Halloween on the Prairie BULLSEYE "Devil Bird"

They just don't make comics like this anymore!

Masked cowboy hero vs pterodactyl!

It's the sort of concept a nine-year old would come up with while playing with his (or her) brand-new action figures under the Christmas tree, mixing the dinosaurs with superheroes and cowboys!

But, damnit, writer/artist Jack Kirby makes this cross-genre tale from BullsEye #4 (and Blazing SixGuns #12) work for both genres!

Believe it or not, this wasn't the cover story for it's first appearance (even though it was the lead story)...

Art by Jack Kirby

...but it was the cover-feature for the Super/IW reprint!

Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito. Note that BullsEye is miscolored!

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Sci-Fi Western
(A Comics Anthology of Science Fiction Tales set in the Old West)

Halloween on the Prairie TALES OF HORROR "Vampire Goes West!"

You'd think the American West would be the most unlikely place to find a vampire...

...and you'd be wrong...dead wrong!

"Silver bullets work on vampires as well as werewolves?" you ask?

Yep!

There are many methods to kill vampires in the folklore of Europe and Asia.

One of the lesser-known is the use of silver instead of wood to penetrate the vampire's vital organs.
This vampire/Western story is not from a Western comic, but the final issue of Tales of Horror (#13 from 1954)
The writer is unknown, but the penciler is Medio Iorio and inker is Sal Trapani.
Oddly, every comic story Iorio penciled, Trapani inked!
Weird, eh?

What's really weird is that there are several Western vampire films, all quite dissimilar to each other!

The earliest one is 1959's Curse of the Undead, starring Eric Fleming of Rawhide fame as a vampire hunter!

(There might have been an earlier flick had Bela Lugosi lived longer!

Ed Wood had a script entitled The Ghoul Goes West in preparation when Bella died!)

The 1960s gave us the ultra-low budget Billy the Kid vs Dracula, starring John Carradine as the Lord of Vampires.

Though there wasn't a 1970s vampire Western, the 1980s had a contemporary take on the concept with Near Dark, starring Aliens cast members Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, and Bill Paxton as vampires wandering the Southwest in a van.

But my personal favorite, from 1988, is Sundown: the Vampire in Retreat, a tongue-in-cheek flick starring a host of genre vets including David Carradine, Bruce Campbell, M Emmett Wash, Elizabeth Gracen, Dabs Greer, and John Ireland.

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Wicked West

Volume 1

Asians Out West ZIP COMICS "Nevada Jones: Quick-Trigger Man and the Jungle in the Desert"

In early 20th Century pop culture, the "Yellow Peril" could pop up anywhere...

...even the Old West, as this never-reprinted tale from MLJ's Zip Comics #9 (1940) demonstrates!

Why would a gunfighter using his real name need a mask?

Leaving that aside, the Nevada Jones strip was not your usual Western.
It was loaded with "high adventure" elements like ancient lost cities, mad scientists, and even criminals pretending to be supernatural demons/ghosts turning up in the tales.

So a Fu Manchu-type villain operating out of a hidden jungle in the desert was just another baddie to be captured or killed to the "Quick-Trigger Man"!
Artist Frank Volp started out illustrating pulp magazine stories, and added comic books to his already-crowded portfolio, working for both MLJ and Lev Gleason, doing everything from Westerns to crime to romance!
The writer of the feature is unknown.

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Golden Age Western Comics

Asians Out West LONE RANGER "Chinese Gold"

Though infrequent, there were Old West comic book tales involving Chinese who had come to America...

...such as this never-reprinted one from Dell's Lone Ranger #70 (1954).

"If you don't fight to preserve the rights of all Americans, someday you may find your race or your religion the object of some mob's prejudice!"

As John Wayne would say..."Words to live by, pilgrim!"

You'll note the Chinese miners are supporting characters and told to not bear arms in their own defense.
Yet, if they were Irish, Italian, or any White ethnicity, they'd be side by side with the Ranger and the townspeople!
If the story seems a bit "talky"/dialogue heavy, that's because it was adapted from a script for the May 31, 1952 episode of the Lone Ranger radio show which you'll be able to find HERE, at our "brother" RetroBlog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video tomorrow!

The writer who adapted the script to comics is unknown, but the illustrator (pencils and inks) is longtime Ranger renderer Tom Gill.

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Lone Ranger on Radio

CD Set

LOBO, the FIRST Black Character to Star in His Own Comic!

In 1966, the year the Black Panther debuted in Marvel's Fantastic Four...

...Dell Comics went them one better, introducing the first Black hero to get his own comic!

Other Black characters had their own series in anthology titles, but Lobo was the first to have his name AS the comic's title!

Lobo combined a couple of popular plot concepts...

Man on the Run for a Crime He Did NOT Commit

Exemplified by then-hit tv series The Fugitive, Lobo was framed, but couldn't prove his innocence.

Lone Western Hero

A loner wandering the Old West, righting wrongs was an especially popular genre in tv Westerns.

Variations on the theme included gamblers (Maverick) and martial-arts experts (Kung Fu)

Note: the tv series Branded also combined both the Loner and Man Framed themes!

...as well as a new concept:

Prominent Black character

Black characters (except for sterotypes like Amos 'n Andy) were few and far between on tv until the mid-1960s, and even then only as supporting characters (usually servants).

1960s urban dramas like Naked City and East Side, West Side, which dealt with current social themes had Black guest stars including James Earl Jones and Diana Sands, but no Black regulars.

Star Trek (1966) had both a Black regular character (Lt. Nyota Uhura) and Black actors in prominent roles as scientists and high-placed officers (admirals, etc,).

But, at that point, there were no tv series with a Black lead or Black title character!

(Diahann Carroll's groundbreaking series Julia didn't debut until 1968, two years later!)

So, Lobo was, to say the least, a daring experiment, albeit one with as many popular themes as possible to maximize sales potential!

Dell writer/editor Don (DJ) Arneson and artist Tony Tallarico felt the time was right, and managed to convince their publisher to take a chance.

You can read Arneson's tale of Lobo's creation HERE.

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

Many vendors refused to put a comic with a Black hero on their racks, and the book had an almost 90% return rate.

Lobo the comic ran only two issues.

It's rumored that a script and unfinished art exist for a third issue, but that's never been confirmed.

You can read both issues of Lobo HERE and HERE.

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Romance on the Range COWGIRL ROMANCES "Men Died for My Kisses!"

It's been a while since we've run a romance comic...

...and it's almost Valentine's Day, so we looked through the archives for the most sensational story title we could find!

This 1950 one-shot from Atlas Comics is either #1 (if you go by the cover numbering) or #28 (if you go by the indicia on the inside cover).

The #28 indicates it's a continuation of Jeanie Comics, a teen humor title which ended two months earlier with #27.

As for why it's a one-shot, it seems rival Fiction House released their own Cowgirl Romances simultaneously...or just before...Atlas.

Fiction House's title continued for 11 more issues while Atlas' book disappeared after this one appearance.

Neither the writer or artist(s) are known.

Fun fact: Atlas released six different Western romance titles in the early 50s, more than any other comics company...

Cowgirl Romances (1 issue)

Cowboy Romances (3 issues)

Love Trails (1 issue)

Rangeland Love (2 issues)

Romances of the West (3 issues)

Western Life Romances (3 issues)

You gotta give them credit.

When Atlas saw a hot trend, they jumped on it whole-heartedly!

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