Frank Boulderbuster
Frank Boulderbuster is one of the last great swagmen – brave, bearded and fond of spinning yarns. He’s known the length and breadth of Australia – from Adaminaby to Zanthus, from Poowong to Banunga. Whether he’s dancing the famous spider dance, catching dangerous villains or braving the might of The Alice Springs Ladies’ Club, there’s no mystery too deep for Frank and his trusty owl, Frogwarble.
You’ll probably have trouble finding this one. It’s out of print but I’m including it here because I wish it wasn’t. The funniest Australian book I’ve read is Midnite by Randolph Stow. It’s about a bushranger who isn’t very bright, but fortunately he has an extremely intelligent cat that looks after him.
With composer Raffaelo Marcellino I wrote an opera based on the story. Richard Gill from Oz Opera put it on.
It was okay, but not as funny as Randolph’s book. In writing Frank Boulderbuster my aim was to write an Australian outback book as funny as Midnite. I didn’t succeed. I don’t think anyone ever will.
Nevertheless, there are still some quite good jokes as we follow the adventures of Frank the swagman, who keeps an owl in his hat. The six chapters were difficult to plot. Each is a little mystery story. The eagle-eyed reader will find clues to help solve the mystery. Frank meets a boxing ghost, a phantom bell-ringer without a head, terrifying pumpkin monsters and a garbage man who wears a dress. These events are drawn extremely well by Adelaide artist and satirist Michael Atchison.
There was a hardcover version, and then a paperback version. The entire first edition of the paperback had to be destroyed because the designer had spelled the title incorrectly on the spine. Frank’s surname was rendered as ‘Bolderbuster’, even though it was spelled correctly on the cover.
Now, it can’t be that hard to destroy three thousand books – some dictators manage to destroy millions - but whoever was in charge did a very bad job. I believe they just dumped them at a tip in Maryborough, where someone picked them up. Suddenly, every secondhand bookstore in Victoria had shiny new copies of Frank Boulderbuster, with the misspelled name on the spine. In fact, there are more copies of the misprint edition out there than the correct one. So if you do happen to see a copy of this book for sale, and the name is spelled correctly on the spine, buy it. It’s quite rare.
The book at the bottom of the pile is actually more valuable than the other two, which is almost as strange as a garbage man who wears a dress.
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