"Involuntary English emigrés, Carol Wood and Susan Butcher both found their families moving  from Old Blighty to perhaps the most isolated metropolis in the world - Perth. Raised on a steady diet of comics, children's books, novelty songs and trash culture, the two penned comics separately as they coped with life's travails: in particular, Christian zealots, Western Australian Bluenoses and the Department of Social Services.

         A chance meeting resulted in the tricky twosome teaming to plot a new effort. The result? The most culturally literate comixzine in ages. (And the rumors that surround them of rampant drug use, debauched sexual practices and strange cults are wholly unwarranted and without any basis in fact.)

        Pox would have set Perth's comics scene on edge if it actually had much of one.  But the Pox Girls were happy to settle for kind words from Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, and glowing writeups in Comics Edge, Comics Quarterly, Submedia Magazine and The Comics Journal.

       Our Pop Paragons cleverly disguised how the whole operation was so simply done.  By utilizing one photocopier, multiple toner colors, copious amounts of effort, and their social security benefits, they produced a polished presentation complete with color covers, interior inserts, and a host of other bells and whistles.

       All this, though would be beside the point without the content, which deserves such care and attention.  Ad parodies, comics detournements, homages and innovations rub shoulders in a lively melange of stories and features informed by the likes of Leo Baxendale, Jack Chick, Vaughn Bode, Charles Addams, Tove Jansson, Wally Wood, Will Eisner, and many more.  
       It wasn't long before a flood of letters and an interstate visit convinced the Perth Pair to drive across the great Nullarbor desert to reside in Melbourne, on the other side of the continent. The Nullarbor Nymphs depicted this historic migration in small press chronicle Milk Bar, and now are residing in seaside St. Kilda.  

      Their work continues to roll off the presses, and additional efforts have been seen in local publications - including Pure Evil, Nice, Froth, and Da & Dill.  
 

     

    Antipodal Media Theoretics Journal, June-July 1998  

        McLuhan makes the distinction between 'hot' and 'cool' media. So we find the Perth Pox Girls to be a meeting not only of minds but of media's different degrees. From the 'cool', cartoony style of Susan Butcher to the 'hot' characterization and humanism of Carol Wood.   
        Yet these superficial distinctions point out the disparities in McLuhan's admittedly conjectural assertions. While Butcher is indeed cartoony, her material is densely crammed with references. And Wood often uses her nominally more 'realistic' depictions for comical situations. There is much more here than the surface reveals.   
         The tropes and terms bleed into each other, a mimetic cultural simulation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics  
         Could the third resident of  the Pox household be Maxwell's Demon?

 
 
 
    They've also been embraced by the internet, with work in 8D.Com and Japanese webzine Forbidden Galaxy.   In popular parlance, the prolific pair are 'going sick' with  POX."
                - Small Press Week In Review, August 1999

Catch the virus with some of the fine information contained on this wholly unauthorized fan page!
 
 
POXON-LINE:    
 
 

 
Pox Cover Gallery 
 
(Click for larger versions)

 
 



Susan Butcher and Carol Wood (Pox)

poxgirls@alphalink.com.au
PO Box 1298, St Kilda South, 3182 Victoria, Australia.
http://www.tcj.com/3_online/w_review_pox.html
POX review in The Comics Journal.
http://comicsaustralia.com/pox.php
Another Pox site with prices, art and ordering info. 

http://www.grafted.net/8D/artistes/pox/index.html
A Pox Girls profile, including an online comic, "Plan Nine from Heaven"
http://www.nonDairy.com/slow/wave.cgi?jul99
Jesse Reklaw illustrates a dream by Carol Wood in his weekly Slow Wave.
http://www.overdrive.com.au/sickpuppy/tshirts/polyester.htm
Susan Butcher T-Shirt design for Polyester fundraiser.
http://www.nambanga.com

Carol Wood Strip in Japanese CD-Rom Anthology!


 
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