The Enigmatic Renn

Miscellaneous drawings

And finally, a few odds and bods found amongst the newspaper cut-outs. It is unclear when most of these pictures were drawn and whether they were ever finalised or published.

'Blue is for Boys' (Part 1)

'Blue is for Boys' (Part 2)

'In Love With Your Boss?'

"That was the Moon, but how do you stop these things?"

Undated cut-out

This final cartoon was kindly provided by Daniel McKeown who purchased the "Renn" original on Ebay. Unfortunately the cartoon was undated and had no publication information.

Commercial Drawings

Here is a small collection of Renn's later commercial drawings for pies, paint, marmite, watches and socks. What else do you need, really?

Big Ben Pies

Dumbrells jewellers

Holeproof
[This illustration was on the front of special Father's Day sock packaging]

Marmite

Pettigrews

At the same time as Renn was drawing for The New Idea, he was also contributing cartoons and sketches to Life magazine. As the articles he was illustrating covered a more diverse range of topics, from history to politics to science, Renn was also able to experiment with different styles in this magazine. As you will see, his drawings ranged from the now familiar humorous cartoons (see the illustrations for 'Australitems' and 'Grass Is Good For You') to rather more modernist, even futurist, sketches (see the August 1947 cover, Claustrophobia drawing and 'Shakespeare's Town' illustration).

Once again, where appropriate, the drawings have been included with the relevant article for context (and, in some cases, for humour value). Once again, once more, the vast majority of the illustrations retained by Renn have been copied here with minimal editorialising, and those few drawings that were excluded are of a style already well represented in the following collection (particularly the numerous small 'Australitems' sketches).

'The Worker's Viewpoint', Life Digest, August 1947

'Alcohol on Trial!', Life Digest, March 1948

'Australitems', Life, 1 April 1948

'My Escape from Tobacco', Life, 1 April 1948

'WANTED - A Clothing Revolution', Life, 1 June 1948

'Medico', Life, 1 June 1948

'The Kick of an Electric Eel', Life, 1 July 1948

'the memorable 1977 match', Life, 2 August 1948

'Houses on the Assembly Line', Life, 2 August 1948

'Don't Fence Me In', Life Digest, May 1949

'The Sausage Through The Ages', Life Digest, May 1949

'Australitems', Life Digest, June 1946

'Animals are the Craziest People', Life Digest, October 1949

Monkeys, Life Digest, November 1949

'Landmark', Life Digest, December 1949

'Why Weathermen Err', Life Digest, January 1950

'He Wrote Of Things To Come' [H.G. Wells], Life Digest, February 1950

'Hobbies Are His Work', Life Digest, February 1950

'Australitems', Life Digest, March 1950

Conchita, Life Digest, March 1950

Dreams, Life Digest, March 1950

'The Man from Wagga Wagga', Life Digest, March 1950

Anaemia, Life Digest, May 1950

'Australitems', Life Digest, July 1950

'Do Sea Serpents Exist?', Life Digest, July 1950

'Shakespeare's Town', Life Digest, July 1950

'Australitems', Life Digest, November 1950

'Australitems', Life Digest, January 1951

'Grass Is Good For You', Life Digest, January 1951

'Australitems', Life, May 1952.

The New Idea Drawings (1947-1950)

From 1947 onwards, Renn was a regular contributor to The New Idea magazine. Unlike the one-liners in The Australasian, the majority of these cartoons were illustrations of the various "women's issues" which the magazine focused on, such as: the dullness of Australian men, the relationship between the boss's wife and his secretary, and the pains of having a husband who plays the bagpipes. Where appropriate, the entire article has been copied so that the drawings can be seen in their intended context (and so that the humorous post-war writing can be enjoyed). Apart from cartoons, Renn also provided more conventional pictorial representations for romance and mystery stories. A couple of these have been copied as examples.

Due the large of number of cut-outs from this magazine, not all of have been reproduced here (although the vast majority have been). Where there has been editorialising, it has erred on the side of the comic and humorous.