Christmas on the Prairie TARGET COMICS "Bull's Eye Bill"

Yes, they celebrated the Yuletide in the Old West...

...although technically, this tale's about the contemporary (1940s) West!

Though the series started with a standard late-1800s Old West setting, after creator/writer/illustrator Bill Everett left, new writer, Bea Holmes, and artist L. Kennerly, began inserting contemporary references and technology.

By the time of this tale from Target Comics #12, the series was firmly-set in the present-day.

In fact, in the very next issue, Bull's-Eye Bill was recruited by the Army for special duty to prevent sabotage at Western bases!

Merry Christmas

and

Happy New Year!

Halloween Horror VANGUARD ILLUSTRATED "Ballad of Hardcase Bradley"

 This story is similar in concept to another tale we ran HERE and HERE....

...but this sinister short from Pacific's Vanguard Illustrated #7 (1984) was never reprinted!

Artist George Evans was a major contributor to EC Comics in the 1950s, including their horror comics and MAD,

The influences of both can be seen in this story.

Trivia: this issue also featured the first appearance of Michael T Gilbert's Mr Monster, who continues to this day!

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Wicked West

Volume 1

Confederate Comics GRAY GHOST "Point of Honor" Part 1

A Civil War Confederate Guerilla with His Own TV Series?

Yep, it happened...

...and here's a story from the two-issue comic book based on it!

To be Concluded
FRIDAY
at our 'brother" RetroBlog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video!

The series portrayed Mosby as a Robin Hood-type rogue who just happened to serve the Confederacy.

He's shown to be a man of honor and moral conviction, and the matter of the actual reasons for the Civil War is never addressed!

This never-reprinted tale from Dell's Four Color Comics #911 (1958) is illustrated by Ray Bailey and George Woodbridge, who later became a regular contributor to MAD Magazine.

The adaptation's writer, however, is unknown...

The story is adapted from Ep 3 of the 39-episode TV series!

Sadly, little physical evidence exists of the 1957 all-but-forgotten syndicated show besides the two issues of Dell's Four Color Comics!

Trivia: the best-known performer (to the contemporary audience) in this episode was Angie Dickenson as Edie!

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Gray Ghost
Life of Colonel John Singleton Mosby

Confederate Comics THE REBEL "Bad Medicine" Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

...returning to his home town after the end of the Civil War and avenging the death of his father, former Confederate soldier Johnny Yuma feels there's no reason to stay...

Will Johnny Yuma rescue Dr Holcomb?
Will Little Buffalo Calf foul up the attempt?
Find Out...
...FRIDAY
at 
Secret Sanctum of Captain Video

Written by Gardner DuBois, penciled by Mike Sekowsky, and inked by Mike Peppe, this section of this never-reprinted tale from Dell's Four Color Comics #1076 (1960) shows Johnny Yuma as a rather typical noble hero wandering the Old West, without any reference to his Confederate past, an element usually played up in the live-action series!

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The Rebel
Season 2

CoronaVirusComics ROY ROGERS COMICS "Trigger and the Race of Life and Death"

Can you tell us what's weird about the first page of this tale of Roy Rogers' horse,Trigger?

Roy, though he appears in the story, isn't named!

Only referred to as "Trigger's owner" or, later, "Trigger's master"!

Writer Gaylord DuBois and artist Harry Parkhurst treated this never-reprinted short feature from Dell's Roy Rogers Comics #26 (1950) more like an illustrated prose story than a normal comic tale, heavy on narrative captions with minimal word balloons!

The bacteria Diphtheria is still a lethal threat to this day. but standardized vaccination keeps outbreaks at a minimum.

Besides a strip in Roy Rogers Comics, Trigger (like Gene Autry's Champion and the Lone Ranger's Silver) had his own comic, which ran 16 issues!

In his own title, Trigger was shown in his re-Roy Rogers days as a wild horse traveling with a herd, but the Roy Rogers Comics strip showed him in the care of "Uncle" Mike Hanford, who told stories of Roy and Trigger in the past tense.

Was Roy (the character, not the actual Western performer) retired or deceased at the time of the "Uncle Mike" atrips?

There's never a clear answer...

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Trigger

Lives and Legend of Roy Rogers' Palamino

CoronaVirus Cowboy Comics KID COLT COMICS "Black Rider in Face to Face with Death!"

Probably the only masked Western hero to be a medical doctor in his secret identity...

...a secret the mysterious Black Rider used to his advantage in this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Kid Colt Outlaw Comics #38 (1954)!

Illustrated by Joe Kubert, this tale of infection among Indians has an unknown author due to lack of credits in the pre-Marvel Atlas Comics!.

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Western Classics

Graphic Classics Volume Twenty

CoronaVirus Cowboy Comics MONTE HALE WESTERN "Curse of Typhoid Valley"

Monte Hale, like Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, and Roy Rogers...

...was a "singing cowboy" who had his own comic during the 1940s and 50s.

(Ironically, Monte ended up as a co-founder and curator for the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles)

Oddly, in most of these actor-named comics, the protagonists were the actors themselves (not characters they played), even if the stories were set in the Old West!

When this tale from Fawcett's Monte Hale Western #74 (1952) was reprinted in Charlton's Monte Hale Western (1956), the newly-formed Comics Code Authority insisted on a major change...

...removing the figure of the Grim Reaper from the title page!

Charlton's editor did it on the black line plate, but didn't change the color separations, which still match the figure of the Reaper!

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Western Films of Monte Hale