, along with sixty-eight films. In Reeve’s absence, rival promoter Harry Rickards had brought the Edison Biograph to Adelaide for a short at the Theatre Royal. The Biograph was already considered to be superior to the Lumiere Cineatographe but isn’t known who bought the equipment and films from Reeve, but a clue exists in a unique screening conducted in February 1898.

On Monday, 14 February 1898, the first open air exhibition of moving pictures came when the cinematographe was demonstrated at Glenelg, next to the Town Hall, by the foreshore. The screen was set on the north side of the Town Hall, facing the ocean. Twenty-four scenes were shown to remarkable success. The Express reported that a great crowd of people witnessed the views, and encores and applause rang out. People packed the beach itself to watch the films.

This was the first recorded open-air demonstration of the cinematographe in South Australia.

The event was so successful that a return season of three days were booked, this time the pictures were accompanied by the Holdfast Bay Band, the Salvation Army Band and Setaro’s Band, who played between set-ups.

^{Reeve sells the original Lumière Cinematographe, 25 January 1898 The Argus}

A cinematographe was then advertised for sale in early March 1898. This may have been the original Lumière Cinematographe that Reeves had bought (and presumably sold), which was used for the Glenelg screenings. Although the Glenelg shows were deemed successful, they clearly were not profitable – people didn’t have to pay to see the films, they could merely stand on the beach and watch for free. Thus, the equipment was advertised as being ‘For Sale, cheap.’ Another problem was the Biograph was already replacing the cinematographe.

English born balladeer Beaumont Read^[ix] appears to have bought Reeve’s equipment as he then set it all back up at the Victoria Rooms at the Y.M.C.A. in Gawler Place, with a season beginning on Saturday 9 April. The season promised new films and ran until 15 April. There was no doubt that this was Reeve’s original Lumière Cinematographe as Reeve’s name was used in advertisements to promote the Cinematographe itself, along with a short write in Quiz which laid any doubt to rest, stating that the equipment was, indeed, Reeve’s original Lumière Cinematographe.

Reeve left Adelaide for England in November 1900. In the process of leaving, he sold his house and all his possessions. Nowhere in the listing of major items he was selling was a cinematographe.

His leaving sparked a benefit and farewell show at the Theatre Royal on 3 October 1900. In attendance was a who’s who of the Adelaide social and theatre scene, headed up by the Governor General and his wife, Lord and Lady Tennyson. Reeve himself took part in the show which included noted pianist Oscar Taueber and future Hollywood actor, O.P. Heggie.

Beaumont Read, accompanied by fellow singer Ethel Lohrmann, toured Reeve’s cinematographe until February 1901. In March 1903, the Wybert Reeve’s Cinematographe Company, along with a modern Bioscope which had replaced the original Lumière Cinematographe, films and all accessories was advertised for sale. It is unknown if the original Lumière Cinematographe was included in the sale.

^{The sale of Reeve’s Biograph, 14 March 1902 (The Express and Telegraph)}

And it is here that the trail goes cold for original Lumière Cinematographe that broke so much new ground in South Australia. In the space of a year, from 1897 to 1898, the cinematographe was the both the newest technological sensation and then outdated by the Edison Biograph which Reeve himself adopted for his travelling shows. Such was the speed that the technology was moving.

Whoever bought the Wybert Reeve Company kept his name. The last mention of the Wybert Reeve Biograph Company comes with a three-line notice in The Register. It was said that the company had played to medium houses at the Yorktown town hall on 4 October 1906.

The fate of Reeve’s original Lumière Cinematographe machine and its films remain a mystery. By 1903 it would have been considered out of date, bulky and relatively useless. It wasn’t old enough to be considered an antique, and its historical significance seems to have been ignored.

Sadly, the reality is that Reeve’s original Lumière Cinematographe machine was probably destroyed before the end of the first decade of the twentieth century.

^[i] Built in 1868, the Theatre Royal was located on Hindley Street, Adelaide. In its day it was the jewel in the crown for Adelaide’s arts, hosting theatre, vaudeville and musical performances alike. During its life, its boards hosted the likes of Dame Nellie Melba, Sarah Bernhardt, Mark Twain, Lord Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, Peter Cushing, Roy ‘Mo’ Rene, Sir Robert Helpmann and Louise Lovely.

The Theatre Royal was allowed to fall into disrepair by its new owners, Miller Anderson & Co, and was demolished in 1962 and a car park was built on the site.

^[ii] Wybert Reeve (1831-1906). Born in London, Reeve came to Australia in 1878. He became the manager of the Theatre Royal, Adelaide, in 1887 and remained in the role until 1900 when illness forced him into retirement., He then returned to England.

^[iii] The Express (Adelaide) 15 October 1896

^[iv] Built in 1895, The Beehive Building, or Beehive Corner as it’s known, gets its name from a tenant, a drapery named The Beehive, which stood on the site before the new building was built. A small, gilded bee on a beehive sits at the top of the building, and it is now used for various business. As with all of Adelaide’s cinemograph historical sites, there is no marker at the Beehive to signify its importance in Australia’s cinema history. The building still stands and looks the same now as it did in 1895.

^[v] Often described as being a complete humorously choleric old gentleman, and who had just left Adelaide that August with the production of A Visit to Chinatown.

^[vi] The Evening Journal (Adelaide) 20 October 1896

^[vii] Sunday screenings were not allowed, as Sunday was for church. It would take until the 1950s for Sunday screenings to be a regular occurrence in Adelaide.

^[viii] Evening Journal (Adelaide) 26 December 1896

^[ix] Beaumont Read (1833-1910) was born in Dorset, England. After touring the world as a singer he visited Australia in 1874 to instant success as a strong alto singer. After a two year stint in America, Read returned to Australia and remained. He settled in Adelaide in 1890 after the death of his wife and remained active as a singer until 1903. He passed away after collapsing during a heatwave in January 1910.

Poster: Australian National Archives (AP476/4, B477)

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Banning Comic Books in Queensland

(A very quick look at where it all began. An abridged version of this article first appeared in Inkspot #109, Autumn-Winter 2026)

The recent censorship of the artist known as Nordacious in Queensland should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied that state’s long history of banning and censoring Australian produced comic books and artworks. The best known of these banning’s happened seventy two years ago and ran well into the late 1980s.

For years it has been thought that the Board was born from a number of actions, primarily the crimes and prosecution of Len Lawson (The Lone Avenger), but that assumption is erroneous. Although The Lone Avenger was banned, that ban was lifted shortly after, unlike other bans placed on Australian made comic books.

The Board was born out of legislation in five states, which expanded censorship of publications. Although a Chief Censor was appointed at a Federal level, it didn’t look closely at locally manufactured literature. It restricted it’s banning of comics and magazines to overseas items, primarily American produced items. In most cases, the banning was just to restrict importation of those items.

Western Australia, Tasmania and South Australia were actively engaged in banning overseas comics, in addition to the ones already banned at a federal level, as early as 1952. The Catholic Weekly was also leading a campaign against what they saw as harmful comic books, while gearing up to launch their own, wholesome, comic book, Topix, which, without a hint of irony, consisted of mainly imported, American, fare.

These actions were firmly against imported, American comic books. Queensland would take banning one step further. Queensland, always a highly conservative state, moves were afoot to establish an official board that would look at literature, in particular comic books, as early as 1953.

On 8 October 1953, Sir Gordon William Chalk stood up in the Queensland Legislative Assembly and gave a withering assessment of what he termed abusive, indecent and suggestive horror literature. As the speech went on, Chalk then moved from horror to romance comics, naming, Daring Love, Teenage Romance told in an Intimate Fashion and True Love Secrets and Lovely Lady, Pity me April to December, the latter he labelled as ‘very disgusting, suggestive, and very wrongly illustrated book’.

Chalk then named a series of religious groups, all of whom he claimed were against such literature. He also detailed a pamphlet that he, along with others, had produced that names eighty books and a list of comic books that he believed were suitable for children. When asked if he was suggesting that Queensland could prohibit material produced in another state, he suggested that each state could bring in uniform legislation to probit the sale and publication of material found offensive.

This was the birth of the Queensland Literature Board of Review. From there it gathered momentum. In Early December, the Queensland State Labour Caucus approved legislation to ban the distribution and sale of comic books that dealt with sex, horror, crime and violence. This legislation advocated the establishment of a board, made up of five people, who would adjudicate material and issue bans as they saw fit.

A Bill was introduced into Queensland Parliament on 30 March 1954 to establish the Literature Board of Review. Fines of up to £100 per offence for distributing objectional material was proposed and accepted.

The Bill wasn’t automatically accepted by the wider community. The Courier Mail pointed out that, in twenty-three years, a mere five prosecutions had been launched in Queensland over obscene material. Most decried the bill as being ill thought out, but it was duly passed.

In April 1954, the Board was set and ready to go. Its general purpose was to act as a gatekeeper, ensuring that literature distributed within the state met legal and moral standards set by law. This would be done in three main ways. It would review literature to determine what was objectionable according to statutory definitions. Objectional material would include works that unduly emphasized sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence, or were otherwise considered likely to corrupt or deprave readers. The Board’s aim was to safeguard the public, especially vulnerable groups, from literature deemed harmful to morality or likely to encourage depravity, public disorder, or criminal behaviour.

Finally, the board would act as a specialist tribunal to apply and enforce new censorship legislation, relieving courts of the primary responsibility for acting as moral guardians. The five people who made up the board were the Queensland Solicitor General, William George Hamilton, QC, along with Mrs. Una Mulholland. Housewife and mother of four, Robert Steel Byrnes, author, poet, and prominent church administrator as well as serving as the then President of the Queensland Authors and Artists Association, John P. Kelly, solicitor and Brian Clouston, bookstore manager and youngest on the board at the age of twenty-nine. Police officers would be called upon to enforce any decision made by the board.

The Board was already set up and representatives elected to it when Len Lawson first committed his heinous crimes in May 1954. Lawson’s actions had nothing to do with the establishment of the Board.

The first act by the Board was to obtain and read as many comic books as possible. To facilitate this, Gordon and Gotch agreed to send each Board member a copy of every publication that the firm was bringing into Queensland for distribution. The bans then began.

Right from the start, the Board made it clear that it wasn’t interested in American produced material – that could be handled by the Federal Censor. Instead, it went after Australian published fare. Then comics were banned on 21 July 1954. These were comics that reprinted American material, but often with Australian produced covers and using artists to touch up panels and lettering.

On 25 August another eleven books were banned. This set included The Lone Avenger, along with titles from publishers such as Calvert, Atlas Publications, Invincible Press, Barmor and Larry Cleland. The year ended with another eleven Australian published comic books banned on 20 December 1954 and a further title banned on Christmas Day. These titles included comics that contained Australian made material, mainly from Transport Publishing and H. John Edwards.

Eight more titles were banned in 1955 and twelve in 1956. Queensland stopped banning comic books in 1957, only to restart the process, again targeting Australian publishers, in 1978. It was eventually wound up in 1989.

Although the board was established to ban horror, crime, violence and war, it focused on romance titles in the early periods of its life. Out of the fifty-two titles banned from 1954 to 1956, thirty-four were romance titles, ten were crime, seven war and one western (The Lone Avenger).

Once a title was banned, it remained banned until such a time as the publisher could prove that steps had been taken to remediate the issues the Board had identified. The problem with this was simple: the Board never told anyone why a title was banned, other than to use broad strokes, thus a publisher never knew what the real issue was. Appeals were generally dismissed, although Transport Publishing, Action Comics and Invincible Press all launched legal action against the bans, only to fail on appeal.^[a] Incredibly, the only title that was unbanned, without any legal action, was The Lone Avenger.

For some publishers, such as H. John Edwards, the loss of the Queensland market, added to the adverse publicity that it brought across the state was too much. At one stage he was fighting legal battles against the State of Queensland over the banned books, and against Walt Disney over Edwards title Super Duck, which Disney felt infringed upon the copyright of Donald Duck. Edwards would win the duck part of the trial, but another character in the comic, The Donkey, would be found to have infringed upon the Disney character Basil. Edwards would be in court four times against Disney, and, by his admission, lost a fortune.

In 1955, the High Court clarified the legal definition of what was objectional in regards to literature. The court case centered on the new legislation that expanded the definition of ‘obscene’ and introduced ‘objectionable’ as a statutory term, with ambiguous and circular definitions. It found that the law required consideration of the likely audience and the tendency of the material to deprave or corrupt, but left much to judicial interpretation.

The High Court findings didn’t make any difference. Once a title was banned, Gordon and Gotch simply ceased distributing it in the state of Queensland, and also began to cease distribution across the rest of the country. The Queensland Literature Board of Review did as much as anyone to effectively end the Australian comic book market. The relaxing of restrictions against American product hammered the final nail into the coffin.

It didn’t end there though. The rise of comic books in the 1970s saw the Board revive their fight against the genre. After spending the 1960s and most of the 1970s banning pornographic magazines, in 1978 it would ban thirty-two comic book related, mostly from Gredown Pty, Ltd. Caught up in the bans was none other than Gerald Carr, who was producing one of the few Australian made horror comics. Vampire was banned in 1979, causing Carr angst as a marketplace was closed out on him.

New Age Graphics Phantastique holds the dubious distinction of being the last comic book formally banned in Queensland, on 22 January 1988. Producing a comic book with the financial assistance of the New South Wales Government, only to see it banned by the Queensland Government, was something that those connected with Phantastique wore with pride and humour.

What follows is a list of Australian manufactured comic books banned by the Queensland Literature Board of Review from 1954 to 1956.

21 July 1954: Anti-Crime Squad^[b], Dare, Famous Yank, Fight Comics, G-Man, Guilty, Love Illustrated, United States Marines, War Battles, War Heroes

25 August 1954: Atomic Attack, Dizzy Dames, Dragnet^[c], First Romance, Headline Stories, The Lone Avenger^[d], Love Problems, The Mask, Soldier Comics, Teenage Love, Wanted

20 December 1954: Darling Romance, Love Experiences^[e], Love Secrets, New Romances^[f], Real Love^[g], Real Romances^[h], Real Story^[i], Romance Story^[j], Teenage Confessions, Teen-Age Romances

25 December 1954: Popular Romance^[k]

15 February 1955: Sweet Romance

2 March 1955: The Scorpion

2 November 1955: Diary Secrets, Exciting Romances, Fascinating Love, Love Struck, My Choice, Stardust, Tender Romances, Unfaithful

30 November 1955: Detective Comics

14 December 1955: Writers Girl

7 March 1956: Dangerous Love, First Love, Intriguing Love, Romance Diary, Romance Library

13 June 1956: Heartless, T-Man

11 July 1956: Stolen Dreams

Australian publishers banned by Queensland, as listed in the official documents, and their titles:

Action Comics Pty. Ltd. 14 Bond Street, Sydney (Fight Comics, The Lone Avenger, The Darling Romance)

Alstan Publications, 19 Bridge Street, Sydney (The Scorpion)

Atlas Publications Pty. Ltd. 262 Queen’s Parade, Clifton Hill (G-Man, Guilty, Dizzy Dames, Headline Stories, The Mask, Wanted)

Barmor Publications, Castlereagh Street, Sydney (Love Illustrated, First Romance, Love Problems, Teenage Love, Love Secrets, Teenage Confessions, Teen-Age Romances, Sweet Romance, Diary Secrets, Exciting Romances, Fascinating Love, Stardust, Tender Romances, Romance Library)

Blue Diamond Pub. Co. 15 Park Street, Sydney (War Heroes)

Calvert Publishing Co. Pty. Ltd., 7 Angel Place, Sydney (Atomic Attack, Stolen Dreams)

Crestwood Publications, 15 Park Street, Sydney (Detective Comics)

Frew Publications Pty. Ltd. 70 Bathurst Street, Sydney (My Choice, Unfaithful Writers, Girl First Love, Heartless)

H. John Edwards Publishing Co. Pty. Ltd., 14 Bond Street, Sydney (New Romances, Popular Romance)

Horwitz Publications Inc., 166 Phillip Street, Sydney (f or and on behalf of Transport Publishing Co. Ltd.) (Love Struck, Dangerous Love, T-Man)

Invincible Press, Sydney (Dragnet)

Larry Cleland Pty. Ltd. Century Building, 125 Swanston Street, Melbourne (The United States Marines, Soldier Comics)

Red Circle Press, 149 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (Anti-Crime Squad, War Battles)

Ron Ashworth, 7 Lombard Carnival Street, Balgowlah, New South Wales (Dare)

Rosnock Pty. Ltd. Castlereagh Street, Sydney (Famous Yank)

Transport Publishing Co. Pty. Ltd., 26 Hunter Street, Sydney (Love Experiences, Real Love, Real Romances, Real Story, Romance Story)

Young’s Merchandising Co. 8 Spring Street, Sydney (Intriguing Love, Romance Diary)

Queensland stopped officially banning comics in 1957, but restarted in 1978. Those comics banned in 1978 - 1984 were primarily published by Gredown Pty Ltd and Page Publications (horror comics), and later Heavy Metal, Kitchen Sink and Marvel (Savage Sword of Conan in April 1979 and Epic Illustrated in October 1984)

Australian produced (not reprinted overseas content) comics banned after 1978 were:

31 July 1979: Vampire (Gerald Carr)

22 January 1988: Phantastique (New Age Graphics)

Subscribe now

SOURCES

_{Queensland Literature Board of Review Annual Reports 1970 – 1988}

_{Queensland Parliamentary Debates Legislative Assembly (Hansard)}

_{Transport Publishing Company Ltd. (and Others) v. Literature Board Of Review, High Court of Queensland}

_{Walt Disney Productions v. H. John Edwards Publishing Co. Pty. Ltd. Supreme Court of New South Wales}

_{Newspapers referenced included: Chronicle (Qld), The Advertiser (SA), The Age (Vic), The Argus (Vic), The Canberra Times (ACT), The Catholic Weekly (NSW), The Courier Mail (Qld), The Daily News (WA), The Mercury (Tas), The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW)}

NOTES

_{[a] The story of the trials and appeals that the publishers faced are a story for another article, as is the story of H. John Edwards v. Walt Disney.}

_{[b] Relates only to issues of the said publication published subsequent to 27-5-58.}

_{[c] Appeal dismissed and order to review discharged by unanimous judgment of Full Court of Queensland 11-8-55. Special leave to appeal to High Court of Australia refused by that Court on 17-11--55.}

_{[d] Relates only to issues of the said publication published subsequent to 20-10-54.}

_{[e] Full Court of Queensland by majority decision dismissed appeal on 8-8-55. Appeal to High Court of Australia upheld by majority decision on 7-11-56.}

_{[f] Ibid}

_{[g] Ibid}

_{[h] Ibid}

_{[i] Ibid}

_{[j] Ibid}

_{[k] Ibid}

This article is dedicated to all creatives who have been banned and/or censored in the state of Queensland. Nordacious, you are in good company. If you’re censored in Queensland, then you must be doing something right.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

What happened to Bill Jaaska?

I was asked this question back when it became known that Bill had passed away in November 2009. What happened to Bill is a cautionary tale.

I’ve always found it hard to grasp that an artist such as Bill Jaaska can disconnect from the comic book industry to the point where his death remained relatively unknown for months. What happened to Bill wasn’t uncommon in the industry, especially an industry that treated creatives as disposable assets, to be discarded when no longer a saleable commodity and discarded. The rise of social media in the past decade or so has alleviated this. There are now fundraising platforms, and its easier for a creator to reach out for assistance.

Back in early 2010 when I first tackled this article, the response was heartening. People began to reach out to colleagues they’d lost touch with and began to bring them back into the spotlight. Those same creatives found that social media platforms such as Facebook could be beneficial to connecting with fans of their work. Hero Initiative really stepped up their efforts to assist creatives in the comic book field.

All of this came too late to help Bill Jaaska.

Bill lived his whole life in Milwaukee, which is where he died. His parents put him up for adoption at birth, while he was never officially adopted, he was placed into a home with foster parents, and, unusually, he remained with his original foster mother until she passed away. By all accounts he had a relatively happy and stable childhood. Beyond that there’s not a lot of information about Bill and his life. It appears that he was never interviewed during or after his career and I can’t find any reference of him appearing at any convention at any stage in the 1980s or 1990s when he was active in comic books. During his peak period in comic books, he operated out of his own studio, but that was closed once he ceased working in comic books in the mid-1990s.

Bill broke into comic books in late 1986. He started, like most of his peers of the time, with the minor publishers; in Bills case his first major work was with First Comics. He was tapped to work on Mike Grell’s creation Sable, where he was part of the relaunch of the title with Marv Wolfman. Bills cover art was one of the best features of the book, simple yet highly effective. To study those covers now would be to make a study of simplicity in regard to storytelling and, at times, Bill’s work was more reminiscent of Mike Zeck than Mike Grell. Bill also worked for Eclipse, working on Airboy and Lt. Rosa Winter.

In 1989, Bill made the move to the big publishers and found work at DC and Marvel. At Marvel Bill began working on no less a title than the Uncanny X-Men. At the time, the X-Men had exploded, both due to a long running storyline by Chris Claremont and stellar art by the likes of Marc Silvestri, Rick Leonardi, Jim Lee and others, such as Keiron Dwyer and Arthur Adams (on the annuals of the time).

Bill provided the art to two issues; issues #263 and #265, Mike Collins did the art for the alternating issues until Jim Lee took over as full time artist with issue #268 (after sharing art chores with Whilce Portico for issue #267). Bill then worked on fill in issues of Wolverine and Sgt Fury, before drawing two fondly remembered issues of The Incredible Hulk.

At the time, much like the X-Men, Peter David’s Hulk was one of the hottest Marvel titles. Dale Keown’s artwork was making people sit up and take notice, and Bill rose to the occasion. His first issue was a fill-in issue, detailing a Christmas fight between The Rhino and the Hulk, with humorous results.

His next story was part of the regular storyline and was fondly remembered by writer Peter David. So effective was the art that David intimated that it was crucial to the overall impact of an already powerful story arc. Other than his sole job on Sgt Fury, all of Bill’s Marvel work has remained in print, via Peter David’s Hulk Visionary series and various Essential and Classic reprints. Somewhere there must be a sizable royalty cheque with Bill’s name on it.

While he was working at Marvel, Bill was working for DC. His first work was an issue of Checkmate, followed by an issue of Swamp Thing and then Shade The Changing Man. He also provided the art for a three issue Terminator mini-series for Dark Horse titled Hunters And Killers, which was reprinted as a DVD digital comic.

Once he’d finished with the Terminator, Bill began the second longest run in his career, on no less a title than Teen Titans, replacing the likes of George Perez and Tom Grummett.

Unfortunately, there was something of a backlash directed towards Bills art at the time, which continues to this day. Part of the problem wasn’t so much that the art was bad because it wasn’t, but more that Bill wasn’t George Perez. The same debate surrounded Bills X-Men work, with people looking at Bills art as not being on a par with Jim Lee, an unfair criticism. It’s the kind of juvenile debate that has always dogged the comic book world and adds nothing of value to any discussion. All art, and writing, should be judged on its own merit. Direct comparisons are useless unless someone is actively trying to copy a style.

Bill’s last comic book work was an issue of Turok for Acclaim. The issue was inked by Charles Yoakum, who recalled at the time,

Bill was doing a rather strange over-rendered pencil style that did not mesh well with my inks at the time. But that was what needed to be done so I did it. Since it was only a single issue, I didn’t have the editors give me his phone number so that I could call him. I turned it in, submitted my voucher and moved on to an issue Eternal Warrior.

And that is where Bill’s all too short career in comic books ended. By my estimation Bill provided art to around fifty issues in total, give or take a few that I’ve not been able to track down. Marv Wolfman was the writer on more issues that Bill drew than anyone else, from the start of his career with Sable to almost the end with Teen Titans.

I reached out to Mar Wolfman in 2010 when I prepared the first article about Bill. At the time he wasn’t aware that Bill had passed, but he kindly shared his thoughts.

Bill was highly underrated by the fans because I think his style was so different from what was expected on the Titans book, namely the Perez look.

Now, nobody loves George and his work more than me, but I wanted a new look to the book and Bill’s unique style gave that. Unfortunately, the fans never saw Bill’s pencil art, which I did. It was exciting, emotional and filled with drama. Also, his storytelling was truly excellent. I do think his inking may have hurt his drawing as it made it more sketchy than his pencils showed. I loved working with Bill and really loved the unique approach he took with the characters. His Starfire buried story was a really excellent job.

I didn’t know Bill all that well personally. I think we may have met at a convention or two, but I’m not 100% positive. We talked on the phone, and we got along very well. I had no idea Bill had died, and I give his family my warmest and deepest condolences.

Once his comic book career finished Bill moved from rooming house to rooming house. His foster mother passed at some stage and the trauma of this might have led Bill down the road he went. Other information is unsure; he may have had issues with his eyesight, which, if true, would explain why he stopped drawing professionally. Among his few belongings were details of an eye surgery facility, at which he had booked himself an appointment, but, sadly, we won’t know for sure.

Bill’s sister, Maija, made contact when she saw the first article I published about Bill. She kindly gave me background on Bills life. Maija wasn’t sure why Bill disengaged from his family and friends, but she did give some clues.

Bill’s eyesight was failing. “There was a photo he took of himself on his cell phone.” Maija told me, “and his left eye looks really cloudy (although it may just be the angle of the photo that is making it look that way). He also had several pairs of very thick glasses.”

Maija also told me that her family strongly suspect that Bill may have had some mental health issues, based on the state of the last room he lived in combined with material that he kept, and some private writings he left behind.

Bill appears to have given up on art as a profession and was receiving public assistance. However, according to one of the other residents of Bills last rooming house, he also worked temporary jobs from time to time but had nothing stable. There was artwork, and drawing materials amongst Bills effects, showing that Bill never fully turned his back on his artistic ambitions. Bill was clearly fully functional and able to live independently, but all appearances point towards him being quite the struggling loner.

Thankfully, it appears that Bill’s passing wasn’t a painful one. According to the Medical Examiner, the cause of death was due to an embolism and there’s a strong suggestion that some of Bills medical problems might have been due to a congenital disorder. Again, according to the Medical Examiner, Bill came back to his room, thought he might not have been feeling well and decided to lie down to rest. At some point he quietly passed away. He was subsequently found in his bed.

Bill’s story was one of the saddest that I’ve seen in recent times. The history of comic books is littered with creative people who faded away and ultimately passed away in sad or tragic circumstances, but most of these stories appeared to have ended in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Once the internet began to bring people closer, and agencies such as HERO began to actively seek out and assist creators who’d fallen on tough times, stories such as Bills have become rare. It seems impossible that a creator can fall so low and be totally forgotten in this day and age.

Why did Bill withdraw from society and exactly how did he pass away? They’re questions that deserve asking and deserve an answer, but sadly we may never know. Whatever demons haunted Bill, and what drove him more than likely went with him to his grave.

In a tragic twist, Bill passed away only days before DC released a trade paperback reprinting his Shade The Changing Man work for the first time.

What happened to Bill Jaaska?

He stopped drawing comic books, slipped through the cracks and passed away. That much we do know. But as to the reasons why, we may never know.

The last word goes to Bills sister Maija.

“We really have no way of knowing how he ended up as he did because we don’t know anyone who knew him.”

----------------------------
My thanks to Maija Jaaska and Marv Wolfman for their assistance with this story, and my deepest sympathies to the Jaaska family for the sad loss of Bill Jaaska.

If you know someone who is struggling in life, reach out and ask what can you do to help. Sometimes just knowing someone is there is enough. If tangible assistance is needed, there’s plenty of organisations out there who are happy to help. We need to treat our creatives better than we do.

Leave a comment

We have lost a giant today. Dolly Parton might have been small in stature, but she strode the world as a giant. It seemed that there was nothing she couldn’t do. She was a singer, songwriter, musicia…

Read more

Last week the History of the Anti-Comic Campaign in Australia book dropped for all to read. I grabbed a copy and read it over the weekend. It’s an academic book, so it’s a rather dry read, but it is …

Read more

The 1920s had barely begun when a real-life situation developed that would lead to the first officially announced ban in Australia on an actor and his entire output, past, present and future, as oppo…

Read more

It’s a battle that could have been epic, but, instead, due to Jerry Siegel’s reluctance to confront anyone, it’ll never be played out properly. All we have are Siegel’s original comments and any repl…

Read more

_{Sunday Times, 20 November 1921}

The Overseas Film Service fire of 1921 remains of the most spectacular fires ever seen in Sydney’s CBD, but it is la…

Read more

As court cases go, it was open and shut really, but the outcome did raise some questions, most notably, who owns characters in original stories, and, more importantly, are there any original stories …

Read more

Pete Townshend.

This is a cauti…

Read more

Back in 1991, I remember everyone connected to comic books getting so excited over this. Frank Miller wrote the screenplay! After Daredevil, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Ronin and the rest, this …

Read more

I’ve been going through some old legal documents, just sorting and reading, when I stumbled across this section of a 2023 deposition of Chuck Dixon.

I first became aware of Dixon with the Robin mini-s…

Read more

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On...

This is the saga of the Never-ending Battle for the ‘lost’ Superman story.

In 1988 the character of Superman turned 50, if you were reading comic books back then y…

Read more

All this bullshit with Rolling Stone magazine listing the 'best guitar solos' of all time. Of course, it's American orientated. Everything that pack of clowns does is, although they do throw in the o…

Read more

Looking back at the history of Universal Films in Australia it can be argued that the second most important person in the company was an artist named Fred Broderick. Herc McIntyre ruled the Universal…

Read more

As people who know me know, I don’t promote Kickstarters all that often, but every so often one comes along that just makes me want to get as many eyes on it as possible. And, lately, it’s the work o…

Read more

(This is a republishing of an old article. I have been asked to put a few of these old ones back out there for people to see, so, here we go. Enjoy!)

Recently some very interesting research into Fredr…

Read more