The age of sail was already ancient history by the 1940s, but Australian kids growing up during World War II got the chance to relive the days when pirates roamed the seven seas.
This was thanks to the efforts of one man, Syd Nicholls, who brought to his work a lifelong passion for maritime history. If it weren't for Syd Nicholls, pirate comics would not have enjoyed the popularity they did in Australia. After experimenting with a pirate storyline in Fatty Finn, Nicholls devoted years to creating a new comic strip, Middy Malone, set in the era of tall ships. He took advantage of the wartime ban on imported comics to seek an audience for Middy Malone among local comic readers, and even used the character to launch his own comic-book publishing company. |
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The series' colourful characters and epic scenes of naval battle appealed to young readers - not surprising, considering that young Midshipman Malone was the same age as most of his readers. |
Nicholls' success inspired rival publishers to try their hand at pirate comics, and within a few years Middy Malone found himself sailing alongside other seafaring heroes such as Rip Weston and Roger Farr, along with another Nicholls creation, the Phantom Pirate.
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Strangely enough, nowhere else in the world were pirate comics more popular than in Australia during the postwar years. But perhaps it's no coincidence that when Nicholls left the comic-book field in 1950, readers lost interest in pirate comics too. |
Illustrations
Top Sydney NICHOLLS (1897 – 1977), Middy Malone and the South Sea Pirates, Sydney, Sydney Nicholls, 1942
Bottom Phil BELBIN (cover artist, 1925 – 1993), True Pirate Comics No 11, Sydney, Frank Johnson Publications, 1948
Right Sydney NICHOLLS, Middy Malone and the South Sea Pirates, p348, Sydney, Sydney Nicholls, 1942 (detail)
