Ginger Meggs 1921 – 2023
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After a continuous newspaper run of 102 years the Australian comic strip Ginger Meggs has ended.
The strip began November 13, 1921 as a Sunday-only feature in The (Sydney Sunday) Sun titled Us Fellers.
From the New South Wales State Library:
The plot of the ‘Us Fellers’ strip had initially revolved round the activities of Gladsome Gladys, a sweet and pretty little girl whose larrikin friends used her charms to get them out of awkward jams. But Bancks tired of Gladys and dropped her a few months later to focus on a boy who’d only been a minor character until then.
As The Sunbeams supplement was printed in colour, with only a limited range of inks available — blue, red and yellow — Bancks had given the boy red hair and christened him Ginger Smith. By April 1922, Ginger had the new surname ‘Meggs’, but the strip would be known as ‘Us Fellers’ for another 18 years. It was not until November 1939 that the ‘Ginger Meggs’ banner officially took over.
Now, three months shy of 102 years, the last Ginger Meggs newspaper strip, once again as a Sunday-only feature, appeared August 13, 2023 in The (Sydney Sunday) Sun-Herald.
Jason Chatfield tells how the newspaper comic’s end came for everyone’s favorite little larrikin:
When I was phoned by Dave Braithwaite, Head of Editorial Operations for Nine’s Metro Publishing, to tell me they’d be killing off Ginger Meggs, (and fellow Aussie comic strip Bushy Tales) I insisted they explore any and all options to get them to move onto the website/apps.
This way, it isn’t “The End” but a “New Chapter” — a Good News story. The request was summarily ignored, once again. The opportunity to sustain the generations-long relationship with readers, and to build a relationship with new ones, was declined.
Not only have our daily strips been completely gutted by News Corp, but our only remaining Sunday newspaper clients, Nine Media/Rural Press/Fairfax have also terminated all comics contracts. The pages will now be filled with Harvey Norman ads and cheap puzzles.
New Ginger Meggs Sunday format strips will run online for a while. Says Jason:
GoComics will be the home for Ginger’s final storyline under my pen in the coming months.
The Daily Cartoonist did its best to celebrate the Ginger Meggs Centennial,
but R.C.Harvey, with an assist from Jason, has a definitive history of the comic strip.
Keep up with news of the redhead’s future endeavors at Ginger Meggs homesite.
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