McCarter (1934); also has a photograph of Alex Gurney at work with his drawing board. See also: Day by Day: "Eventful History", The Mercury, (Friday, 12 December, 1941), p.3: "I wonder if Alex. Gurney, who every day enlivens us with his sketches in "The Mercury" of "Bluey and Curley", still uses his historic drawing board which once formed a panel of a cedar door in the Old Bell Hotel in Elizabeth St. Hobart. The door once gave entrance to the room in which Marcus Clark is believed to have written his famous book "For the Term of His Natural Life". When the hotel was demolished the door was bought on account of its fine wood. The panel, made into a drawing board, was later presented to Mr. Gurney. It is a strange thought that on that drawing board whose wood once witnessed the writing of one of the most painful stories of the past there should now be sketched the laughable anecdotes of Australian soldiers fighting for the Empire"; and also Beatty, B., "Australoddities", The Cairns Post, (Monday, 6 March 1950), p.4.
Some samples of early Ben Bowyang strips: [8] (Note that, in this example, Gurney's own calligraphy has been over-typed with a Queensland reference); [9].
This photograph, held by the Australian War Museum, was obviously taken at the same time, with the same subjects, and in the same location as [10], and [11].
Compare the simpler graphic style of the earliest, war-time strips ([12]), with the much later far more developed style of the 1955 version ([13] plus [14]).
