''Snake Tales'' (also known as simply ''Snake'', after the main character) is a

gag-a-day A gag-a-day comic strip is the style of writing comic cartoons such that every installment of a strip delivers a complete joke or some other kind of artistic statement. It is opposed to story or continuity strips, which rely on the development of ...

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

written by Australian cartoonist Allan Salisbury.

Publication history

''Snake Tales'' was originally titled ''The Old Timer'' and was first published in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' on 25 April 1974. The initial group of characters featured: The Old Timer, an elderly bloke with a long thirst and a reluctance to shout for

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

s; The Con Man; The

Kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

, who constantly avoids being killed for food; the Flyin' Doc; and The Last Lost Tribesman and his Wife, who are determined to stay lost. In July 1975 '' The Sun News-Pictorial'' published the strip as a replacement for Les Dixon's ''

Bluey and Curley ''Bluey and Curley'' is an Australian newspaper comic strip written by the Australian artist, caricaturist, and cartoonist Alex Gurney. Few original ''Bluey and Curley'' strips are held in public collections, because Gurney often gave the origina ...

''. Sols gradually added characters including Crazy Croc, Lillie (the Old Timer's distant admirer), a devious butcher, a group of duck hunters, the comic strip did not make a great impression until the introduction of the character 'Snake'. Snake was first introduced in 1975 and gradually gained greater prominence to the point where the name of the strip was changed to ''Snake Tales'' in 1978. The strip has now been internationally syndicated and appears in over 450

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s (both daily and Sunday editions) worldwide. When it was syndicated in the United States (through the

Newspaper Enterprise Association The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news ...

), Sols was asked to re-draw Lady Snake, as her "two lumps" were said to be offensive. He drew her with a bikini top instead.Bateman, Daniel. "Snake's still after his buxom lady", '' Townsville Bulletin'', 15 March 2008, p. 20.

Story and characters

The strip is set in an unspecified location in the Australian outback. Occasionally a shot of a traditional outback

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

by itself on a lone road is seen. The principal characters include: * Snake: a not very smart venomous snake. * Lady Snake: the Snake's girlfriend. * The Flyin' Doc: a pilot with the Royal Flying Doctor Service

References

External links

* {{official, http://www.snakecartoons.com Australian comic strips Australian comics titles 1974 comics debuts Australian comics characters Gag-a-day comics Fictional snakes 2000 films Comics spin-offs Comics set in Australia