In the mid-late 1950's K.G. Murray experimented with the format of their reprint comics. Joining the regular line-up of 24- to 32-page black and white pamphlet issues were a variety of formats: 100-page titles; 148-page titles; colour issues and titles; gray-scale reprints; 292-page volumes of coverless rebound issues; digest-sized issues...
The Two in One series is one of the most curious and short-lived experiments. As the title suggests, the magazine represented twice the value to the consumer by presenting two comics pages side-by-side on the one page in the landscape format. This in itself was not uncommon for K.G. Murray - they would routinely resort to this tactic in the regular pamphlet series for one or more of the back-up features. What was novel was to use this so prominently as the rationale for a new series.
It wasn't very successful. Like the 100-page Color Giant experiment, it appears to have only lasted for a couple of issues. But at least it afforded us another couple of local (Hart Amos!) illustrations featuring popular and minor (almost forgotten - The Dodo and The Frog!) DC Comics characters.
My thanks to David Studham for the great scans.
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2 comments:
Very interesting indeed!
Are the covers reprints or specially drawn Aussie originals?
They look like Hart Amos illustrations to me (though I haven't spotted a signature), and it is possible, indeed likely they are based on U.S covers (see for example my entry on Century #4 on January 8th 2009).
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