Ben Bowyang was an Australian newspapercomic strip, first published in theMelbourne Herald on Saturday, 7 October 1933, created by the cartoonistAlex Gurney, that followed the misadventures of two archetypicalAustralian bushmen, Ben Bowyang and hismate, Bill Smith, of "Gunn's Gully": characters that first appeared in the humorousHerald columns written during the 1920s and 1930s byC. J. Dennis.
Ben Bowyang, a philosophical farmer from "Gunn's Gully" first appeared — as the author of "A Letter from the Bush" — in C.J. Dennis's regularHerald column,[1]The Mooch of Life on 12 June 1922.[2]
When I was a boy the bowyang was worn by
most bush-workers, and by labourers generally.
It is never seen today. The bowyang — in case
you do not know — is a strap worn just below
the knee of the trousers. Its purpose was to take
the drag from [the] braces or waist-belt, and to
lift the trouser-ends well clear of the ground. And
very comfortably it performed this service, too. …
Bernard Cronin (1952).[3]
The characters, Ben Bowyang and Bill Smith, featured in so many of the comical letters published in Dennis' columns, and became such favourites among theHerald's readers that, a year later, theHerald's resident caricaturistSamuel Garnet Wells pretended to have visited Gunn's Gully — "Correspondents have frequently asked what Ben Bowyang and Bill Smith are like. This is Wells's impression of them after a visit to Gunns Gully" — and presented 'caricatures' of the fictional pair, as if they were, indeed, real people.[4]
Ten years later, based upon Dennis' columns and Well's (1923) caricatures, Gurney (at the time also aHerald employee) went on to create the characters for his successful comic strip.[5]
Prompted by the fact that the last-ever letter written by Ben Bowyang, appeared in theHerald on Saturday, 30 September 1933,[6] and the need for a seamless transition, Gurney's first daily strip was published inThe Herald a week later, on Saturday, 7 October 1933.[7][8]
On Thursday, 23 November 1933, the Adelaide weekly,The Chronicle, published the first of its regular single page presentations of five Gurney strips,[9][10] each of which had, independently, appeared earlier in the MelbourneHerald.[11]
The strip was also drawn by Mick Armstrong, Keith Martin, SirLionel Lindsay, Alex McRae, andPeter Russell-Clarke. It ceased publication in 1979.[12]
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