[Bluey and Curley]. GURNEY, Alex

Bluey and Curley Annual. Daily Feature in 'The News' [cover title]

Adelaide, News Limited, August 1947.

Large oblong octavo, 52 pages (including the covers) with an illustrated introduction, 47 pages of comic strips, and advertisements on three sides of the covers.

Saddle-stapled colour-pictorial title-wrappers; front cover slightly marked, with the bottom edge lightly chipped; split to the spine below the bottom staple expertly sealed; text paper uniformly tanned; top corner lightly creased throughout; in very good condition.

The editor introduces the reader to 'Mister Bluey and Mister Curley ... deliberately. It's a title they've had for more than a year now, and, like thousands of other men who have swapped an Army number for a name, they are liking the change'. The introduction features Bluey and Curley 'drawing' their creator, Alex Gurney ('Wacko! Don't forget his bald head and big tummy!'). Alexander George (Alex) Gurney (1902-1955) 'was already well established as a caricaturist, cartoonist, and comic strip artist ... [when, in] late 1939, following the outbreak of World War II, he created his most famous characters, Bluey and Curley, which first appeared in the "Picture-News" magazine.... It was transferred to "The Sun News-Pictorial" in 1940' and was widely syndicated. The Annuals were published from 1941 to 1960. After Gurney's death, 'the strip was drawn by Norman Howard Rice (1911-1956). Rice died as the result of a car accident on 31 December 1956 ... The strip was then drawn by Les Dixon from 1957 until 1975' (Wikipedia). The strip featured a pair of soldiers, red-headed Bluey, the Great War veteran who had re-enlisted in the Second AIF, and Curley (the hair again), the new recruit. 'As an accredited war correspondent, Gurney visited army camps throughout Australia to obtain authentic detail and gain a feel for military life; he contracted malaria in August 1944 while visiting New Guinea. The strip made "superb use of Australian idiom and slang", and had an "instinctive understanding and interpretation of the Australian male"' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography').

'Although Bluey and Curley were popular with Australians because they related to the slang, attitude, and the lack of respect towards authority exhibited by the main characters, the strip lost some of its appeal and readership when the pair returned to "civvy street"' (Wikipedia again - although a 37-year run is not bad by any reckoning).

Item #136418

Price (AUD): $165.00
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