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The
bunyip has been a source of inspiration for Australian childrens
book illustrators.
Two of Australias
renowned childrens book illustrators are Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
and May Gibbs. The bunyip makes an appearance in Outhwaites
Mollies Bunyip (1904) as a ghostly spirit of the bush.
Another depiction
of the bunyip occurs in May Gibbs comic strip Adventures
of Bib and Bub. It was inevitable that these two bush babies
would meet something large and threatening in the Australian bush.
This threat was initially realised in the creation of the big bad
Banksia Man. Then, in the 1920s, a bunyip made its first and only
appearance in the miniature world of the gumnut babies.
The
bunyip has always been something of a shape-changer.
Artists and illustrators
over the past century have imagined the bunyip in a variety of ways
that range from the frightening to the comic.
In
1907 the popular magazine The Bookfellow held an Australia-wide
competition for the best drawing of a bunyip. The results provided
an entertaining menagerie of fanciful as well as ferocious creatures.
Selected entries were published throughout four issues of the magazine
and the winning entry was judged to be this bizarre creature by
an anonymous illustrator.
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