Comic Cuts

Comic Cuts

Bliss it was, that age of graphic styles

And very heaven Gem or Dynamite.

Those antique comics rolled us in the aisles,

Time after time in timeless black and white.

Ah mates, those were the golden days

When Aussie comics truly ruled the roost.

Those images that time cannot erase

Are like the madeleine to Marcel Proust.

And now our own recherche du temps perdu

Evokes the ghosts of limners long since dead,

Of Bancks and co. and Emile Mercier too;

That Frenchie with an Ocker in his head.

For now the heroes of our happy youth

May glide no more across the gilded page,

Sadly we face the unrelenting truth,

Like us they are undone at last by age.

Curly’s locks have grown extremely thin,

And Bluey early ran to fat; of course

They’re RSL-ders now and, though it’s dim,

The flame for them retains its primal force.

Ginger Meggs is snowy now, he flees

From Kelly only in his dreams;

And toothless Tiger’s daily on his knees,

He’s changed his chequered suit for bowler’s creams.

The Potts are eking out their pension cheque somehow,

And Pudden’s recent stroke has slowed him down.

The Major never will make colonel now

He’s changed his earthly, for a heavenly, crown.

Come back great Mercier, let your genius flower.

It’s only you can stem the sad parade.

O Supa-Dupa Man, now is the hour

For which Wocko the Beaut, and you alone, were made.

Return to us with healing in your wings.

Retwirl your gay mustachios, old boy.

Let Supplementary power infuse your vibrant springs

And bounce us back to multi-coloured joy.

Peter Jeffrey