Kevin Patrick (24 March 2026):

I've been doing some research into the role that Gordon & Gotch played in distributing imported magazines and comics throughout Australia from the mid-1930s until the early 1940s, prior to the Australian government's ban on all non-essential imports (such as printed matter) from non-Sterling currency markets (USA & Canada) as a wartime austerity measure.

As it turned out, the Special Collections at Monash University Library (Melbourne, Australia) had a copy of a Gordon & Gotch brochure dated June 1940, which advised retailers about the wide range of British and Australian publications still available to newsagents and bookstalls, despite 'the loss of American publications'.

This brochure was reproduced in John Ryan's history of Australian comics, Panel by Panel (1979), wherein he discussed the lead-up to the eventual ban on imported American comic books and general interest magazines.

...In the bottom right-hand corner, you can see the Australian editions of The Adventures of Buck Rogers, Hurricane Hawk and The Adventures of Felix (all published by Fitchett Brothers, Melbourne) among the range of comics still available through Gordon & Gotch (The majority of available comic magazines listed in this brochure came from Britain)...

K. G. Murray, which would become a dominant player in Australia's postwar comics industry, is well represented in this brochure, which lists Man, Man Junior, Digest of Digests and Insider among the Australian titles still available through Gordon & Gotch.

It seems that British editions of various American titles, such as Argosy, True Story, Short Story and West Magazine also remained available to Australian markets via Gordon & Gotch.