y separately published work icon Comment periodical  
Issue Details: First known date: 1940... 1940 Comment
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

The first issue of Comment was published in September 1940. Edited by Cecily Crozier, the magazine declared that it would 'put into print the newest ideas in writing and design.' A year later an editorial claimed that Comment 'offer[s] . . . reading of a type not found in any other Australian publication, and we give Australia's writers and designers an opportunity of having published work that other more popular magazines find unprofitable to print.' These comments coincided with a call for subscriptions because the magazine was running at a loss. But despite a low circulation, Comment ran for another six years.

Comment promoted experimentation, publishing the work of some of Australia's most prominent modernists of the 1940s, including Max Harris, Adrian Lawlor and Alister Kershaw. The work of the visiting Americans Karl Shapiro and Harry Roskolenko also appeared regularly in Comment, raising awareness of artistic developments in the United States. The international interests of the magazine also extended to European literature, supporting translations of Kafka, Baudelaire and Maupassant.

Comment continued to run at a loss, forcing Crozier and others to pay production costs. The additional one hundred and fifty subscribers required to continue production were not found after Crozier's plea for more subscribers in early 1947. In the Winter issue, Crozier announced that it would be the last for 'some time' and offered subscribers a refund for the remaining issues of 1947. She suggested alternately that subscribers could wait until the reappearance of Comment in the future, remaining hopeful of changing fortunes. But the Winter issue of 1947 remained the last.

Notes

  • RANGE: No. 1, 1940 - no. 26, 1947
  • FREQUENCY: Irregular
  • SIZE: 23cm; 8-30 pages
  • PRICE: sixpence (1940-1942); one shilling (1943); one shilling and sixpence (1944-1947)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 1940

Works about this Work

Art Magazines Max Delany , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Fifty Books for Fifty Years : Celebrating Half a Century of Collecting 2008; (p. 44-6)
A Comment on Mort and Malley Tom Thompson , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 63 no. 2 2003; (p. 96-102)
Discusses the hoax poet Mort Brandish and Comment the little magazine in which the poems were published.
Small Press Literary Magazines: The '40s and '50s Desmond Cowley , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Small Press Times 1992; (p. 2)
Comment on 'A Comment' : "A Temerarious Little Magazine of the 1940s" Alister Kershaw , 1986 single work criticism
— Appears in: Quadrant , November vol. 30 no. 11 1986; (p. 57-59)
Untitled Cecily Crozier , 1947 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Comment , Winter no. 26 1947; (p. 20)
A Comment on Mort and Malley Tom Thompson , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 63 no. 2 2003; (p. 96-102)
Discusses the hoax poet Mort Brandish and Comment the little magazine in which the poems were published.
Untitled Cecily Crozier , 1940 single work column
— Appears in: Comment , November no. 2 1940; (p. 3)
Untitled C. A. Goyder , 1940-1941 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Comment , Christmas no. 3 1940-1941; (p. 2)
Untitled Adrian Lawlor , 1941 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Comment , March no. 4 1941; (p. 5)
Untitled James Gleeson , 1941 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Comment , May no. 5 1941; (p. 2)
Last amended 5 Jul 2005 11:33:26
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