Monty Wedd
| Monty Wedd | |
|---|---|
| Born | Montague Thomas Archibald Wedd 5 January 1921 Glebe, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 4 May 2012 (aged 90) Fingal Bay, New South Wales |
| Pen name | Monty Wedd |
| Occupation | Cartoonist, animator, author |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Period | 1935–1995 |
Montague Thomas Archibald 'Monty' Wedd (1921–2012) was an Australian comic artist, animator and author.
Wedd was born in Glebe, New South Wales on 5 January 1921. As a school boy he was instructed in art by Oswald Brock. He left high school during the depression working as a junior poster artist at Hackett Offset Printing Company before becoming a designer and illustrator for a furniture manufacturer, Corkhill & Lang (later Frazer's Furniture). During this time he continued studying commercial art at night at East Sydney Technical College. He then worked as a furniture artist and salesman at Grace Bros. before joining the armed forces in 1941, where he served in the Australian Army, First Artillery Survey Regiment, and then the RAAF, where he attained the rank of Leading Aircraftman (34 Squadron).
After the war he spent three years studying under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme, completing his arts course at East Sydney Technical College, during which time he produced his first comic strip, Sword and Sabre, a story about the French Foreign Legion. Wedd sold it to Syd Nicholls' publishing company, where it appeared as three monthly episodes in the Middy Malone magazine. Wedd also produced eight more comic strips for Nicholls, including Bert and Ned and Captain Justice (a bushranger who righted wrongs). After Nicholls closed his comic line, Wedd began supplying comics to Elmsdale Publications, including Tod Trail and Kirk Raven. In December 1950 New Century Press contracted Wedd to produce twenty three Captain Justice stories, with the hero now located in the American Wild West, for £102 per issue.
The only reason we had him over in America was because it was the vogue of the time. Everyone was interested in American westerns. They absolutely flooded the Australian market with western comics. Nobody was interested in Australian Wild West stories. They weren't interested in anything to do with bushrangers.
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