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Feature
Interview
12 iNarrabri Magazine
February 19th - March 4th
Peter Chapman was born in Cammeray,
North Sydney, in 1925 into a family with
seven children. His father worked as an
accountant for North Sydney Council.
Peter had polio when he was seven and
only had about two years of schooling in
5th and 6th class. He was interested in art
very early on and recalls drawing prolifi-
cally from the age of four. His interest in
art was encouraged by his mother, whose
brother was the famous Australian politi-
cal cartoonist and artist, Percy Leason,
who enjoyed success both in Australia
and the United States. Peter never met his
Uncle Percy, who was based in Melbourne
after Peter was born, but to some degree
followed in his footsteps. Percy started his
overseas career with pen and ink illustra-
tions of murder mysteries and detective
stories, for the New York Daily News and
Blue Book Magazine and his first major
book illustration in 1938 was “The Wizard
of Oz” by L. Frank Baum.
By the time Peter had reached 14, his
artistic talent was already blossoming.
And when his proud mother was showing
off some of his drawings to a travelling
salesman, fate stepped in to nudge him in
the right direction.
“The salesman suggested to my mother
that I should go to East Sydney Technical
College. We didn’t know anything about
it because we lived in Cammaray. Anyway,
I remember going in to see the school
and showing my work to the Head of the
College, and I remember him saying “Oh
yeah, you can come here!”
Peter was a lot younger than most of the
students and because World War 2 had
just started, the majority of the students
were female.
“When we first arrived there were only
two of us in short pants and everybody
else was in long pants... There were all
these beaut girls there, mostly 16 to 18...
And there were also the nude models!
... I always remember, we were doing a
nude still life drawing in the long hall, and
the model was sitting there posing... the
workmen would always try and sneak up
and open doors to peek in... Well one day
a cleaner did this and the model jumped
up and said “I’ve caught you, you bastard”
and slammed the door in his face!
During his three years at college, Peter
honed his skills with still life drawing, out-
door sketching and painting, lettering and
illustration. He recalls doing a lot of work
and attended the school five days a week.
Upon leaving college, Peter did some
freelance work for
Man
,
Pocket Man
and
Adam Magazine
, before getting his first
regular job working for Frank Johnson
The volume and diversity of work Peter
has produced over his seventy year artistic
career is amazing. Some of his earliest
work is currently being displayed at the
State Library of NSW, as part of the “Pulp
Confidential: Quick & Dirty Publishing
from the 40s & 50s”. This is a rich collec-
tion of vintage Australian “pulp” cover art,
crime story illustrations and original comic
books from the publishing house of Frank
Johnson Publications ...
Publications as a comic book artist.
“I was living in the Blue Mountains and
there was another artist up there, a lot
older than me, and I often used to talk
to him. One day he said “if you are ever
in Sydney, you want to drop in and see
Frank Johnson, he’ll probably give you
some work”, which I did”.
“When I started at Frank Johnsons, the
war was on and because of government
rationing or a paper shortage, we were
only allowed to bring out one issue of a
comic per month. But we’d bring them out
more often, we’d just change the name...”.
“We used to bring out a 21 pager every
month or when they filled it. We started
at 30 bob a page, then as the publica-
tions and work increased, Frank raised
it to two pound a page because he was
making a fortune. I used to write the
comic stories and everything, always
have... lettered everything, did the lot...
where as in America they would have five
or six people working at it. One would do
the lettering, one would pencil it in, one
would ink...
While Peter was at Frank Johnsons he
worked on a lot of publications including
Diana Hastings
,
Rocky Ned
,
Steve Con-
rad
and
Kings of the Turf
(Happy Jack)
.
“
Diana Hastings
were 8 pagers. She was
a woman dressed in a safari suit. I can’t
remember what I wrote about.
Rocky Ned
was a cowboy comic, an 8 or 12 pager.
Steve Conrad
... I think he worked on a
ship or something... a pirate? My brother
worked on this for a couple of episodes
but he got lost... people would come
up to me and say “I can write comics”
and I would say here and hand them the
paper... they would get to two squares...
“Oh What do I do now”... I’d always call
their bluff!...
Kings of the Turf
was about
horseracing, short stories every month
and I used to do the covers... I never read
it, I didn’t get time”.
By the late 1940’s, Peter had left Frank
Johnson Publications and was a sought-
PETER chapman