Detective Comics 2: Not a KG Murray reprint, but possibly an early example of Don Richardson's work.

Don Richardson—Comic Book Maker

by Kevin Patrick (July 2007)

If the name Don Richardson sounds unfamiliar to you, don't worry—you won't find his name appearing on any of the comic books in your collection.

I'd never heard of Don either, until I received an email from him, quite out of the blue, on 11 January 2004.

I can only guess as to whether Don had read one of my Comics Down Under columns in Collectormania magazine and felt compelled to write to me.

I had previously written about KG Murray's comic book imprint for the February and March 2003 editions of Collectormania, nearly a year before Don contacted me, so I can only guess if his email was in belated response to these articles.

"I produced comics from the 1950s to the 1980s" was the opening line of his first email to me. For a split second, I thought Don might have been some overlooked Australian comic book writer or artist, who wanted to share his story for posterity's sake.

Don was, in fact, a comic book maker—literally. As a graphic artist and printer/engraver, he was responsible for physically producing those glorious vivid covers which adorned locally published reprints of American comics sold in Australia.

Of particular interest to collectors of Australian editions of DC Comics is Don's association with KG Murray, the company responsible for local reprints of DC Comics' titles from the late 1940s to the early 1980s.

While Don only worked sporadically on KG Murray's comic book line throughout his decades-long career, his experiences nonetheless provide a rare insight into KG Murray's publishing practices and reveals the technical complexity of comics printing in the pre-digital era.

Soon after Don emailed me, we arranged to conduct a phone interview, which took place on 27 January 2004. My recollection of that lengthy conversation was of an energetic, passionate man who took enormous pride in his craft – and who had more humorous anecdotes to share than my non-existent shorthand skills could commit to paper during our interview.

For various reasons, the notes of our interview lay untouched for some time, as I focussed on other writing projects. Don invited me, via email, in the weeks following our interview, to visit him at his home on the New South Wales central coast, so I could see his surviving comic art covers and advise him on their potential resale value.

Living in Melbourne, I was unable to take up his invitation, but looking back now, I wish I had. Sometime much later, I sent Don an email, apologising for my tardiness, and sought some further information from him. However, my email bounced back undelivered and the telephone number he gave me was apparently no longer connected.

So, I have no way of confirming if Don Richardson is still alive or not, or what happened to his unique collection of pre-press comic book covers.

While I regret not making a greater effort to meet Don, and interview him at greater length, I hope this small account of our conversation might reach him (or members of his family), as well as prove equally interesting to collectors of Australian editions of DC Comics reprints.

Revisiting these notes over three years after they were originally written may result in some lapses in continuity, as I try to reconstruct our conversation and the chronology of Don Richardson's working life.

Batman Comics 1: While Don reports working on Detective and Adventure, they were probably not KG Murray's DC reprints.

Don got his start in the printing industry as a hand-engraver with a Sydney firm known as E.R. Meirch & Morris in 1952.

"They did day bill [large format] paintings for movie posters," said Don. "All the litho [lithographic] retouchers were foreign guys. They used to draw tracings on three litho stones in crayon to print movie posters in yellow, magenta and reflex blue to give a four-colour effect."

Don either began, or continued, his printing apprenticeship with another Sydney printing firm, George Woods, which was located near the Tivoli Theatre.

"When I was apprenticed there, they had a comic artist drawing 'Detective' and 'Adventure' comics. The artist was drawing in pencil and he had a girl assistant who would do tracing in ink."

Sadly, Don couldn't recall the name of either the artist or his female assistant. However, it's unlikely that the comic he was referring to was the title after which DC Comics took its name, Detective Comics, even though Batman stories from that title (where Batman made his debut in 1939) may have been reprinted locally by KG Murray in its inaugural Batman Comics title, which debuted in mid-1950. And, while KG Murray did launch Adventure Comics featuring Superboy in 1949, the title was renamed Superboy with the sixth issue.

Given that Don claimed he began working for George Woods in the early-to-mid 1950s, it's unlikely that he was referring to either of these KG Murray comic book titles.

The only Australian comic (to this author's knowledge) bearing either of those names was an Australian-printed comic called Detective Comics. The cover reproduced here may have been drawn by an Australian artist and the subject matter suggests that this was a 'true crime'-styled comic book which had no connection with the DC Comic title of the same name.

While its unknown if this title reprinted stories from American comics, it sold for 9d (nine pence), which dates it from somewhere between 1951-56, which certainly coincides with Don's employment with George Woods. However, the printer listed in this comic was a company called Mentmore Press (Sydney), which printed Detective Comics for a little-known publisher called Crestwood.

"We also did work for Cleveland Publications, where I did the Western and detective [pulp novels] colour covers, retouching by hand on zinc the four-colour artwork. We also did Frew Publications' comic book covers."

Don eventually went to work for Kenmure Press, located in the Sydney suburb of Silverwater, in 1966.

"I went through the transition to lithographic reproduction using film. We were first called litho dot etchers, then litho retouchers and combiners."

"I became the foreman there [at Kenmure], which did the KG Murray magazines and the comics, which included 'Love', 'Detective' and DC [Comics] American reprints, who supplied [KG Murray/Kenmure Press] with a line drawing of the cover [artwork].

Mammoth Annual 10: One of Murray's rebound annuals, with a cover by Australian artist Hart Amos.

The line drawing referred to here would have been derived from a negative of the black printer plate (Black is one of the four colours used in the four-colour printing process; the others are cyan, magenta and yellow.) This plate would be used to create a bromide (black & white photoprint) that would allow the printer to add logos, or retouch the artwork as required.

We would superimpose the Murray logo and we created the [four-colour printing] plates."

"In [the litho process], the colour was transposed to film by cutting sections of Ulano [a light-resistant, transparent laminate], by using a tiny swivel knife over a light table."

This labour-intensive process would have required printers like Don to have a clear 'mental image' of the colour effect they wanted to achieve, as there was no chance of seeing the final colour scheme before the cover was printed. This process was by no means fool-proof, which would explain the occasional 'lapse' where parts of a character's costume might be printed using an incorrect colour.

"Each single colour item and [piece of lettering] was hand-cut and taken into the darkroom and exposed to film with different strength tone screen prints to reproduce each colour – which took up to four days to complete."

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan 12: possibly one of the issues Don Richardson worked on.

"Because they had to do a lot of tedious, fine work, a lot of blokes [in the printing trade] went off their heads!"

"KG Murray was like Walt Disney – they never wasted anything," according to Don. "Old cartoons from Man magazine in the 1930s were reused in the 1950s with new artwork."

"All the Murray comics had a quarter inch white trim and, when unsold, were returned, rebound and re-trimmed to make Mammoth Comics."

"When Kenmure closed [circa late 1970s?], I was retained with a skeleton staff for two years. However, when the comics came in, I had no way of completing them. So I devised a method of painting the three colours in photographic greys and had them screened on the camera to produce colour screened films – these went through without being noticed."

Don subsequently worked for the Australian greeting card company, John Sands, where he was the Photo Litho foreman until the printing plant where he was employed was closed down. (It's possible this closure occurred sometime after 1978, when the family-owned John Sands business was bought out by the Valentine Greeting Card Company.)

During 1979-1982, Don renewed his association with comic books, once more through Murray Publishers (as the company was now known), which had been operating as a division of Australian Consolidated Press since 1972.

"I was approached by Murrays to help them have their covers produced, as they had a giant backlog," according to Don.

Superman The Comic 1: an issue from during Don Richardson' later period at Murray.

"These covers were of a very complex nature and had been rejected by other suppliers [printers] as being too time consuming."

"These [comic covers] had galactic space scenes, with multi-coloured star bursts in tiny dots, which were impossible to do by hand."

"I devised a process of painting the covers [on the] reverse [side of the] emulsion film, using flexible paints that reproduced the primary ink colours for exact reproduction in scanning and camera photography, with airbrush on the front of some [of the covers] – which really was the same as [producing] animation cells [for animated] cartoon production."

"I did 50 of these covers, which included Batman, Tarzan, Superman and other [DC Comics] covers [appearing] under the Murray banner."

"Some of these I've had framed as animation cells and a couple of them have been framed with the printed comic as well."

It's possible that Don is referring to the series of one-shot titles produced by Murray during the 1979-82 period, which could have included such comics as Superman The Comic (1981).

Don's final involvement with Murray coincided with the demise of the former KG Murray comic book line, which was eventually sold to Federal Publishers, a publishing division of Hannaprint, in 1983.

The author would like to thank Mark Muller and Spiros Xenos for their assistance in researching this article. However, any mistakes and omissions are the author's own. If anyone has any further information about, or contact details for, Don Richardson or his family, they can contact the author, Kevin Patrick, at PO Box 1055, Camberwell, Victoria 3124 Australia, or via email at Kevin Patrick .