Monday, August 22, 2011

HOW THE WEST WAS FUN! "Low Noon"

A funny Western story from a horror comic?
Yup! A totally-different look at a Western movie classic, from Black Cat Mystery #47!
Oops!
This spoof of the Gary Cooper flick High Noon appeared in late 1953, beating out Harvey Kurtzman & Jack Davis' "Hah! Noon!" in MAD #9 by several months.
(You can read that titillating tale HERE!
It's classic MAD from their early comic book days, before they turned into a b/w magazine!)
And, no, the art on "Low Noon" isn't by Jack Davis (though it sure looks like him)!
The illustrations (and script) are by Howard Nostrand, who had an uncanny knack for imitating other artists' styles.
After starting out as an assistant to Will Eisner on The Spirit, Nostrand concentrated mostly on horror during his comics days in the 1950s.
When comic books were almost wiped out by Congressional hearings claiming the four-color booklets caused juvenile delinquency, he went into advertising.
Nostrand also illustrated a newspaper comic strip based on the Bat Masterson tv series starring Gene Barry.

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