Bluey and Sol: Antisemitic Humour in a German-Australian Outpost, 1937–1939

Abstract

The comic strip Bluey and Sol – anonymously penned, and published in a small local newspaper in the state of South Australia in the late 1930s – raises numerous questions about cultural sensitivity, awareness of world events, conceptions of ‘jewishness’ and ethnic difference in this time and place. The authors consider not only the way in which the Jewish boy Sol is represented (and, within a short period, minimised) in the strip but also the context of South Australia's Yorke Peninsula – home to a considerable population of German-derived residents – and the Australian distrust of German culture, language and ‘race’. The use of this cultural artefact is, therefore, an appropriate way to exa..