Monday, August 26, 2013

Green ArrowHead "Trader in Death"

He's barechested, shoots green arrows, and had a comic book series...
...but he's not the guy currently on the CW!
This is Green ArrowHead, and this is his first, never-reprinted adventure from Ace's Indian Braves #1 (1951)!
Created by writer Burt Frohman and illustrator Jim McLaughlin, the avenging Indian appeared in all four issues of Indian Braves (as well as all four covers), then disappeared when the title was cancelled.
featuring the cover from the issue above!

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

WESTERN TRUE CRIME "Quantril: the Killer's Killer"

Yes, William Quantrill's name is mis-spelled in the title...
...but it's the least of the errors in this incredibly-inaccurate telling of the Lawrence Massacre, which occurred exactly 150 years ago today!
This never-reprinted tale from Fox's Western True Crime #4 (1949) has so many inaccuracies that I can't begin to detail them!
You can check out this site about the real massacre to see just how the comic story veered from fact!
Despite that, it's a wild tale featuring art by Johnny Craig, an-up-and-comer who would become a major illustrator for the legendary EC Comics line of the early 1950s on such titles as Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Weird SuspenStories!

Monday, August 12, 2013

DAYS OF WELLS FARGO "Third Time Out"

Was this story a "pilot" for a comic adaptation of TV's Tales of Wells Fargo?
Read the story, which appeared in Dell's Western Roundup #19 (1957), then judge for yourself.
Well, the "Marshall" looks like Dale Robertson, star of Tales of Wells Fargo, which had been running on TV for several months when this story was published...
And Dell began publishing a series of Tales of Wells Fargo/Man from Wells Fargo stories, both in Western Roundup, and Four Color Comics only a couple of months after this tale.
Coincidence?
I think not...
Both the writer and artist of this tale are officially-unknown, but several experts peg Vic Carrobotta as the artist.
Considering there are elements of Alex Toth, George Tuska, and Mike Sekowsky's styles in the story and Carrobotta worked with all of them at one point or another, it's not an unreasonable guess.

Monday, August 5, 2013

BROKEN ARROW "Kingdom of Terror" Conclusion

(Don't worry!
You didn't miss anything.
The first part of this tale appeared at our "brother" blog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™!)
Cochise and his "blood brother", Indian Agent Tom Jeffords, find Nagotay, an Apache brave missing for months and thought to be dead.
The wounded brave relates how he and his brother Chalo inadvertently crossed the border into Guadalupe, an Arizona territory still under Spanish control, and how the two Apaches were framed and forced into a chain gang providing slave labor.
Cochise and Jeffords enter Guadalupe on the pretext of returning the horse Nagotay stole while making his escape, discover the region's police consist of American outlaws, and meet Senorita Serafina, the ruler of Guadalupe, who refuses to release Chalo.
When Jeffords asks to see the documents pertaining to the Spanish land grant, he discovers the Spanish birth certificate giving the Senorita legal control of the territory is a fake!
This story from Dell's Four Color Comics  #855 (1957) was adapted from the script of the TV episode of the same name broadcast Jan. 14, 1958...and was published a couple of months before the episode aired.
The adaptation was penned by long-time pulp, paperback, and comic writer Otto Binder and illustrated by journeyman artist Howard Purcell.
Cochise was played by the late Michael Ansara in what turned out to be his breakout role.
Broken Arrow was based on the novel Blood Brother by Elliot Arnold, which had already been made into a feature film starring Jeff Chandler as Cochise and a TV-movie starring Ricardo Montalban in the role.
The two-year show was the most prominent of several late-1950s TV series that featured Native Americans as heroes, rather than villains.
There's more info about the series HERE.
Oddly, none of the lead Indian characters in these series was played by Native Americans!
(For example; Ansara was Syrian!
His parents emigrated to the US when he was two.)
We'll be presenting a comic story from another one, Brave Eagle, in the next month or so...
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