Famous Yank Comics (Ayers & James, 1945?) ([1946?])

Expanding beyond reprints

The most significant transformation for AusReprints occurred mid-2010 when the site expanded from a focus on KG Murray reprints to include any Australian comic.

It was prompted by the sale in the US of hundreds or thousands of previously undocumented Australian comics. I later discovered it was a significant Australian collection that made its way to the US via the UK—but that's a story for another day when I again find the emails with the details.

Cyclone! (Cyclone, 1985 series) #1 (1985)

Some acknowlegement must go to eBay (and to a lesser extent the New Zealand TradeMe), which provides an active market for Australian comics and an unparalleled source of information. Several sellers routinely send me high resolution scans of the books they have for sale.

Another major souce is library collections. When time permits, I use the Mitchell Library (State Library of NSW) and the Fisher Library (University of Sydney), but also received invaluable information from the National Library of Australia, which holds the John Ryan collection (author of Panel by Panel).

But most of all, I'm indebted to collectors who share scans and details, opening my eyes to thousands of Australian comics I didn't know existed.

Ringo (Sport Magazine, 1967) #12

At the time of writing, this cover had a Mitchell library date stamp. If it's gone, the scan has since been upgraded in the database.

More than 100 people have contributed, with significant input from Spiros Xenos, the Book Palace, Mark Muller, Neil Hansen and Kevin Patrick.

So, with 29,002 Australian comics identified in the database, it's time for a site upgrade.

I'm shifting the background technology from ASP classic to ASP.net. It involves rewriting most of the code behind the site. That will happen a bit at a time, probably over at least a year, aiming to keep the site on line while it is done.

Vampire Killers (Gredown/Boraig, 1982?) ([1982?])

This change opens up new options. It will allow personalisation, so you can log in, leave comments and tag issues as part of your collection. When I'm sure security and technical aspects are right, I'll allow direct updating of images and data by site users.

But only if you are interested. Worth doing? Let me know what you think.

And let me know about any errors!