Twice Approved by James Zee
Looks like a Cleland, acts like a Cleland…
Ryan corresponded with with industry insiders to write Panel by Panel,11The John Ryan collection of Australian comic books at the National Library of Australia includes material used by Ryan to... but his comments about the timing and artwork of Little Trimmer suggest limited knowledge of this series.
He notes the series "was designed to look like one of the Fawcett group", the dominant source of Cleland's reprints. Little Trimmer changed format a lot, like Cleland comics, and had similar styling. Some issues include a price in a black box, reminiscent of Cleland's price in a black triangle.
The series certainly looks more like Cleland than Magazine Management, but a lot of copying was done by publishers. It seems unlikely Ryan reached his conclusion on looks alone.
More significant is the address of 129 Swanston Street, Melbourne, especially as the Australian comics industry was mostly Sydney-based. In fact, this is the same building as Larry Cleland, which was on the Fourth floor of the Century Building, 125-133 Swanston Street.
This is a fourteen storey office tower, though.22The Century Building is a prominent art deco building designed by Marcus Barlow and built in 1939. It has the... There were at least four separate publishers operating from 149 Castleagh Street in Sydney (including Magazine Management),33At various stages, Frew operated at 149 Castlereagh Sreet under the name Tricho; W.G. Granger, the publisher of Disney comics,... so sharing a building doesn't prove much.
More interesting is an address on Charter World Service, the letters' page of Little Trimmer Comic #14 : "Box 2633X, G.P.O., Melbourne". This is the postal address used by Cleland forerunner, Vee Publications, around 1946-1947.
With that address strongly supporting Ryan, there's one more piece of evidence. Cleland had at least one other publishing identity, True Publications Pty. Ltd., which reprinted Fawcett's romance comics. Issues from that publisher have a similar indicia to Approved Publications:
"Published by Patrick Browne of 22 Kelsby St., Reservoir, for True Publications Pty. Ltd., 133 Swanston St., Melbourne."
Vee Publications/Larry Cleland generally used 125 Swanston Street as its address; True Publications printed 133 Swanston; and Approved Publications reported 129 Swanston Street. This seems to be a deliberate effort to misdirect.
In fact, most Australian comics publishers used multiple names to side-step the censors in the 1950s. A company director also told me that different names were used to take advantage of tax-free thresholds.
So I guess I'm convinced Ryan is right. There were two separate "Approved Publications" producing comics in Australia and I have updated the Melbourne-based company to link with Cleland, not Magazine Management.