Jayar Australia
- Born
- ?
- Died
- ?
- Credited for
-
art
- Also known as
-
Jayar Studios (pen name)
Biography
Jayar drew comic covers for Ayers & James and Magazine Management in the late forties and early fifties. The covers display a distinctive style that suggests a single artist. Jayar uses solid inks and lines reflective of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy work, in a style that adapts readily to funny animal stories.
Throughout the fifties and into the early sixties, the indicia of many comics stated the issue was 'drawn and printed in Australia by Jayar Studios'. This includes various publishers associated with Ayers & James and Magazine Management (Approved, Barmor, Cartoon Publications, Illustrated, Jubilee, Red Circle, Regal, Rosnock). It also included comics from Junior Readers' Press, an imprint of Consolidated Press that published comics in partnership with Magazine Management.
There is little or no Australian content in comics reported as 'drawn' by Jayar Studios. It is possible that Jayar was initially a pseudonym and, later, a studio or an in-house paste-up service that prepared US material for Australian publication.
Other Jayar credited include some children's activity books and the 'Mother and Baby Animal' series of children's books by Freda Vines, published by Ayers & James around 1950—Buster: the Puppy Who Wanted to Be Brave and Rusty: the Foal That Wanted to Be a Wild Horse.
Notes
The State Library of NSW holds a collection of Library bookplates, including one from the Jayar Studio Library.
There are US reprint stories signed 'Jayar' in Crack Western #1 and Screen Story Comics v1#5. The signature should not be taken seriously, as the changes involved at most tracing or fixing unclear originals, and amending artwork to fit different page dimensions.
What might 'Jayar' mean? It seems to be an uncommon English given name (based phonetically on on the initials J.R.) and a rare family name. It is also used as a nick name for 'junior' (Douglas Fairbanks Jr. referred to himself as Jayar) and for people whose name has the initials "J. R.". It was the name of an Australian brand of cigars in the thirties, owned by John Rankin.
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