The Aussie milk bar was, in its heyday, as ubiquitous in suburban Melbourne as pubs are in the UK. Conveniently situated within walking distance of your home, they provided families with the essentials - milk, bread, newspapers, cigarettes. They were also purveyors of the 20 cent bag of mixed lollies, wax paper wrapped trading cards with pink concrete sticks of nostalgia fuel, and a wide variety of ice-creams and icy poles - Sunnyboys, Two-In-Ones, Eskimo Pies, etc. For a brief period, some milk bars even attempted to cash in on the home video bandwagon; however, based on the amount of sun bleached clamshell tape covers collecting dust in the spinner racks, very few people actually rented them.
On a recent trip back to Melbourne I found myself searching for the milk bars of my youth; in some sad way hoping I could walk in and find cartons of Return of the Jedi trading cards on the counter, a freezer full of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon icy poles, or flyers advertising the double features playing at the drive-in. Of course, most of the milk bars are now gone, superseded in the nineties by the big chain supermarkets.
To alleviate this nostalgia, I spent the better part of this week creating a milk bar illustration from several reference photographs, and populated it with paraphernalia and advertisements from the late 70s/early 80s - from overtly sexual depictions of meat and vegetables deep fried into pastry tubes, to ill-conceived and unfortunately branded children's confectionery. Despite its anachronisms, I find the images of Panini sticker albums and defunct newspaper logos strangely compelling. Maybe you will too. And yes, that is a daybill for Alby Mangels' World Safari II: The Final Adventure.
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