Century Comic #78
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCentury Comic #78 is a modest but genuine artifact of K.G. Murray's decades-long effort to bring DC's Silver Age superhero stories to Australian readers who had no access to the original US editions. As part of the third title phase of a long-running anthology series — which had already cycled through the names 'Century the Hundred Page Comic Monthly' and 'Century Plus Comic' before settling on 'Century Comic' from issue #64 onward — this December 1962 issue represents the mature, stabilized era of Murray's DC reprint program at its most prolific. Its cultural significance lies chiefly in documenting how Silver Age DC storytelling crossed the Pacific into the Australian market roughly a year after the original US publication dates.
In "The Frontier Doctor," a wounded man named Jules Herbert, once a respected physician, struggles to reclaim his purpose after a tragic loss shattered his faith in his own healing hands. With the help of the steadfast Tomahawk, he’s drawn back into the harsh realities of frontier life, where courage and compassion are tested daily.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
K.G. Murray Publishing Company was founded in Sydney in 1936 by Kenneth G. Murray, who had previously worked in advertising. After starting with original Australian comics work in 1946, the company quickly pivoted to reprinting US material, eventually becoming Australia's most dominant DC Comics reprint publisher. The Century Comic series itself launched in 1961, with issue #78 arriving in December 1962 — part of a run that would continue to at least issue #106. The company remained family-owned until its 1973 acquisition by Australian Consolidated Press.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Publisher: K.G. Murray (Sydney, Australia); cover-dated December 1962.
- Part of the 'Century Comic' title phase (#64–#106), the third naming iteration of a series that began as 'Century the Hundred Page Comic Monthly' (#1–44) and then 'Century Plus Comic' (#45–63).
- Cover art is taken from World's Finest Comics #122 (DC, December 1961), penciled by Dick Dillin and inked by Sheldon Moldoff — though GCD indexers dispute whether pencils are by Dillin or Jim Mooney.
- The US source issue, World's Finest #122, featured the lead story 'The Capture of Superman' (script: Jerry Coleman, pencils: Jim Mooney, inks: Sheldon Moldoff), in which an alien named Klor frames Superman as an intergalactic criminal and enlists Batman and Robin to capture him.
- World's Finest #122 also contained backup strips: 'Planeteer's Alien Allies' starring Tommy Tomorrow (script: Jack Miller, art: Murphy Anderson) and 'The Booby-Trap Bandits' starring Green Arrow (script: Bob Haney, art: Lee Elias) — whether all or some of these were reprinted in Century Comic #78 is unconfirmed, as interior contents remain unindexed.
- The World's Finest #122 lead story was later reprinted again in World's Finest Comics #197 (October–November 1970), Showcase Presents: World's Finest #2 (2008), and Batman and Superman in World's Finest: The Silver Age Omnibus #2 (2019).
- K.G. Murray began publishing DC reprints in the late 1940s and dominated the Australian market through the 1970s; the Century Comic series was part of that broader reprint infrastructure.
- Interior story contents of Century Comic #78 are currently unindexed in all publicly available databases, including the Grand Comics Database.
Full credits
Reprints
↩ Reprints Action Comics #143 (1950), Detective Comics #182 (1952), Tomahawk #13 (1952), The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #15 (1954), Adventures into the Unknown #108 (1959), Forbidden Worlds #87 (1960), World's Finest Comics #122 (1961), Aquaman #5 (1962), Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #63 (1962)
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