G'day Bill the Bus (no relation of Laurie the Truck ...?)

That poem won our verse competition in 1989 ... and the conditions included that it not be previously published, so I presume it dates from 1988/9. A lot of poets do a good job of keeping up old styles and sentiments.

I can't remember Outback magazine (around that time, my Christmas treat was a bundle of English children's magazine in the Christmas parcel from an old friend my grandmother left back in England when she married Granddad and followed him to Australian when he was demobbed from WWI).

The comic strip sounds a bit like Ken Emerson's The Warrumbunglers - but that is somewhat later ('60s to present). I'll see if I can dig up anything on it. The "Bushman's Bible", up to that decade, was The Bulletin ... they did a lot of great cartoons and stories... but not much comic strip.

Regards,

Bob Bolton