Ben Bowyang was an Australian newspaper comic strip, first published in the Melbourne Herald on Saturday, 7 October 1933, created by the cartoonist Alex Gurney, that followed the misadventures of two archetypical Australian bushmen, Ben Bowyang and his mate, Bill Smith, of "Gunn's Gully": characters that first appeared in the humorous Herald columns written during the 1920s and 1930s by C. J. Dennis.

Ben Bowyang

Ben Bowyang, a philosophical farmer from "Gunn's Gully" first appeared — as the author of "A Letter from the Bush" — in C.J. Dennis's regular Herald column,[1] The Mooch of Life on 12 June 1922.[2]

The Bowyang.

    When I was a boy the bowyang was worn by
most bush-workers, and by labourers generally.
It is never seen today. The bowyang — in case
you do not know — is a strap worn just below
the knee of the trousers. Its purpose was to take
the drag from [the] braces or waist-belt, and to
lift the trouser-ends well clear of the ground. And
very comfortably it performed this service, too. …
    Bernard Cronin (1952).[3]

The characters, Ben Bowyang and Bill Smith, featured in so many of the comical letters published in Dennis' columns, and became such favourites among the Herald's readers that, a year later, the Herald's resident caricaturist Samuel Garnet Wells pretended to have visited Gunn's Gully — "Correspondents have frequently asked what Ben Bowyang and Bill Smith are like. This is Wells's impression of them after a visit to Gunns Gully" — and presented 'caricatures' of the fictional pair, as if they were, indeed, real people.[4]

Ten years later, based upon Dennis' columns and Well's (1923) caricatures, Gurney (at the time also a Herald employee) went on to create the characters for his successful comic strip.[5]

Gurney's comic strip

Prompted by the fact that the last-ever letter written by Ben Bowyang, appeared in the Herald on Saturday, 30 September 1933,[6] and the need for a seamless transition, Gurney's first daily strip was published in The Herald a week later, on Saturday, 7 October 1933.[7][8]

On Thursday, 23 November 1933, the Adelaide weekly, The Chronicle, published the first of its regular single page presentations of five Gurney strips,[9][10] each of which had, independently, appeared earlier in the Melbourne Herald.[11]

Later artists

The strip was also drawn by Mick Armstrong, Keith Martin, Sir Lionel Lindsay, Alex McRae, and Peter Russell-Clarke. It ceased publication in 1979.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ G.I. (Guy Innes) (1922), "Noted Writer’s New Role: The Sentimental Bloke will conduct Daily Herald Column", The (Melbourne) Herald, (12 May 1922) p. 9.
  2. ↑ Dennis, C.J. (1922), "The Mooch of Life", The (Melbourne) Herald, (12 June 1922) p. 6.
  3. ↑ p. 17 of Cronin, Bernard (1952), "Some Bush Relics", Walkabout, Vol.18, No. 10, (1 October 1952), pp. 17–18.
  4. ↑ Wells, S.G. (1923), "Ben and Bill", The (Melbourne) Herald, (20 June 1923), p. 6.
  5. ↑ "Ben Bowyang: Story of Popular Chronicle Feature", The (Adelaide) Chronicle, (21 March 1935), p. 47.
  6. ↑ Dennis, C.J. (1933), "Ben Bowyang says Goodbye", The (Melbourne) Herald, (30 September 1933), p. 6.
  7. ↑ Gurney, A.G. (1933), "Ben Bowyang: Tricked by the Menu Card", The (Melbourne) Herald, (7 October 1933), p. 2.
  8. ↑ "Adventures of Ben Bowyang: New Strip in The Herald", The (Melbourne) Herald, (7 October 1933), p. 1.
  9. ↑ "Ben Bowyang Makes Debut Tomorrow", The (Adelaide) Advertiser, (22 November 1933), p. 18.
  10. ↑ "The Exploits of Ben Bowyang by Alex Gurney", The (Adelaide) Chronicle, (23 November 1933), p. 30.
  11. ↑ Namely, on 18 October 1933, 16 October 1933, 20 October 1933, 17 October 1933, and on 19 October 1933.
  12. ↑ "Ben Boyang - Peter Russell-Clarke". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-10-15.
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