Struan 1962 - Adm.monash.edu.au

Lil Abner has shown me how the psychologists use the Rorschachtest to establish guilt in criminal cases. The world of Bluey and Curlyand Ben Bowyang gives me what the theatre managers call 'intimateglimpses' of such acti vities as shearing, fencing , bush carpentry and farmingactivities of all sorts. The Berrys, Mr. Melbourne and Blondie take meinto suburbia and reveal to me what a happy family life is like and how itis achieved. In all the strips doors are opened into oth er people's lives.An old Chinese proverb states that one picture is worth a thousandwords. In Satu rday's SUD ther e are two full pages of comic strips containingforty-two pictures. In the Herald on that day there is a full pageof strips consisting of twenty-nine pictures. Th e comic reader who takesboth papers read s seventy-one pictures which is equi valent (according to theChinese proverb) to 71,000 words. This is the size of the average novel.Thus the comic reader will read the equivalent of 313 novels in a year.Thi s mak es him an extremely well-read person. In twenty-five year s ofaddiction to comics I've read the equ ivalent of 7,825 novels with onethou sandth of the effort. It is merely a question of time before the economicsof this type of reading become obvious to everyone.Not the least of the benefits of a comic-strips education is the psychologicalinsight it gives. One learns that a pipe- smoking man is a kind man,that flashy blondes arc untrustworthy, that men who wear black hats arccrooks, and that smiling fat men with rings on their fingers are plausiblerogues. This type of character analysis can be of great practical value .I remember on one occasion meeting a new partner in a stock-broking firmwith which I had had many deal ings. He was the image of a bad characterI'd met in Judd Saxon. He advised me to sell all my holdings in ladies'underwear and to add to my holdings in pig-iron. I insisted that he dothe opposite. The next day pig-iron rose and ladies ' underwear fell, and Ilost £200 on the deal. My mother said it served me right for being sostupid. I told her that he had rigged the market against me, and I wouldhave lost no matter what I had done. My present broker is a man who isthe living image of Pop.Judd Saxon , I believe , is to become prescribed reading for UniversityCommerce students. Here indeed, is recognition from the highe st quarter.In affairs of the heart the comic strip is one's best guide. On myadvice two of my cousins married women who could be Juliet Jones or------:rvfaFfl,iaW ayne. R eeoless to say ootli marriages are iayllic.The heroes and heroines of the strips are all people of high moralcalibre, although some of them like Ben Bowyang, Presto and Bluey andCurley would blush if they read this opinion of themselves. Let's look atsome of them from this viewpoint.STRUAN, 1962Page Thirty.On:a