What was Magazine Management?

The Invisible Avenger 6: 1950 (Illustrated Publications, Sydney)

In his landmark history of Australian comics, Panel by Panel, John Ryan reports in passing that Ayers & James was involved with a number of comics that include different publisher names.

These comics are:

"Punch" Perkins of the Fighting Fleet 8: 1951 (The Red Circle Press, Sydney)

• Virgil Reilly's The Invisible Avenger, later drawn by Peter Chapman and renamed Invisible Avenger Comics.¹ The publisher actually printed in at least some issues of this comic is Illustrated Publications.
• Virgil Reilly's "Punch" Perkins of the Fighting Fleet, later renamed Fighting Fleet Comics.² The comics include a brand on the cover, "From the Red Circle Press", which Ryan describes as "Ayers and James Red Circle Series". The publisher listed on at least some of these comics is The Red Circle Press, 149 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.
• Paul Wheelahan's Rex Strong The Space Patrol.³ Ryan reports this title was "published by Magazine Management (a successor to Ayers and James) in 1960". The publisher for this series is reported elsewhere as Approved Publications, 149 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.
• George Needham's Choclit and His Kid Bruvver Coco, a revival of the earlier famous Australian series, was "commissioned" by Magazine Management.⁴ This comic is published by Red Circle Press, 149 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.
• Keith Chatto's Skippy, was created when "Magazine Management obtained the rights to the Fauna Production television series."⁵ The listed publisher for this series is Junior Readers' Press, Crows Nest.

The critical link in these publications appears to be The Magazine Management Co. Pty. Ltd., although they share a cluster of other similarities, including publishing address, cover style, branding and relationship with the enigmatic 'Jayar Studios'.⁶

Rex Strong The Space Patrol 1: 1957? (Approved Publications, Sydney)

Magazine Management is not well documented. John Ryan treats the company only obliquely, as if his readers would know about it. Magazine Management was located at 149 Castlereagh Street during the 1950s,⁷ like most of the publishers Ryan associates with Ayers & James. It was also later based at 81 Walker Street, North Sydney in the 1960s and then at 5-7 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, in the 1970s and 1980s—addresses also used by Ayers & James and associated companies.⁸

A December 1960 article in the Observer⁹ stated that Magazine Management established a 'Committee of Parents' to respond to censorship attacks in the mid-1950s. This provides a possible explanation for the 'Parent Approved' logo on some comics in the 1950s from companies associated with Ayers & James.¹⁰

Choclit and His Kid Bruvver Coco 2: 1956 (Red Circle Press, Sydney). Note the 'Parent Approved' logo.

That 1960 article also reported that Magazine Management had previously published 150 comics a month, but was down to 40 by 1960. "Magazine Management are continuing to publish 40 titles a month in order to keep the artists, block-makers and printers working for it: having had years of experience of Government chopping and changing, it wants to be ready to step up publishing again if import restrictions are re-imposed…"¹¹

Under the publisher name Transpacific Publications (and possibly Transpacific Magazines Ltd), Magazine Management also produced movie magazines and 'true confessions' magazines in the 1960s, including titles such as True Life Secrets, True Confidential Confessions, Revealing Confessions, Real Life Confessions and International Crime Detective. There were also men's soft porn magazines published into the 1970s, such as Man's Adventure and Man in Action.¹² At times, these magazines include advertising for Ayers & James books and explicitly list the Magazine Management company name alongside Transpacific.

In Ryan's closing chapter, he comments in passing that the company was "importing more than 5 million comics each year from America and Europe" in the 1970s—a role, consistent with Ayers & James's historic importing operations.¹³ Despite this, "Magazine Management" only appears on a few Skippy the Bush Kangaroo comics.¹⁴