Review of Panel by Panel: A History of Australian Comics by John Ryan, The Golden Years of Ginger Meggs 1921-1952, ed. John Horgan and *The Wild & Woolley Comix Books: Australian Underground Comix ed. Pat Woolley
Abstract
Graphic art in Australia has been well served not only by its many famous practitioners (the Hops, Lows, Mays, Pettys, Crosses, Banckses, etc. etc.) but also by its aficionados: and the most recent example of this is John Ryan's &Panel by Panel&, a beautifully designed and illustrated volume which is also the first comprehensive survey of Australian comics as well as a memorial to its author, who sadly died soon after publication. Although he was in demand on some campuses, Ryan was no academic and Panel by Panel is not strong on the social and cultural context; but what he has done for the study of Australian comics is what Vane Lindesay (in The Inked-In Image and the World Encyclopedia of Cartoons) did for the study of Australian cartoons and that is to provide the kind of information on which the increasing number of analysts of Australian popular culture can build.
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Published 1 May 1981 in Volume 10 No. 1. Subjects: Popular culture, Australian comics.
Cite as: Andrews, Barry Geoffrey. ‘Review of Panel by Panel: A History of Australian Comics by John Ryan, The Golden Years of Ginger Meggs 1921-1952, ed. John Horgan and *The Wild & Woolley Comix Books: Australian Underground Comix ed. Pat Woolley.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, 1981, doi: 10.20314/als.893be6e507.