The Return of Captain Goodvibes

To Australia's surfing fraternity, Captain Goodvibes needs little introduction. For those of us not familiar with the ways of 'skeg culture', this porcine, spliff-smokin', wave-riding superhero might need a little further explanation.

The creation of cartoonist Tony Edwards' fevered imagination, Captain Goodvibes was the Antipodean equivalent of Gilbert Shelton's underground comix hero, Wonder Warthog, and made his debut in the Australian surfing magazine, Tracks, in May 1973, remaining there until August 1981. Dedicated to the pursuit of good times (or should that be 'high times'?), Captain Goodvibes was sufficiently popular with the 1970s counterculture audience to burst out of Tracks, and appear in a few solo publications, such as the 1974 tabloid-sized comic, Captain Goodvibes: The Pig of Steel. Captain Goodvibes also apparently enjoyed a cinematic cameo in the 1975 surfing documentary, Crystal Voyager, appearing in a brief animated sequence during the film.

For those of you who can, through the thinning pall of dope smoke, still vaguely recall the good Captain in his glory days, or to anyone curious to know more about this genuine Aussie comic cult figure, then a mandatory visit should be made to the Captain Goodvibes Official Website, which has a brief history about the character, as well as a gallery of some of his finer exploits from Tracks magazine. (Thanks to Eddy Crosby for the heads up on this website)

Rediscovering the 'Frontiers of Science'

Anyone doubting the comic strip's potential as an educational and instructional medium would surely cast aside such doubts upon rediscovering the 'Frontiers of Science', an Australian comic strip that was syndicated to over 600 newspapers worldwide between 1961-1982.

The brainchild of Professor Stuart Butler (School of Physics, University of Sydney) and journalist and filmmaker, Bob Raymond, Frontiers of Science was conceived as a means of explaining scientific phenomena and documenting aspects of scientific history, in a compelling, visual manner. Butler served as the scientific consultant on the series, while Raymond wrote the scripts for each daily installment.

Frontiers of Science was well-served by two accomplished illustrators; Andrea Bresciani, an expatriate Slovenian-Italian artist who spent much of his working life after World War II in Australia, and David Emerson, a prolific Australian cartoonist and painter, who took over as illustrator on the series in 1970.

The University of Sydney Library has recently launched the Frontiers of Science website, which features an online archive containing the first 200 episodes of the comic strip, along with biographical information about the series' creative personnel. This website is a handsomely formulated tribute to one of the unsung success stories of Australian comic strip art, which remains as informative and enlightening today as it did when it first appeared nearly 50 years ago.